Nos. 618-619] EGG PRODUCTION 311 



Pearl's pullets were (presumably) hatched in April and 

 May, while ours were hatched in March and April, the 

 curve for the April, 1913, hatched pullets alone is given 

 in Fig. 16, which shows that the separation of the March 

 pullets from the April pullets has not essentially altered 

 the shape of the curve. The zero producers were omitted 

 in order to study the shape of the curve when treating 

 the zeros as an artificial group. This omission, however, 

 would not alter the essential shape of the curve. 



As already stated, new blood was added to our breed- 

 ing pens in 1915. The egg production curve made by the 

 pullets hatched in March and April for 1915-16 is shown 

 by the broken line in Fig. 14. Compare also the separate 

 curves for March- and April-hatched pullets shown in 

 Fig. 8. Although some individual records better than 

 any previously obtained were secured, on the whole egg 

 production was not as good as for 1913-14, although still 

 distinctly better than the production of the 1907-08 flock 

 of Barred Plymouth Eocks. 



The figures when grouped according to the month in 

 which the birds were hatched show clearly the part played 

 by this factor in determining the sort of records made. 

 The curve for the March-hatched pullets is quite similar 

 in appearance to the curve made by Pearl's Barred 

 Rocks in 1913-14, except that the mode falls at a lower 

 number of eggs. That is, the Barred Rocks contained a 

 higher percentage of birds laying above 50 eggs than the 

 March-hatched Rhode Island Reds. The curve, however, 

 for the May-hatched Rhode Island Reds is much more 

 like that of the 1907-08 curve of Barred Plymouth Rocks, 

 while the curve for the April-hatched pullets is inter- 

 mediate between the two. 



It seemed a matter of some interest to determine 

 whether our 1913-14 record was a chance record or 

 whether it was a fair sample of the original stock. Con- 

 sequently eggs were purchased from the original source 

 and chicks reared in 1915. The first lot was hatched 

 March 22 and all the pullets (39) that passed the test for 



