No. 586] SELECTION OF A CHARACTER 603 



the writer's opinion, based upon rather extended expe- 

 rience in the study of egg records, approximately this fig- 

 ure may be taken as representing the general average 

 winter production of mixed flocks of Barred Plymouth 

 Rocks (or of American birds generally with the probable 

 exception of White Wyandottes ) . which have been hatched 

 at the proper time and well reared. As evidence on this 

 point the data presented in Table II have pertinent bear- 

 ing. These data give the mean winter production of birds 

 of the different American breeds obtained in the Fourth 

 Philadelphia North American International Egg-Laying 

 Competition, carried on at the Delaware Agricultural 

 Experiment Station in 1914-15. The conditions under 

 which these records are made are such as to safeguard 

 their essential accuracy. The figures here given are the 

 mean productions per bird up to the end of the eighteenth 

 and seventeenth week of the laying after November 1, 

 1914. Owing to the fact that the original records as pub- 

 lished are compiled by calendar weeks it is not possible 

 to give the exact production from November 1 to March 

 1. Eighteen weeks gives 5 days laying over this period, 

 and seventeen weeks gives i } days under. Both sets of 

 means have therefore been tabled. It should be said that 

 the birds were kept in flocks of 5 birds each, thus tend- 

 ing to the most favorable condition for high individual 

 records. 



TABLE II 



Mean Winter Proihitiox of Fowls of the American Breeds, calcu- 

 lated from Records of the Fourth International 

 Laying Competition, 1914-15 



I Plymouth Rocks, 

 ymouth Rocks 



\ ; 



From this table it is clear that the records presented in 

 Table I average about the same as those of the 210 birds 



