?0 The Australasian Book of Poultry. 
An excellent system of feeding is : — On Monday, soft food, oats, wheat ; Tuesday, oats, barley, whole 
corn ; Wednesday, mixed soft food, buckwheat, wheat ; Thursday, soft food, oats, barley ; Friday, wheat, 
barley, corn; Saturday, mixed soft food, oats, wheat ; Sunday, mixed soft food, barley, oats. 
During the summer the corn may be entirely omitted, and any one of the other grains substituted. This 
system of feeding will give iiighly payable results from a very inferior stock of laying hens, and, applied to 
birds bred for the purpose, will exceed anticipations. ^Vhere practicable, the amount of green-cut bone could 
be slightly increased on the two mornings on which grain is given, taking the place of the mid-day meal of 
grain on those days. Lettuce or cabbage should also be given daily if the birds have not free range over 
grass, but can be dispensed with under the latter conditions ; and it will be found that corn fed at night a 
couple of times each week during the winter will act on the same principle as lighted fuel in a stove, by 
keeping their bodies warm, and stimulating them towards the desired end. 
Breeding for Brown-coloured Eggs. 
In much the same manner as in selecting the stock to increase the egg-productive capabilities of a flock, 
the same rule, in breeding stock to produce eggs with the desired brown tint as preferred for some markets, 
must be followed. Right here we would wish our readers to fully grasp what a hrown-sIicUcd egg is. From 
most breeds, with the exception of the Mediterranean races and their offshoots, eggs more or less tinted will 
in some proportion be produced (that is, on comparing them with the pure white egg laid by the Spanish, 
etc.), but which would require a stretch of imagination to be classed as brown eggs. There is a wide range 
in the colour of eggs laid by nearly every breed, and if this is not artificially cultivated, either to produce 
white-shelled or I'icc i-crsa, the eggs will always vary from the pure white to almost a deep brick colour. To 
call an egg a broicii egg, it should possess enough colour to be distinctly noticeable at the first glance. Hens 
which lay a dark-coloured or brown-tinted egg will again be found to produce even these of various shades, 
the first lot of eggs in this case being darker than those laid later in the season, the colour gradually 
becoming lighter and lighter each successive egg. The cause of this peculiar effect is yet an unsolved 
problem, some authorities arguing that the food fed to the birds affects the colour of the .shells ; but, as the 
colour varies at the different periods in such a marked degree, though the birds are fed with the same food, 
there can be little dependence placed on this theory. Some interesting effects are often produced when 
washing eggs, proving that the surface pigment is removable to some extent ; thus, a dark egg, when washed, 
will appear lighter in colour, and, on the other hand, a very light or white-shelled egg will at times become 
much darker. It is possible, by selection and preference in breeding from hens which lay dark or brown 
coloured eggs, mated with cocks bred from hens which also laid a brown egg, to definitely fix this quality of 
producing brown eggs in uniformity, but it would not be possible to place much dependence upon the ability 
of the strain to do this until it had been studied to this end for several generations. 
In manufactured breeds, such as the Orpington, Plymouth Rock, Wyandottes, etc., many of the hens 
produce the whitest of white-shelled eggs, others of a pale tint, and others, again, of a rich brown colour, this 
tendency clearly showing that the hereditary trait to produce one or other is greatly owing to their complexity 
of blood. 
As selection and preference, even in " made breeds," have definitely fixed every other characteristic — 
shape, feather-markings, combs, colour of beak and legs, colour of eyes, etc. — there is little difficulty in the 
way of producing a strain of birds which ivill lay dark brmcn shelled eggs only. 
It will be thoroughly understood that in taking up any given breed, and developing a dark-egg strain 
from it, the breeder will have really formed a new breed, inasmuch as to preserve this desired quahty without 
fear of reversion, it will be absolutely necessary to keep within the strain. An out-cross with foreign blood, 
even if the stock bird used was bred from a dark-egg strain, would most likely throw a large percentage of 
pullets which would lay light-coloured eggs Of course, there would not be the same risk attached to 
breeding from a bird from another fixed dark-egg strain, as from one whose origin was doubtful, though even 
crossing two distinct dark~cgg strains would inevitably produce lo to 20 per cent, of pullets which would 
