Published by 
The Rural Publishing Co. 
333 W. 30th Street 
New York 
The Rural New Yorker 
rrr 1 T» • _ Ft 
Weekly, One Dollar Per Year 
Postpaid 
Single Copies, Five Cents 
U --- me business Farmers raper 
Vol. LXXIV 
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 13, 1915 
No. 4294 
STARTING A 200-EGG FLOCK. 
How Shall We Begin? 
[There have recently been many questions from peo¬ 
ple who want to start with a few choice hens and try 
to develop a flock of uniformly heavy layers. The plan 
would be to take a pair or two to begin with—the 
hen of certified record and the male bird the son of a 
record hen. How can they select such birds and what 
system of selection should they follow? We have re¬ 
ferred this to Francis F. Lincoln, whose 10 Leghorns 
won first place at the egg contest last year. Mr. Lin¬ 
coln’s opinion follows.] 
A NCESTRY REQUIRED.—There are quite a 
number of men scattered over the country 
who plan to purchase a few hens of high egg 
record, to mate them with a cockerel whose mother 
made a high record, and thus start a line of hens 
which will be trap-nested and pedigreed for gener¬ 
ations. They have read about inherited fecundity, 
have seen the results of careful breeding of farm 
animals, and plan to give the breeding of utility 
fowls the same care that has hitherto been mainly 
reserved for exhibition specimens. They expect 
that the years of trap-nesting, record keeping, pedi- 
greeing, and culling will give them a strain whose 
laying qualities will surpass those of flocks less 
carefully bred. 
WORK INVOLVED.—Some of these men hesitate 
them; then he will drop the niceties or stray from 
his chosen path. As this same question has been 
rising in the past, to have the same birds “stand¬ 
ard-bred” and “bred to lay” means that the latter 
features have in some degree been sacrificed in the 
past, and the man who starts trap-nesting and pedi- 
greeing with the idea of breeding for increased egg 
production wants birds from a strain that has been 
and is bred for egg production solely. lie will prob¬ 
ably want to buy trap-nested stock, thus starting, 
with birds of a known record. With Leghorns I do 
not think this is as necessary as with other breeds. 
If he can get a Leghorn that the Fall previous laid 
into November before molting he need not worry 
much about the lack of record. Leghorns are 
broody so little that the heaviest layers may be 
chosen with considerable accuracy by the way they 
keep laying in the Fall; with the heavier breeds 
intermittent laying in the late Spring and Summer 
due to broodiness so affects the record that late 
laying is not as reliable a guide. It is, furthermore, 
more important that breeding has been carried on 
for several years with egg production the aim than 
that a flock has been trap-nested for a single season. 
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.—Whether he 
buys trap-nested stock or not he should purchase 
birds of exceptional vigor and complete freedom 
receive the fullest measure of the rewards which 
go to careful breeding. 
RESULTS ANTICIPATED—What can he expect 
from his work? Can he, after say 15 years, count 
on producing flocks of pullets where each individual 
will hang up a record over 200 eggs? Probably not. 
The percentage of 200 egg hens in the best flocks 
at present is not high, and while this percentage 
can undoubtedly be increased, nature is always 
trying to draw her eliilren back from the heights 
on which human skill and effort has placed them. 
But the careful breeder can rightly hope for real 
improvement in the egg production of his flock, and 
when he finds that the steady use of superior bulls 
has developed high record cows and realises that 
improvement in hens’ laying is inherited mainly 
through the male bird, he may certainly hope to 
produce cockerels that will exert good influence on 
the productivity of their offspring. 
FRANCIS F. LINCOLN. 
THE “ MEASURING STICK” AND MILK CAN. 
A BUILDER has said “There is a trick in every 
trade but mine, and I drive screws with a ham¬ 
mer.” So there is a trick in the milk trade, and 
it is up to the farmers who furnish milk to dis¬ 
cover where the trick is. The consumers buy 
their milk in bottles, and said milk bottles hold 
because they feel that they would be undertaking 
more than they can carry through; others who are 
so situated that all the close attention and record¬ 
ing can be done without too much trouble, hesitate 
because they doubt that there is sufficient return 
in store for their efforts. They realize, or should 
realize, that the actual trap-nesting is far from be¬ 
ing all that is required. Keeping clear records and 
getting the most out of them means many, many 
hours of work and thought. They realize, too, that 
it means years before the results they seek can be 
found, and that they are doing the same work that 
thousands of other men are doing, only a little less 
carefully, with much less work. It seems to me 
certain that there is good return in store for work 
of this sort if done intelligently. Men will always 
be willing to pay a premium for a setting of eggs 
or a cockerel from stock with a known record, and 
if the breeder accomplishes what he undertakes and 
improves the laying of his strain above that of 
others, the egg-laying contests provide an easy means 
of letting the fact be known. 
PRACTICAL WORK.—To start this work the 
lion 1 try man naturally wants stock that is now most 
highly developed along the lines which he means 
to follow. If his object is to produce a strain of 
layers he would better right at the beginning drop 
all preferences for the minute niceties on which the 
poultry shows set such store, for at some time he 
will have to decide between an exceptional layer 
without these niceties and an inferior bird with 
from sickness or disease. He wants a long-backed, 
broad-backed hen with a bright eye and a short 
strong bill. He can and may prefer to buy hatching 
eggs; if so the parent stock should be of this de¬ 
scription. Buying eggs instead of stock has the ad¬ 
vantage that poultrymen are generally glad to sell 
eggs from their finest individuals, while they hate 
to part with the birds themselves. Buying mature 
stock of known worth gives advantageous possibili¬ 
ties in future matings, an important feature which 
makes this method advisable if stock of the de¬ 
sired quality can be obtained. 
QUALITY SELECTION.—When the pedigreeing 
and trap-nesting is well under way the breeder must 
expect keen competition in his work, not only from 
men who follow the same path, but also from other 
men who do not trap-nest regularly, but do notice 
exceptional individuals in their flocks. By mark¬ 
ing pullets when they start laying, marking birds 
that are broody or out of condition, and most im¬ 
portant of all, by marking the birds that lay late 
into the Fall, a man can get a very good idea as to 
which are his best birds. He can make a special 
mating from these, perhaps pedigree a few chicks 
(this means a little trap-nesting), get 10 fine pullets 
trap-nested in an egg-laying contest, and be nearly 
as well off as the man who has recorded every egg 
when it was laid. However, when all has been said, 
it is still evident that the man who trap-nests and 
pedigrees steadily is doing the most careful breed¬ 
ing; he will be more apt to stick to it. and will 
just one quart honest measure. The farmers who 
wholesale their milk buy 20, 30 or 40-quart cans in 
which to market it. They also buy a measuring stick 
or gauge to measure the amount of milk in each can. 
The farmer milks a cow. then empties the milk in a 
can, then thrusts the gauge in the can, and it registers 
just nine quarts. He then puts it in bottles and it 
fills 10 quart bottles with a little left over for shrink¬ 
age. He then puts what the gauge says is 18 quarts in 
the can, and it fills 20 quart bottles, and 27 quarts 
by the gauge fills 30 quart bottles with a little left 
over for waste or shrinkage, and so on; 9!) quarts by 
the gauge fills 111 quart bottles. Will some one fathom 
this milk trick and report in The II. N.-Y.? The re¬ 
tailer buys by the gauge measure and sells by the bottle 
measure. Who is making money and who is losing in 
this milk trick, and who is responsible for the dis¬ 
crepancy? A. R. T. 
Connecticut. 
The writer has been unable to duplicate the re¬ 
sults reported by the inquirer. Both wood and 
metal measuring sticks have been tried out in 40 
and 20-quart cans of the New York pattern, and in 
every case where the stick was thrust straight down 
in the center of the can, it registered just a trifle 
more than what could be bottled from the milk in 
the can. It was thought possible that A. R. T. ob¬ 
tained his results by using by mistake the 30-quart 
scale on the stick in a 40-quart can. This was tried 
and when the stick showed 27 quarts in the 40- 
quart can 34 quarts were bottled from the can. 
These figures do not coincide with those of A. It. 
T., so probably his mistake is not here. It is a well- 
known fact that different makes of cans differ in 
shape, and the same measuring stick might not 
give like results in all of these cans. It would seem 
