180 
February 1, 1919 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
I was very much surprised to read in 
your Hope Parra Notes that you consider 
egg-laying contests are a contest of men, 
not hens. I have asked a great many 
men who enter birds in the contests, and 
almost all of them say they cannot do 
anything but guess at what a pullet will 
do, .and the birds they pick for the best 
is just as sure to be the worst as the 
best. I am enclosing you a report of the 
North American contest. You will see 
that these birds are live eggs behind 
Vineland in 10 weeks. According to you 
they should be ahead. The birds at the 
North American are selected by the best 
breeders in the world, those at Vineland 
are just about as they run with the culls 
out. Mr. Dryden, one of the best breed¬ 
ers in the world, does not consider that he 
is able to do anything more than guess 
at what a pullet will do. lie says it is 
all in breeding right. If you will take 
50 good pullets, and have some of these 
so-called experts pick out 10 for a con¬ 
test and if you trap the other 40 you will 
find that you have four good ones for 
every good one that you send to the 
contest. I hope you breed the Reds to 
average 250 eggs each. 
New Jersey. forrest b. raynor. 
Mr. Raynor does not quite get what I 
meant. 1 know that at Vineland and 
Storrs there have been several contests 
between men in selecting the birds. While 
of course it is possible to breed laying 
strains or families of hens it would be 
nonsense to claim that every daughter 
of a 200-egg bird would surely make a 
great layer. I think the record of our 
pen of Reds will prove that. Since I 
printed the figures a few weeks ago a 
friend has poiuted out several errors. I 
now have the official figures and print 
them again in order to be correct: 
Name 
1917 
191S 
Total 
Pollv . 
. 140 
160 
306 
Belle . 
. 168 
91 
259 
Queen . 
. 100 
36 
136 
Betty M. 
. -197 
198 
395 
Faith . 
. 178 
147 
325 
Hope . 
. 130 
106 
236 
Charity . 
. 146 
119 
265 
Success . 
. 104 
148 
252 
Rufa- . 
. SO 
120 
200 
Pollvanua ... 
. 149 
194 
343 
The first three birds are sisters, with 
much the same breeding. Yet see how 
they differ. Then Nos. 4, 5 and 0 are 
also sisters, bred and selected for several 
generations. Yet we have a difference 
of 159 eggs between Betty M. and Hope. 
The last four are also sisters, yet we 
find a difference between Rufa and 
Pollyanna of 14.'1 eggs. I was told 
by a good hen man that Rufa would fail, 
but I went on her breeding record. 
* * * * * 
I think this shows that we must have 
something besides the breeding record of 
the bird in order to select good layers. 
I hasten to say that I do not pretend to 
be an expert on either breeding or select¬ 
ing. but I have gone along far enough to 
feel sure that there will be good and poor 
specimens in every family of pullets. I 
would not pretend to select the good ones 
with certainty, but I know several men 
whom I will back to do it. There have 
been a good many demonstrations of 
“culling” poultry, in which the “expert” 
will go to a large flock and select the 
drones or poor layers. I know of cases 
where the expert hit it right, and by 
casting out these drones brought the flock 
up to a profitable basis. Mr. Raynor 
and others may admit this ability to 
select the laying hens, but perhaps they 
will claim that it cannot be done with 
pullets which have not fully started lay¬ 
ing. In order to settle this I suggest the 
following: Let us go to Mr. Raynor’s 
flock of White Leghorns—or to any other 
suitable place. I will agree to bring an 
expert, and he is to select 20 pullets. 
They arc to be of much the same breed¬ 
ing. Ten of them are to be selected on 
their shape and appearance as good 
layers. The other 10 are to represent 
the expert’s idea of a poor layer. AVe 
will take these 10 hens right out of the 
same flock and enter them at one of the 
egg-laying contests. Now I think this 
would settle it, and show whether the 
“expert” knows a good pullet from a poor 
one, and if Mr. Raynor will say the word 
we will start something. 
* * * * * 
And now about these pullets at Vine- 
land. From my pen they hatched 45 
chicks, and when the final selection was 
made they had 15 pullets. The 10 pullets 
p n pu v ^elected were of the following pnr- 
<Ihe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
entage: No. 1, Polly; No. 2, Success; 
No. 3, Polly; No. 4, Betty M.; No. 5, 
Faith; No. 0, Hope; No. 7, Charity; No. 
8, Success; No. 9, Polly; No. 10, Hope. 
Thus we have three pullets from Polly, 
two from Hope and. happily, none from 
Queen, Rufa and Belle. It is of course 
too early yet to see how this is to work 
out in the relations between mother and 
daughter, but here is a record of the 10 
pullets up to the tenth week : 
Name 
Parent 
Record 
No. 
1 
Polly 
34 
No. 
2 
Success 
25 
No. 
3 
Pollv 
8 
No. 
4 
Betty M. 
24 
No. 
5 
•Faith 
18 
No. 
6 
Hope 
10 
No. 
7 
Charity 
33 
No. 
8 
Success 
IS 
No 
0 
Polly 
a . 
No. 
10 
11 ope 
4 
As for breeding a strain of Reds that 
will average 250 eggs, I doubt if we are 
likely to reach that point very soon. 
Such a thing is possible, but, I am frank 
to say, our birds have not shown vei'y 
rapid progress toward that point yet. I 
hope, however, that Mr. Raynor will come 
up in the test of selection I have men¬ 
tioned and see if an expert can really 
separate the good from the poor layers 
in a healthy well-bred flock. 
***** 
It may not have anything to do with 
the question of breeding and selecting 
layers, but I might call attention to the 
difference in size, intelligence and charac¬ 
ter in many of the large human families. 
I have known such families in New Eng¬ 
land where thei’e were eight or more chil¬ 
dren. The parents were “purebred”* in 
the sense that they came from families 
which had long held to strict ideas of 
selection. Yet even with this, in these 
big families you would find the widest 
difference in type. I know that in some 
of these families the parents would begin 
early to say that John must be a minis¬ 
ter. Billy a lawyer, Horace a doctor, 
Mary a school-teacher, and so on. In a 
majority of cases this early selection, on 
the basis of what some old ancestor had 
done, did not work out. When John 
grew up he was more likely to make a 
good farmer and in no way cut out for a 
minister. I know of a case where a boy 
of eight or 10 thought he would like to 
be a minister, as he regarded that as easy 
work. The father came to me and asked 
how you “ever got a minister’s job!” 
We have all noticed these things about 
big human families. I have an idea that 
many of us get started wrong in the world 
because those who have charge of us feel 
that we must do certain things because 
it is the nature of the Browns or Smiths 
to do so. Probably if some “expert” 
could start us on a life work best suited 
to our powers and inclinations we could 
do much better. A good teacher ought 
to be the expert to do this selecting. Per¬ 
haps Air. Raynor will say this has noth¬ 
ing to do with the question of laying 
pullets. He evidently does not have 
much faith in the “experts.” I confess 
that I believe in their doctrines to some 
extent, and I hope Mr. Raynor will come 
up and put it to the test. 
***** 
If anyone cares to read a book in which 
this idea of heredity is well brought out 
he will find it in “Birth,” the new work 
by Zona Gale. It is a story of life in a 
small Wisconsin town—the rather poor 
and petty part played by rather common 
people. It is, however, very true to life, 
and will interest those who care to 6tudy 
the outworking of destiny when pushed 
along by parental influences. I suppose 
little Marshall Pitt, the so-called “hero” 
of this story, was in reality a scrub 
largely through his bringing up, yet he 
had a few •points of genuine nobility, and 
they appeared in his boy. Our chicken 
men may ask what all this has to do with 
the question of expert selection of pullets. 
It seems to me that there are certain 
fixed principles of breeding running all 
through animal life, from highest to low¬ 
est. Great statesmen and 250-egg hens 
are not common, and I think that a world 
made up entirely of great statesmen and 
“able women” would .be an unhappy place 
for most of us. 1 doubt if history can 
show a case where a really great man 
has produced a son who extended his 
reputation to any extent. Most men be¬ 
come great through selection for their 
work. That is, someone is wise enough 
t*» know what they can do best, and put 
them in the way of training for it. My 
experience is that many a daughter of a 
250-egg hen is born to grace a frying-pan 
rather than a trap-nest. I think there 
are men who can, in many cases, detect 
the drone or select the layer. I have no 
doubt that Mr. Raynor, without calling 
himself an expert, has through long ex¬ 
perience learned how to do this- very 
thing. n. w. c. 
Low-tailed Leghorns as Layers 
In the Missouri egg-laying contest end¬ 
ing Oct. 31, 1!)1S. the Hillview Leghorns 
won with an official record of 1,171 eggs, 
an average of 234.2 eggs each. At the 
recent Chicago Coliseum show the Hill- 
view Leghorns won 10 best Leghorns in 
the show room. Dan Young judge. Now 
I wish to ask Mr. Cosgrove if he is of 
the same opinion as he wrote on page 
500, 1917 R. N.-Y., that it was impossible 
to breed low-tailed show Leghorns that 
are great layers. J. c. MICHAUD. 
New York. 
On referring back to page 500, 1917. 
we find no statement whatever by Air. 
Cosgi'ove! However, we are sure he 
never said it would be impossible to breed 
such Leghorn. Mr. Cosgrove makes 
the following statement: 
Replying to the above would say that 
I think J. C. M. has not quoted me cor- 
rectly in stating that I said it was “im¬ 
possible” to breed low-tailed Leghorns 
that were also good layers. A man does 
not reach 80 years without being chary 
of calling anything “impossible.” A man 
who aims at two things, that are in line, 
is apt to miss both. But out of a hun¬ 
dred show hens there might be one extra 
good layer, and by breeding the son of 
that good layer back to his dam, some 
really good laying pullets might be pro¬ 
duced. It is not “impossible” at all. But 
when a breeder gets $5 or $10 more for 
his low-tailed cockerels than for the 
others he will be very apt to use the 
lowest tailed males and females regard¬ 
less of whether they are good layers or 
not. 
When I was breeding White Wyan- 
dottes I had the best laying hen I ever 
owned. She molted the quickest, and was 
laying long before any other hen. But I 
had to kill her. because her comb was a 
thick bunch and she was undersized. She 
would have been thrown out of a show 
loom with scorn. Selling White Wyan¬ 
dotte eggs for hatching I could not breed 
from that bird, the very best layer I 
ever owned. Air. Tom Barron, breeding 
thousands of Leghorns each year, noticed 
that the great majority of the best layers 
carried their tails higher than ordinary. 
Many other men have noted the same 
tendency; but that does not prove that 
all high-tailed birds are good layers, nor 
that it is impossible to breed low-tailed 
birds that will be good layers. 
Every breeder knows that the AYhite 
Wyaridottes were nearly spoiled as a lay¬ 
ing breed by the fad of the fanciers to 
breed short bodies on them, so they 
“would touch a circle” top. bottom, front 
and rear. Fanciers had to recede from 
that position. Making some unnatural 
fancy the strndard of beauty is what I 
disagree with If a majority of the best 
laying Leghorns carry their tails high, 
why not make high tails the standard of 
beauty? geo. a. cosgrove. 
Ether has the gift of graphic descrip¬ 
tion. Until recently she was a little 
country girl: now she lives in a large 
town. The first letter she wrote back to 
her old home began like this: "This is 
a queer place. Next door is fastened on 
to our house .”—Melbourne Australasian. 
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