NATURAL HABITS OF THE HEN. 
What Domestication Has Done. 
We have seen that our common domestic hen 
probably originated in the wild jungle-fowl of 
Asia, and that currents of conquest and com¬ 
mercial enterprise carried them east into China 
and west into North Africa and Europe; in the 
one case the influence of selection has developed 
the meat producing qualities and in the other 
the tendency to increase the production of eggs 
has been carefully developed and the instinct 
of incubation rendered dormant; these remark¬ 
able results having been attained by the per¬ 
sistent and long continued selection of the 
most prolific layers in the one case and those of 
greatest size in the other. From the wild 
jungle-fowl, producing a clutch of “8 to 13 
creamy white eggs” in a season, to the highly 
organized egg-machines that produce 150 to 200 
eggs each in a year is a long journey, one that 
has required several thousand years to accom¬ 
plish,—and the end is not yet. We have every 
reason to believe that we are continuing to 
progress, and that continued careful breeding to 
a definite purpose will give us still more grati¬ 
fying results, with reasonable assurance of even 
greater permanency of results. 
We have quite analogous conditions in the 
domestic cow, which, in the wild state, yielded 
milk for three or four months for the sustenance 
of its calf and ran dry the balance of the year, 
but has by careful breeding to one purpose, 
been developed to give an almost uninterrupted 
milk flow, and in individual cases has reached 
the phenomenal yield of upwards of 10,000 
pounds of milk in a year, when the average for 
the whole United States is but about 3,400 
pounds. The “ Biggie Cow Book ” says: 
“ Great is the dairy cow! Hail to her! But if she 
gives less than 5.000 pounds of milk per year, or 
200 pounds of butter, away with her! She is 
not profitable.” A grade cow, “ Topsev,” (out 
of a Shorthorn cow by a Holstein bull) made a 
yearly average for five years of 10,037 pounds of 
milk, which made 456 pounds of butter, the 
average cost of the butter being 8.6 cents per 
pound. As there are only about half a million 
head of thoroughbred cattle and some ten to 
twelve million “ grades ” (out of a total of nearly 
seventy millions) in the United States, it can be 
surmised that comparatively few came up to 
even Judge Biggie’s modest standard of profit¬ 
able production. 
It is exactly similar with our hens. The sta¬ 
tistics of the last census show an average egg 
production for the whole United States of 5.5 
dozens per fowl, the state of Maine being credit¬ 
ed with an average of 8.5 dozens and Louisiana 
ranking lowest with but 3.3 dozens per fowl, 
and yet we have individual hen records of 200 
to 251 eggs within a year of reaching laying 
maturity. In the tables of estimated average 
egg production the Asiatic varieties are credited 
with 120 to 150 eggs each; the American varie¬ 
ties with 175 to 200 eggs each and the Mediter¬ 
ranean varieties with ISO to 200 eggs each. It 
is only within a few years that we have had 
trap-nest records of individual birds, and the 
best previous authentic records of birds in 
flocks (the total egg product being divided 
equally among all the birds), gave 194 eggs each 
from 600 White Leghorns on Air. Wyckoff’s 
farm, 178 eggs each from 280 White Wyan- 
clottes and Barred P. Bocks on Mr. Norton’s 
farm, 198 eggs each from 135 Barred P. Rocks 
on Mr. Parks’ farm, 196 eggs each from ten 
Buff Wyandottes on Dr. Sanborn’s farm and 
210 eggs each from 11 White Wyandottes on Mr. 
Woods’ farm. By the use of trap nests the 
exact record of each bird in the flock is obtained, 
and Mr. Silberstein developed egg production in 
his Light Brahmas to an extent that one bird 
laid 232 eggs within a year of laying maturity 
and Mr. John W. Boswell. Jr., got 242 eggs in a 
year from a White Wyandotte pullet. 
The best work of which we have knowledge, 
in this field, has been done at the Maine Agri¬ 
cultural Experiment Station, where they have 
been breeding from known great layers for the 
past five years. They have found in their 
flocks thirty hens that laid between 200 and 251 
eggs each in a year, twenty-six of these hens 
being now in their breeding pens, and consti¬ 
tuting the foundation stock upon which their 
breeding operations are based. “All the breed¬ 
ing stock we are now carrying are tested hens 
that have laid over 180 eggs in a year; pullets 
whose mothers laid over 200 eggs in one year 
and whose fathers’ mothers laid over 200 eggs 
in a year; and pullets sired by cockerels whose 
mothers and grandmothers laid over 200 eggs 
in one year.” For those who have thought a 
hen that laid freely in her first year was of little 
value as a layer thereafter it will be a comfort 
to know that some of the great layers there at 
the Maine Experiment Station are doing great 
second and third year laying also. The report 
says: “No 286, in her first year, commencing 
Nov. 1, 1899, laid 191 eggs, with 157 during the 
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