Plate IV. Page 159. Graphs of egg prices and volume of egg sales as they vary throughout the year.
Plate IV. Page 159. Graphs of egg prices and volume of egg sales as they vary throughout the year.
The price curve of 1908, which is represented by the dotted line in plate IV will illustrate these general principles. In the lower portion of plate IV is given the curves for the New York receipts. The heavy line represents the smoothed or normal curve, deduced from eighteen years' statistics and calculated for the year 1908. The dotted line shows the actual receipts of 1908. A comparison week by week of the receipts and price will show the detailed workings of the law of supply and demand.
Aside from the weather there are other factors that perceptibly affect the receipts and price of eggs. A high price of meat will increase farm and village consumption of eggs and cut down the receipts that reach the city. Abundance of fruit in the city market will cut down the demand for eggs. A cold, wet spring will increase the mortality of chicks and cause a decreased egg yield the following season, due to a scarcity of pullets. Scarcity and high price of feed will cut down the egg yield. High price of hens is said by some to cut down the egg yield, but I think this is doubtful, as the impulse to sell off the hens is counteracted by the desire to "keep 'em and raise more."
The following are the quotations taken from the New York Price-Current for November 14, 1908:
State, Pennsylvania and nearby fresh eggs continue in very small supply and of more or less irregular quality, a good many being mixed with held eggs—sometimes with pickled stock. The few new laid lots received direct from henneries command extreme prices—sometimes working out in a small way above any figures that could fairly be quoted as a wholesale value. We quote: Selected white, fancy, 48@50c.; do., fair to choice, 35@46c.; do., lower grades, 26@32c.; brown and mixed, fancy, 38@40c.; do., fair to choice, 30@36c; do., lower grades, 25@28c.
The writer was in the New York market at the time and saw many cases of White Leghorn eggs sell wholesale at as high as 55 cents. These were commonly retailed at 5 cents each. There were a good many brands retailing at 65 cents and one of the largest high class groceries was selling for 70 cents. This is practically double the official quotations and three times that of cold storage stock.
The above prices represent a fair sample of the fall prices of 1908. It should be noted that the 1908 fall prices were relatively somewhat better than the rest of the season.
The time of high prices is also the time of the greatest variation in the price of the different grades. In the springtime all eggs are fairly fresh and good, and the fanciest eggs bring wholesale only two or three cents above quotations. There are a few retailers who hold the spring prices to their customers up above the general market. One New York firm that does a large high class egg business never lets their price at any season go below 40 cents. This, of course, means big profits and sales only to those who, when they are satisfied, never bother about price.
In the fall any man who has fresh eggs can sell them at very near the highest price, but in the spring only a small per cent. can go at fancy prices and the great majority of even the high grade eggs must go at very ordinary prices. In the summer months there is not so much demand in the cities, as the wealthy are not there to buy. The coast and mountain resorts are then good markets for fancy produce.
I do not place much dependence on the results of breed tests. Indeed, I consider the almost universal use of the Barred Rock in the most productive farm poultry regions in the United States, and the equal predominance of S.C. White Leghorns on the egg farms of New York and California, as far more conclusive than any possible breed tests.
Breed Tests.
In Australia there has been conducted a series of breed tests so remarkable and extensive that the writer considers them well worth quoting. The Hawkesbury Agricultural College tests extend over a period of five years, the pens entered were of six birds each, and the time one year. The results were as follows:
The winners and losers for five years were as follows:
As a matter of fact, the winning pen means little for breed comparison. This is shown by the winning and losing pens frequently being of the same breed.
The average for hens of one breed for the whole five years is more enlightening. For the three most popular Australian breeds, these grand averages are:
These figures are undoubtedly the most trustworthy breed comparisons that have ever been obtained. When we go into the other breeds, however, with smaller numbers entered, the results show chance variation and become untrustworthy, for illustration: R.C. Brown Leghorns, with 42 birds entered, have an average of 176.4. This does not signify that the R.C. Browns are better than the S.S. Whites, for if the Whites were divided by chance into a dozen lots of similar size, some would undoubtedly have surpassed the R.C. Browns. As further proof, take the case of the R.C.W. Leghorns with 36 birds entered and an egg yield of 166.9. Both breeds are probably a little poorer layers than S.C. Whites, but luck was with the R.C. Browns and against the R.C. Whites. For a discussion of this principle of the worth of averages from different sized flocks see Chapter XV.
All Leghorns in the tests with 846 birds entered, averaged 170.3 eggs each. All of the general purpose breeds (Rocks, Wyandottes, Reds and Orpingtons), with 1416 birds entered, averaged 160.2. The comparison between the Leghorns and the general purpose fowls as classes is undoubtedly a fair one. A study of the relations between the leading breeds in these groups and the general average of these groups is worth while. It bears out the writer's statement that the best fowls of a group or breed are to be found in the popular variety of that breed. The Australian poultryman, wanting utility only, would do wise to choose out of the three great Australian breeds here mentioned. The S.C.W. Leghorn is the only one of the three breeds to which the advice would apply in America. Barred Rocks and perhaps White Wyandottes, would here represent the other types.
There is one more point in the Australian records worthy of especial mention. The winning pen in 1906 were Black Langshans and, what seems still more remarkable, were daughters of birds purchased from the original home of Langshans in North China. Other pens of Langshans in the test failed to make remarkable records, but this pen of Chinese stock, with a record of 246 5-6* eggs per hen for the first year and 414 1-2* eggs per hen for two years, is the world's record layers beyond all quibble. This record is held by a breed and a region in which we would not expect to find great layers.
This holding of the record by a breed hitherto not considered a laying type, would be comparable to a tenderfoot bagging the pots in an Arizona gambling den. If the latter incident should occur and be heralded in the papers it would be no proof that it would pay another Eastern youth to rush out to Arizona. It is probable that the man who, on the strength of this single record, stocks an egg farm with imported Chinese Langshans, will fare as the second tenderfoot.
The year following the Langshan winning, the first eleven winning pens were all S.C.W. Leghorns. This is also remarkable—much more remarkable in fact than the Langshans record. It is like a royal flush in a poker game. Standing alone, this would be very suggestive evidence of the eminence of the breed. Standing as it does, with the combined evidence of years and numbers, it gives the S.C.W. Leghorn hen the same reputation in Australia as she has in America and Denmark—that of being the greatest egg machine ever created.
Isolated evidence is misleading. Accumulated evidence is convincing. The difference between the scientist and the enthusiast is that the former knows the difference between these two classes of evidence.
The Hen's Ancestors.
To one who is unfamiliar with the different types of chickens found in a poultry showroom, it seems incredible that these varieties should have descended from one parent source. It was, however, held by Darwin that all domestic chickens were sprung from a single species of Indian jungle fowl. Other scientists have since disputed Darwin's conclusion, but it does not seem to the writer that the origin of domestic fowls from more than one wild variety makes the changes that have taken place under domestication any less remarkable.
The buff, white and dominique colors, unheard of in wild species, frizzles with their feathers all awry, the Polish with their deformed skulls and the sooty fowls whose skin and bones are black, are some of the remarkable characters that have sprung up and been preserved under domestication. The varieties of domestic fowl form one of the most profound exhibits of man's control over the laws of inheritance. What makes these wonders all the more inexplicable is that these profound changes were accomplished in an age when a scientific study of breeding was a thing unheard of.
The wild chicken whom Darwin credits as the parent of the modern gallinaceous menagerie, is smaller than modern fowls and is colored in a manner similar to the Black-breasted Game. The habits of this bird are like those of the quail and prairie-chicken, both of which belong to the same zoological family.
From its natural home in India the chicken spread east and west. Chinese poultry culture is ancient. In China, as well as in India, the chief care seems to have been to breed very large fowls, and from these countries all the large, heavily feathered and feather legged chickens of the modern world have come.
Poultry is also known to have been bred in the early Babylonian and Egyptian periods. Here, however, the progress was in a different line from that of China. Artificial incubation was early developed, and the selection was for birds that produced eggs continually, rather than for those that laid fewer eggs and brooded in the natural manner.
The Egyptian type of chicken spread to the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, and from Southern Europe our non-sitting breeds of fowls have been imported. Throughout the countries of Northern Europe minor differences were developed. The French chickens were selected for the quality of the meat, while in Poland the peculiar top-knotted breed is supposed to have been formed.
The English Dorking is one of the oldest of European breeds and is possessed of five toes. Five-toed fowls were reported in Rome and exist to-day in Turkey and Japan. The Dorkings may be descended directly from the Roman fowls, or various strains of five-toed fowls may have arisen independently from the preservation of sports.
The chief point to be noted in all European poultry is that it differs from Asiatic poultry in being smaller, lighter feathered, quicker maturing, of greater egg-producing capacity, less disposed to become broody, and more active than the Asiatic fowl.
The early American hens were of European origin, but of no fixed breeds. About 1840 Italian chickens began to be imported. These, with stock from Spain, have been bred for fixed types of form and color, and constitute our Mediterranean or non-sitting breeds of the present day. Soon after the importation of Italian chickens a chance importation was made from Southeastern Asia. These Asiatic chickens were quite different from anything yet seen, and further importations followed.
Poultry-breeding soon became the fashion. The first poultry show was held in Boston in the early '50's. The Asiatic fowls imported were gray or yellowish-red in color, and were variously known as the Brahmapootras, Cochin-Chinas and Shanghais. With the rapid development of poultry-breeding there came a desire to produce new varieties. Every conceivable form of cross-breeding was resorted to. The great majority of breeds and varieties as they exist to-day are the results of crosses followed by a few years of selection for the desired form and color. Many of our common breeds still give us occasional individuals that resemble some of the types from which the breed was formed. The exact history of the formation of the American or mixed breeds is in dispute, but it is certain that they have been formed from a complex mixing of blood from both European and Asiatic sources.
The English have recently furnished the world with a very popular breed which was originated by the same methods. I refer to the Orpingtons.
The ever growing multiplicity of varieties of chicken is in reality only casually related to the business of the poultryman whose object is the production of human food.
Breeding as an art or vocation, is a source of endless pleasure to man, and as such, is as worthy of encouragement as is painting, music, or the collection of the bones of prehistoric animals. Breeding as an art has produced many forms of chickens that are entirely worthless as food producers, but this same group of poultry breeders, tempered to be sure by the demands of commercialism, have produced other breeds that are certainly superior for the various commercial purposes to the unselected fowls of the old-fashioned farm-yard.
The mongrel chicken is a production of chance. Its ancestry represents everything available in the barn-yard of the neighborhood, and its offspring will be equally varied. In the pure breeds there has been a rigid selection practiced that gives uniform appearance. The size and shape requirements of the standard, although not based on the market demands, come much nearer producing an ideal carcass than does chance breeding. Ability to mature for the fall shows is a decidedly practical quality that the fancier breeds into his chickens. Moreover, poultry-breeders, while still keeping standard points in mind, have also made improvements in the lay and meat-producing qualities of their chickens. Considering these facts it is an erroneous idea to think that mongrel chickens offer any advantage over pure bred stock.
In the broader sense we may regard as pure-bred those animals that reproduce their shape, color, habits, or other distinctive qualities with uniformity. In order that we may get offspring like the parent and like each other we must have animals whose ancestors for many generations back have been of one type. The more generations of such uniformity, the more certain it will be that the young will possess similar quality.
One strain of chickens may be selected for uniform color of feathers, another for a certain size and shape, another for laying large eggs of a certain color, and yet another strain for being producers of many eggs. Each of these strains might be well-bred in these particular traits, but would be mongrels when the other considerations were taken into account.
This explains to us why the family or strains is frequently more important than the breed. In fact, the whole series of breed classification is arbitrary. This is especially true of the American or mixed breeds. Humorously turned fanciers at the poultry show frequently have much sport trying to get other fanciers to tell White or Buff Rocks from Wyandottes, when the heads are hidden. From the dressed carcasses with feet and head removed, the finest set of poultry judges in the world would be hopelessly lost in a collection of Rocks, Wyandottes, Reds and Orpingtons and, I dare say, one could run in a few Langshans and Minorcas if it were not for their black pin feathers.
What Breed.
The writer has great admiration for breeding as an art. He would rather be the originator of a breed of green chickens with six toes, than to have been the author of "Afraid to Go Home in the Dark." But I do want the novice who reads this book to be spared some of the mental throes usually indulged in over the selection of a breed.
So-called meat breeds, that is, the big feather legged Asiatics save on a few capon and roaster plants in New England, are really useless. They have given size to American chickens as a class, and in that have served a useful purpose, but standing alone they cannot compete with lighter, quick growing breeds.
For commercial consideration there are really but two types: The egg breeds of Mediterranean origin and the general purpose breeds or growers, including the Rocks, Wyandottes and Rhode Island Reds. The difference between the layers on the one hand and the growers on the other, is quite important. Which should be used depends on the location and plan of operations, as has already been discussed.
The choice of variety within the group is a matter of taste and chance of sales of fancy stock. This one principle can, however, be laid down: The more popular the breed, the more choice there will be in selecting strains and individuals. Pea Comb Plymouth Rocks and Duckwing Leghorns should not be considered because of their rarity. Of the growers, their popularity and claims are close enough to make the particular choice unimportant. For commercial consideration, the writer would as soon invest his money in a flock of Barred Rock, White Wyandottes or Rhode Island Reds. Among layers the S. C. White has achieved such a lead that the majority of good laying strains are in this breed and to choose any other would be to place a handicap on oneself. For a description of breeds, the reader should secure an Illustrated American Standard of Perfection, or some of the books published by poultry fanciers and judges. To take up the matter here would merely be using my space for imparting knowledge which can be better secured elsewhere.
The relative popularity of breeds at the poultry shows is nicely shown by the following list. This data was compiled by adding the numbers of each breed exhibited at 124 different poultry shows in the season of 1907. A detailed report of the total entries of each breed is as follows: Plymouth Rocks, 14,514; Wyandottes, 12,320; Leghorns, 8,740; Rhode Island Reds, 5,812; Orpingtons, 2,857; Langshans, 2,153; Minorcas, 1,709; Cochin Bantams, 1,590; Games, 1,277; Brahmas, 1,181; Cochins, 1,010; Hamburgs, 758; Game Bantams, 637; Polish, 618; Houdans, 538; Indians, 538; Anconas, 464; Sebright Bantams, 423; Andalusians, 117; Japanese Bantams, 115; Dorkings, 105; Brahma Bantams, 104; Buckeyes, 95; Silkies, 85; Spanish, 83; Redcaps, 71; Sumatras, 41; Polish Bantams, 37; Sultans, 18; Malays, 12; Frizzles, 7; Le Fleche, 7; Dominiques, 5; Booted Bantams, 4; Malay Bantams, 3; Crevecoeure, 3.
Science has been defined as the "know how" and art as the "do how." The man who works by art depends upon an unconscious judgment which is inborn or is acquired by long practice. The man who works by science may also have this artistic taste, but he tests its dicta by comparison with known facts and principles. The scientist not only looks before he leaps, but measures the distance and knows exactly where he is going to land.
Breeding has for centuries been an art, but the science of breeding is so new as to seem a mass of contradictions to all except those familiar with the maze of mathematics and biology by which the barn-yard facts must find their ultimate explanation. The science of breeding may in the future bring about that which would now seem miraculous, but it is the ancient art of breeding that is and will for years continue to be the means by which the poultry fancier will achieve his results.
In a volume the chief aim of which is to place the poultry industry, which is now conducted as an art, in the realm of technical science, it might seem proper to devote considerable space to the subject of breeding, That I shall not do so, is for the reason that while theoretically I recognize the important part that breeding plays in all animal production, for the practical proposition of producing poultry products at the lowest possible cost, a knowledge of the technical science of breeding is unessential and may, by diverting the poultryman's time to unprofitable efforts, prove an actual handicap.
For the show room breeder the new science of breeding is too undeveloped to be of immediate service, or I had better say, the show room requisites are too complicated for theoretical breeding to promise results. For the commercial poultryman, I shall review what has been accomplished and state briefly the theories upon which contemplated work is based.
The objects striven after in poultry breeding are: 1st: To create new varieties which shall have improved practical points or shall attract attention as curiosities. 2d: To approach the ideals accepted by fanciers for established breeds, and hence win in competition. 3d: To change some particular feature or habit as, to increase egg production or reduce the size of bantams. 4th: To improve several points at once as, eggs and size in general purpose fowls. This classification is really unnecessary, as the most specialized breeding involves consideration of many points.
Breeding as an Art.
The method by which breeds and varieties of the show room specimens have been developed is essentially as follows: The wonderfully different varieties of fowl from every quarter of the earth are brought together. Crossing is then resorted to, with the result that birds of all forms and colors are produced. The breeder then selects specimens that most nearly conform to the type or ideal in his mind.
Suppose a man wished to produce Barred Leghorns, with a fifth toe. He would secure Barred Rocks, White Leghorns and White or Gray Dorkings. Then he would cross in every conceivable fashion.
Perhaps he might have trouble getting the white color to disappear. In that case Buff Leghorns which are a newer breed might be tried and found more pliable material. By such methods the breeder would in three or four generations of crossing get a crude type of what he desired. Henceforth it would be a matter of patience and selection. Five to twenty years is the time usually taken to produce new breeds of fancy poultry that will breed true to type. In this style of breeding the principles at stake are simple. The first is to secure the variations wanted; second, to breed from the most desirable of these specimens.
The same methods of selection that establish a breed are used to maintain it, or to establish strains. In ordinary breeding there are two other principles that are sometimes called into play. One is prepotency, the other is inbreeding. By prepotent we mean having unusual power to transmit characters to offspring. Suppose a breeder has five yards headed by five cock birds. The male in yard two he does not consider quite as fine as the bird in yard one, but in the fall he finds the offspring of bird from two much better than the offspring from yard one. The breeder should keep the prepotent sire and his offspring rather than the more perfect male, who fails to stamp his traits upon his get.
Normally a child has two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents. Now, when cousins marry, the great-grandparents of the offspring are reduced to six. The mating of brother and sister cuts the grandparents to two, and the great-grandparents to four. Mating of parent and offspring makes a parent and grandparent identical and likewise eliminates ancestry. Inbreeding means the reduction of the number of branches in the ancestral tree, and this means the reduction of the number of chances to get variation, be they good or bad.
Inbreeding simply intensifies whatever is there. It does not necessarily destroy the vitality, but if close inbreeding is practiced long enough, sooner or later some little existing weakness or peculiarity would become intensified and may prove fatal to the strain. For illustration, suppose we began inbreeding brother and sister with a view of keeping it up indefinitely. Now, in the original blood, a tendency for the predominance of one sex over the other undoubtedly exists and would be intensified until there would come a generation all of one sex, which, of course, terminates our experiment.
Inbreeding has always been tabooed by the people generally. Meanwhile the clever stock breeders have combined inbreeding with selection and have won the show prizes and sold the people "new blood" at fancy prices.
Unintelligent inbreeding as practiced on many a farm, results in run down stock, not so much from inbreeding as from lack of selection. Out-crossing or mixing in of new blood is better than hit-or-miss inbreeding. Intelligent inbreeding is better still.
Scientific Theories of Breeding.
The main tenet of Darwin's theory of racial inheritance or evolution, was that changes in animal life, wild or domestic, were brought about by the addition of very slight, perhaps imperceptible, variations. He argued that the giraffe with the longest neck could browse on higher leaves in time of drought and hence left offspring with slightly longer necks than the previous generation.
Upon this theory the ordinary breeding by selection is based. In case of breeding for show room, the breeder's eye, or the judge's score card, is the tape with which to measure the length of the giraffe's neck. This principle can be applied equally well, even better, to characteristics where accurate measurement may be used.
The last forty years of scientific progress has established firmly the general theories of Darwin, but they have also resulted in our questioning his idea that all great changes are due to the sum of small variations. Many instances have been suggested in which the theory of gradual changes could not explain the facts.
The theory of mutation, of which Hugo de Vries, of Holland, is the chief expounder, does not antagonize Darwin, but simply gives more weight in the process of evolution to the factor of sudden changes commonly called sports. Let us illustrate: In the giraffe of our former forest, one might appear whose neck was not longer because of slightly longer vertebrae, but who possessed an extra vertebrae. This would be a mutation. In other words, a mutation is a marked variation that may be inherited. We now believe that polled cattle, five-toed Dorkings, top-knotted Houdans, frizzles and black skinned chickens arose through mutations.
Burbank's Methods—The wonderful Burbank with his thornless cactus, his stoneless plum, and his white blackberry, is simply a searcher after mutations. His success is not because he uses any secret methods, but because of the size of his operations. He produces his specimens by the millions, and in these millions looks, and often looks in vain for the lonely sport that is to father a new race. Burbank has, with plants, many advantages of which the animal breeder is deprived. He can produce his specimens in greater number, he can more easily find out the desirable character, and in many plants he has not the uncertain element of double parentage to contend with, while with others he is still more fortunate, as he can produce them by seed, stimulate variation until the desired mutation is found and can then reproduce the desired variation with certainty by the use of cuttings. This latter is not true inheritance with its inevitable variation, but the indefinite prolongation of the life of one individual. In this sense there is only one seedless orange tree in the world.
The Centgenitor System—Prof. Hays in breeding wheat at Minnesota, first used in this country a system of breeding which is essentially as follows: A large variety of individual seeds are selected. These are planted separately and the amount and character of the yield observed. The offspring of one seed is kept separate for several generations, or until the character of the tribe is thoroughly established. The advantage of this plan of breeding is in that the selection is not made by comparing individuals, but by comparing the offspring of individuals. Thus, we necessarily select the only trait really worth while; that is prepotency or the ability to beget desirable qualities.
The application of this centgenitor system necessitates inbreeding; it also necessitates large operations. Of the former, breeders have generally been afraid; of the latter they have lacked opportunity. But the centgenitor system, combined with Burbank's principle of large opportunity of selection, is, in the writer's belief, the method by which the 200-egg hen will be ultimately established in America.
Much of the recent stimulus to the study of the Science of Breeding was occasioned by the discovery of Mendel's Law. Briefly, the law states that when two pure traits or characters are crossed, one dominates in the first generation of offspring—the other remaining hidden or recessive. Of the second generation, one-half the individuals are still mixed, bearing the dominant characteristic externally and the other hidden; one-fourth are pure dominants and one-fourth are pure recessives. In future generations the mixed or hybrid individuals again give birth to mixed and pure types apportioned as before, thus continuing until all offspring become ultimately pure. For illustration: If rose and single comb chickens are crossed, rose combs are dominant. The first generation will all have rose combs. The second generation will have one-fourth single combs that will breed true, one-fourth rose combs that will breed rose combs only, and one-half that again will give all three types.
Mendel's Law works all right in cases where pure unit characteristics are to be found. For the great practical problems in inheritance, Mendel's law is utterly hopeless. The trouble is that the chief things with which we are concerned are not unit characteristics but are combinations of countless characteristics which cannot be seen or known, hence cannot be picked out. Thus the tendency to revert to pure types is foiled by the constant recrossing of these types.
Mendel's law is a scientific curiosity like the aeroplane. It may some day be more than a curiosity, but both have tremendous odds to overcome before they supplant our present methods.
Prof. C.B. Davenport, of the Carnegie Institute, is working on experimental poultry breeding in its purely scientific sense. His conclusions have been much criticised by poultry fanciers. The truth of the matter is that the fancier fails to appreciate the spirit of pure science. The scientist, enthused to find his white fowl re-occur after a generation of black ones, is wholly undisturbed by the fact that the white ones, if exhibited, might be taken for a Silver Spangled Hamburg.
Mendel's law as yet offers little to the fancier and less to the commercial poultryman. Its study is all right in its place, but its place is not on the poultry plant whose profits are to buy the baby a new dress.
Breeding for Egg Production.
Attempts to improve the egg-producing qualities of the hen date from the domestication of the hen, but it has only been within the last few years that rapid progress has been possible in this work. The inability to determine the good layers has been the difficulty.
The great majority of people make no selection of hens from which to hatch their stock. The eggs of the whole flock are kept together and when eggs are desired for hatching they are selected from a general basket. It has been assumed, and is shown by trap-nest records, that eggs thus selected in the spring of the year are from the poorer, rather than from the better layers. This is because hens that have not been laying during the winter will lay very heavily during the spring season. Many breeders have attempted to pick out the good layers by the appearance of the hens. Before the advent of the trap-nest the "egg type" of hen was believed to be a positive indication of a good layer. The "egg type" hen had slender neck, small head, long, deep body of a wedge shape. Various "systems" founded on these or other "signs" have been sold for fancy prices to people who were easily separated from their money. Trap-nest records show such systems to be on a par with the lunar guidance in agricultural operations.
I might remark here that the determination of sex by the shape of the egg or similar methods, is in a like category. Science finds no proof of such theories.
A few methods of selecting the layers have been suggested which, while far from absolute, are of some significance and are well worth noting. The hen that sits upon the roost while other hens are out foraging, is probably a drone. The excessively fat or the excessively lean hens are not likely to be layers. It would naturally be supposed that the active laying hen would be the last one to go to roost at night. At the Kansas Experiment Station, the writer made observations upon the order in which the hens went to roost, and the above assumption was found in the majority of cases to be correct.
A still better scheme of selecting layers is the practice of picking out the thrifty, quickly maturing pullets when they first begin to lay in the fall season. At the Maine Experiment Station, such a selection gave a flock of layers which averaged about one hundred and eighty eggs, when the remainder of the flock yielded only one hundred and forty.
Trap-nests devised to catch the hen that lays the egg are numerous in the market. A trap-nest to be successful, must not only catch the hen that lays, but must prevent the entrance of the other hens.
The more trap-nests that are provided, the less often they will require attention, but the more often the nests are attended the better for the comfort of the hens.
The use of trap-nests is expensive and cannot be recommended for the poultryman who must make every hour of time put on his chickens yield him an immediate income. Fanciers and Experiment Stations can well afford to use trap-nests and must, indeed, use them both for breeding for egg production, and also for determining the hen that laid the egg when full pedigrees are desired in other breeding work.
A scheme that has sometimes been used in the place of trap-nests, is a system of small compartments, in each of which one hen is kept. Such a scheme does not seem feasible on a large scale, but for breeders wishing to keep the records of a small number of hens, it is all right. Because of its cost, this system is wholly out of the question, except for a man following breeding as a hobby and who cannot devote himself during the day to the care of trap-nests.
Having determined the best layers, it remains to breed from these and from their descendants. The tests of pullets hatched from hens are better signs of the hen's value as a breeder than is her own record. It has been surmised that a hen which lays heavily will not lay eggs containing vigorous germs. So far as the writer's experience has gone, the laying of infertile eggs is a family or individual trait not particularly related to the number of eggs laid.
When we have bred from the best layers and have raised our average egg yielder to a higher level, the question arises as to whether the strain will permanently maintain the high yield or drop back to the former rate of production. Theory says that it will not drop back. As a matter of fact it will not do so, for the heavier production will be more trying on the hen's constitution, and naturally selection will gradually cause the egg record to dwindle. Hence the necessity of continued selection or the infusion of new blood from other selected strains.
Whatever may be the change desired in a strain of chickens, specimens showing the trait to be selected should be used as breeders. Those characteristics readily visible to the eye have long been the subjects of the breeder's efforts. But traits not directly visible can likewise be changed by breeding. The number of eggs, size and color of eggs, rapid growth, ready fattening powers, quality of meat and general characteristics, are all matters of inheritance, and if proper means are taken to select the desirable individuals all such characteristics can be changed at the will of the breeder.
It is a fact, however, often overlooked, that the more traits for which one selects, the slower will be progress. For illustration: If in breeding for egg production, one-half the good layers are discarded for lack of fancy points, the progress will be just half as rapid.
A discussion of the work in breeding for egg production at the Maine Experiment Station is taken up in the next chapter.
Our entire scheme of agricultural education and experimentation is new. The poultry work at experiment stations is very new. Ten years will about cover everything worthy of a permanent record in the poultry experiment station files.
Stations Leading in Poultry Work.
Among the earliest stations to begin poultry work in this country were Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine. Rhode Island conducted the first school of poultry culture. The two stations of New York State were also early in the work, and Cornell now has the leading school of poultry culture in this country.
West Virginia has always maintained a considerable poultry plant. Outside of the states east of the Appalachians, the first poultry work to be heard of was that of Prof. Dryden at the Experiment Station of Utah. Prof. Dryden's work was of a demonstrative nature. His early bulletins were forceful and well illustrated, and did much to call attention to poultry work.
In all this early work the great Mississippi Valley, where four-fifths of the nation's poultry is produced, entirely ignored the hen. The writer began his work with poultry at the Kansas Station in 1902, but his chickens were housed in a discarded hog house, and no funds being available, little was accomplished. In the last three or four years these experiment stations are rapidly falling into line and a number of poultry bulletins have recently been issued from these younger schools.
A few of the early landmarks in experiment station work was as follows:
The Utah Station clearly found that hens laid about 65 per cent. as many eggs in the second as in the first year, and that to keep hens for egg production beyond the second year, was unprofitable.
Massachusetts proved that corn was a better food for layers than wheat, and that the prejudice against it was founded on a misapplied theory.
The New York Station at Geneva demonstrated that poultry generally, and ducks in particular, are not vegetarians, and must have meat to thrive and that vegetable protein will not make good the deficiency.
The Maine Station was chiefly instrumental in introducing trap-nests, curtain front houses and dry feeding. The breeding work at Maine will be discussed at length in the last section of this chapter.
The United States Department of Agriculture did not take up poultry work until 1906. The publications issued by the department before that time were written by outsiders and printed by the Government.
The following is the list of the addresses of the experiment stations who have taken a leading interest in poultry work. It is not worth while giving a list of poultry bulletins, as many of them are out of print and can only be consulted in a library.
Maine—Orono.Mass.—Amherst.Conn.—Storrs.Rhode Is.—Kingston.New York—Ithaca.New York—Geneva.Maryland—College Park.West. Va.—Morgantown.Iowa—Ames.Kansas—Manhattan.Utah—Logan.Calif.—Berkeley.Oregon—Corvalis.U.S. Gov.—Washington, D.C.Ontario—Guelph (Canada).
Many foreign governments have us out-distanced in the encouragement of the poultry industry. Our Canadian neighbors have done much more practical work in getting out among the farmers and improving the stock and methods along commercial lines. As a result the Canadians have built up a nice British trade with which we have thus far not been able to compete. The work by the Ontario Station on the subject of incubation is discussed in the Chapter on Incubation.
Australia, like Canada, has given much practical assistance in marketing the poultry products, the government maintaining packing stations, where the poultry is packed for export. The Australian laying contests are quoted in the present volume. They outclass anything else in the world along that line.
In England, Ireland and especially in Denmark, the government, or societies encouraged by the Government, have done a great deal to develop the poultry industry. Depots for marketing and grading are maintained and the stock of the farmers is improved by fowls from the government breeding farms.
The Story of the "Big Coon."
With apologies to Joel Chandler Harris, I will tell a little story.
Uncle Remus was telling the little boy about the "big coon." It seems that the "big coon" had been seen on numerous occasions, but all efforts at his capture had failed. One night they saw the "big coon" up in the 'simmon tree, in the middle of the ten-acre lot. All hands and the dogs were summoned. To be sure of bagging the game, the tree was cut down. The dogs rushed in but there was no coon.
"But, Uncle Remus," said the little boy, "I thought you said you saw the big coon in the tree."
"Laws, chile," replied Uncle Remus, "doesn't youse know dat it am mighty easy for folks to see something dat ain't dar, when dey are lookin' fer it?"
When scientific experimenters entered the poultry field about fifteen years ago, they found it swarming with old ladies' notions. For everything a reason was given, but these reasons were derived from the kind of dreams where that which pleases the human mind is seized upon and search is made to find ideas to back it, not because it is true, but because it "listens good" to the dreamer. The first duty of the scientist was to banish these will-o'-the-wisp ideas that lead to no practical results.
For illustration Round eggs were supposed to hatch pullets and long ones cockerels. Eggs will not hatch if it thunders. Shipped eggs must be allowed to rest before hatching, the drug store was the universal source of relief when the chickens became sick, and red pepper and patent foods were the egg foods par excellence. These things, thanks to the scientist, are no longer believed or regarded by well read poultrymen, and instead his attention has been turned to matters having a more happy relation to his bank account.
In clearing away the useless popular notions, the scientists themselves have not been free from their influence, especially when they seemed to agree with accepted scientific theory. Many, indeed, are the 'coons in poultry science that have been seen because they were being looked for.
As a partial explanation it should be said that men available for scientific poultry work are very scarce. Poultry keepers schooled in the University of the Poultry Yard have no conception of scientific methods, and would explain experimental results by a theory that would fail to fit elsewhere. The available scientists on the other hand are seldom poultrymen.
Among the first men to take up animal husbandry work of all kinds, were the veterinarians. For years the only poultry publications put out by the U.S. Government were by veterinarians. These dust covered volumes with their five color plates of the fifty-seven varieties of tapeworms, still rest on the shelves of public libraries, a monument to the time when the practical poultryman knew only things that weren't so, and the scientific poultryman knew only things that were useless.
The first general law that all experimenters should know and the ignorance of which has caused and still causes the waste of the major portion of experimental brains and money, we will call the "Law of Chance." Let the reader who is not familiar with such things take two pennies and toss them upon the table. They are both heads up. He tosses them again, one comes heads, the other tails. The third time repeats the second. The fourth both come tails. The law of chance says this is correct. Heads should appear 25 per cent., tails 25 per cent., and mixed 50 per cent. of the time. Now let the reader try this in a lot of twelve tosses. Does it prove the law? Try it again. Are all lots alike? Now pitch a hundred times, then pitch pennies all day. By night the law will be so near proven that the experimenter will be willing to concede its validity.
Now suppose the lots of twelve tosses, each were lots of twelve hens, one Plymouth Rocks, the other Wyandottes, or one fed corn and the other wheat. The law of chance clearly proves that the larger number of unites, the nearer the theoretical truths will be the experimental results. Note, however, that small lots may by chance be as near the truth as large lots.
In practice two grave errors are made: First, conclusions are drawn from small lots compared with each other; second, conclusions are drawn from large lots compared with small lots. In the first case both may be off; in the latter case the small one may be off. Examples of the first error are to be found in the scores of contradicting breed and feed tests, that were published in the early days of poultry research. The second error is exemplified in the Ontario experiments in incubation, to which reference has already been made.
Here is a further example of this error. From the fifth egg laying competition at the Hawkesbury Agricultural College in Australia, I copy the following:
The ranking of Cuckoo Leghorns as first is a chance happening due to the small number; likewise the Black Leghorns had a streak of bad luck and received lowest place. To one not familiar with such work, the real significance of the table is that the S.C.W. Leghorns did the best work. A totaling of all other varieties gives 84 fowls with an average egg production of 170.5, which bears out the conclusion. As these birds were all kept in pens of six, we would expect to find the highest single pen to be White Leghorns, because, when compared with all other Leghorns, they have both the highest average and the greatest number. This accords with the fact that as the highest single pen is found to be White Leghorns with an egg yield of 239 eggs.
The above illustrates another important phase of the laws of chance, which says that not only is the average likely to be nearer the theoretical average sought when the number is increased, but that the individual extremes will be more removed.
Important Experimental Results at the Illinois Station.
From an Illinois Experiment Station report, the following is quoted:
"The stock used was Barred Plymouth Rock pullets. These pullets were a very uniform Barred Rock stock that had been bred as an individual strain for many years. They were practically the same age, and except for the factors mentioned were treated as uniformly as possible.
"The results of the first test are somewhat surprising for it is generally believed that the nitrogenous diet is best for laying hens. The difference indicated in the first year's results was so light that it was decided to repeat the experiment the second year.
"As the wet wash is clearly proven to be superior, these hens were used the second year to compare meat meal with fresh cut bone.
"The results of the second year clearly indicate the great superiority of green cut bone as compared with the dry unpalatable meat meal. The comparison of a highly nitrogenous ration with that of a ration consisting largely of corn, while showing the advantages of the nitrogenous rations, does not show the contrast expected.
"Some visiting poultrymen expressed the opinion that corn is a better poultry food than commonly supposed. Considering this fact and the great fundamental importance of the question at issue, it was decided to repeat the experiment a third year, and feed a large number of birds on each ration.
I will leave the last without comment, for the whole thing is a hoax. The Illinois Experiment Station has never owned a chicken. These "Illinois" experiments were planned and executed in a few minutes of the writer's spare time. The basis of the experiments was a pack of cards containing the individual records of the Maine Experiment Station hens, shuffling the cards and averaging the desired number of records as they come in the pack, made the distinction between the various diets.
Experimental Bias
Pet ideas consciously or unconsciously mold practice. A bias toward an idea may show itself in the planning and conducting of an experiment, or it may come out in the later interpretation.
An illustration of the first kind is found in the early work of the West Virginia Station (Bulletin 60). With the preconceived notion that hens should have a nitrogenous diet an experiment was planned and conducted as follows:
One lot of hens was fed corn, potatoes, oats and corn meal. A contrasted lot reveled in corn, potatoes, hominy feed, oat meal, corn meal and fresh cut bone. The results were in favor of the latter ration by a doubled egg yield.
To any experienced poultryman the reason is evident. The variety of the diet and the meat food are what made the showing.
About the same time the Massachusetts Station planned a similar experiment. The bias was the same, but it took a fairer form. The hens were both given a decent variety of food and some form of meat. The bulk of the grain was corn in the carbonaceous, and wheat in the nitrogenous ration. The results were in favor of the corn. This astonished the experimenter. He tried it again and again tests came out in favor of corn. At last the old theory was revoked, and the fallacy of wheat being essential to egg production was exploded. If by an irony of fate in the shuffling of the hens, the wheat pen had the first time showed an advantage, the experimenter might have been satisfied and the waste of feeding high priced feed when a better and a cheaper is at hand, might have gone on indefinitely.
Of bias in the interpretation of results all publications are more or less saturated. A reading of the Chapter on Incubation will illustrate this. A common error of this kind is the omission of facts necessary to fully explain results. Items of costs are invariably omitted or minimized. Food cost alone is usually mentioned in figuring experimenting station poultry profits, which statement will undoubtedly cause a sad smile to creep over the face of many a "has-been" poultryman.
The writer remembers an incident from his college days which illustrates the point in hand. Let it first be remarked that this was on the new lands of the trans-Missouri Country, where manure had no more commercial value than soil, and is freely given to those who will haul it away.
The professor at the blackboard had been figuring up handsome profits on a type of dairying towards which he wits very partial. The figures showed a goodly profit, but the biggest expense item—that of labor—was omitted. One of the students held up his hand and inquired after the labor bill.
"Oh," said the smiling professor, "The manure will pay for the labor."
When the class adjourned, the student remarked: "They say figures won't lie, but a liar will figure."
The third way in which experiments are made worthless is by the introduction of factors other than the one being tested. This may be done by chance, and the conductor not realize the presence of the other factor, or the varying factors may be introduced intentionally under the belief that they are negligible. Of the first case an instance may be cited of the placing of two flocks in a house, one end of which is damper than the other, the accidental introduction into one flock of a contagious disease, or one flock being thrown off feed by an excessive feed of greens, etc., etc. These factors that influence pens of birds greatly add to the error of the law of chance. In fact it amounts to the same thing on a larger scale. For this reason not only are many individuals, but many flocks, many locations, and many years needed to prove the superiority of the contrasted methods.
The criticisms in the following section will amply illustrate the case of foreign factors being unwisely introduced into an experiment.
The Egg Breeding Work at the Maine Station.
As is well known the Maine Station was for years considered by all poultrymen to be doing a great and beneficial work in breeding for increased egg production. Up until the fall of 1907, the poultrymen of the country were of the opinion that this work was in every way successful, and a large number of private breeders had taken up the use of trap-nests in an effort to build up the egg production of their fowls.
When early in 1908 Bulletin 157 of the Maine Experiment Station was published, it showed by averages as given in the table on page 202 that the egg yield at the station was for the entire period on the decline. In Bulletin 157, the statement was made that "arithmetical mistakes" and "faulty statistical methods" accounted for the discrepancies between the former publications and the criticised data. The further explanation that "the experiment was a success as an experiment," etc., only appeared to the public mind as a graceful way of explaining what was, to the practical man, an utter failure of the entire work.
The unfortunate death of Professor Gowell, together with the fact that he had equipped a private poultry farm with station stock, added to the confusion, and the result of the bulletin was the precipitation of a general "pow-wow" in which the poultry editors were about equally divided between those who were casting insinuations upon the personnel of the station, and those who decried the whole effort toward improving the egg yield.
After going over the publications of Professor Gowell, visiting the station and meeting the present force, I came to the following conclusions regarding the matter:
Professor Gowell's work is open to severe criticism. Errors have been made in conducting the work at Maine which have made it possible for a mathematical biologist to take the data and seemingly prove that selection, as practiced by Professor Gowell, actually resulted in lowering inherent egg capacity of the strain of Plymouth Rock hens under experimentation. Had Professor Gowell's successor been a practical poultryman, it is my candid opinion that the public would have been given a radically different explanation of the results.
Professor Gowell is the author of the following statement: "The small chicken grower is earnestly urged to use an incubator for hatching." This opinion is not in accord with that of the majority of breeders and the more progressive experiment station workers. The opinion has been expressed by Professor Graham and others, that the particular results at the Maine Station may have been due to the decrease of vitality caused by continued artificial hatching. This view may be wholly without foundation. Nevertheless, as the common type of incubator is under heavy criticism, and it is pretty well proven that chicks so hatched have not the vitality of naturally hatched chicks, surely a series of breeding experiments would carry more weight if the replenishing of the flock had been accomplished by natural means.
For the first few years of the breeding work the house used was the old-fashioned double walled and warmed pattern. The last few years of this work were conducted in curtain front houses. That the cool house is an improvement over the warm house is generally conceded, but there are many poultrymen who are still of the opinion that the warm house will give a larger egg yield, though at a greater expense and less profit.
In the early years of the work the method of feeding was also a time-honored one, and included a warm mash. About the middle of the experimental period Professor Gowell brought out the system of feeding dry mash from hoppers. This custom became a great fad and Professor Gowell and Director Woods have preached it far and wide. Perhaps it is an improvement, but it is to-day much more popular with novices than with established egg farms. Many old line poultrymen have tried dry mash only to go back to wet mash, by which method the hens can be induced to eat more which is conducive to high egg yields. Whether these changes in housing and feeding have been improvements as claimed by those who introduced them, or whether their popularity may be explained in part at least by the psychology of fads, is a point in question, but certainly the marring of a breeding experiment by introducing radical changes in the factors of production is at best unfortunate.
A much more serious criticism than any of the foregoing is to be found in a change of the size of flocks and amount of floor space per fowl. I have gone over carefully the published records of Professor Gowell, and the review of Dr. Pearl, and the following table represents, as near as I can determine, these factors for the series of years. In the year 1903 I find no clear statement as to the manner in which the birds were housed, and I may be in error in this case. Otherwise the table gives the facts.
Certainly this oversight is a serious one, and one especially remarkable considering the fact that the comparison of different size flocks formed a prominent part of the Maine Station work during the last three years of the breeding test. The results of the work at the Maine Station on testing flock size, conducted without relation to the breeding work, gave the following results:
No comparisons of 50 and 20 bird flocks in the same year are available, but by extending the comparisons of the 50, 100 and 150 flocks into the 20 flock size, we can get some idea of the error that has been here introduced. The result of the Australian egg laying contest in which the flocks were composed of six hens, shows a yield of about one and one-half times as heavy as the Maine records, which certainly seems to substantiate the ideas here brought out.
It is a well established fact in poultry circles that many men who succeed with a few hundred hens, fail when the number is increased to as many thousands. When the breeding experiments under discussion were started, Professor Gowell had under his supervision about three hundred hens. When the work was closed the experiment station plant had been increased to four or five times its capacity, and Professor Gowell had a large private poultry plant of his own in addition.
It is interesting to note in this connection that the last four years of the records are explained by Professor Gowell as being low, due to various "accidents" (?) It is unreasonable to suppose the true explanation of these "accidents" would be found in connection with the increased responsibility and size of the plant.
The breeding stock sent out by Professor Gowell has given general satisfaction, and was found by Professor Graham of the Ontario Station, as well as by a number of private individuals, to be of superior laying quality to that of the average Barred Rock.
Clearly there is only one way to prove whether Professor Gowell's work has been a wasted effort, and that is for flocks of his strain to be tested at other experiment stations against birds of miscellaneous origin.
That much has been lost to the poultrymen of the country by the recent upheaval at the Maine Station, I believe to be the case, but that does not mean that the men now in charge will not in the future be of great value to the poultry interests. They are, however, in the class of pure scientists rather than applied scientists, but if let alone they will dig out something sooner or later which they or others can apply to the benefit of the industry.
Upon the whole, I think that the present case of the trap-nest method of increasing egg production stands very much as it is has always stood, being a commendable thing for small breeders who could afford the time, but not practical in a large way, except at experiment stations. On a large commercial scale the system of selecting sires by the collective work of his first year's offspring would probably get the quickest results.
The best use of the funds of the people in the promotion of agricultural industries is in the permanent endorsement on the one hand of a few high grade research stations where the deeper theories may be worked out, and on the other the teaching of such good principles and practices as are already known.
The greatest opportunity for Government effort lies in the development demonstration farm work in poultry Just as it is doing with the corn and cotton in the South.