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Show THE EGG-A-DAY LAYING HEN Experiments Show the Egg Yield May Be Greatly Increased by Scientific Selection. ! BY B. E. LASA. Poultry raisers in tho United States are greatly indebted to the thorough-news thorough-news of the tests made at our experimental experi-mental stations for a great many Important Im-portant Improvements In every branch of the poultry industry. These .experimental farms have proved beyond" doubt that by systematic syste-matic feeding and scientific breeding of hens the-latter can be made to greatly Increase their number of eggs and also improve the richness and weight of the same, thereby raising their market , value. ! The gratifying success thus far at-i at-i talned by experiments in the way of Increasing the cgg-producjng qualities of certain breeds of hens has made breeders hopeful of securing .' still greater achievements along the same line in tho near future. Perhaps to no state in the union is due a greater credit than to Maine for the Improvement and betterment generally gen-erally In poultry raising. Professor George Q. Govvell, who died lastsummer, engaged In this Interesting Interest-ing and profitable work and his discoveries dis-coveries influencing the hen's wonderful wonder-ful production of eggs are claiming earnest attention in every section of the country. A summary of the results of a series of experiments shows that of sonr? 2,000 hens placed under observation for longer or shorter periods about twenty had laid more thHn 200 eggs apiece in a year, while two heim, both of Plymouth Rock breed, and both marked according to standard regulations, regu-lations, have too'd out so conspicuously conspicu-ously for their performances that they may be counted among the most profitable profit-able fowls in this country, If not in the world. The special pet of Professor Gow-rll's Gow-rll's heart, and the bird which has demonstrated the successfulness of his untiring efforts and discoveries to make' hens produce a larger and better quality of eggs, is a Barred Plymouth Rock, which yielded 2ftl eggs the first year. She would be regarded as of the egg type by those people who profess to tell the egg-yielding capacity of hens by their forms and markings. A number of other henio'ielded 240, 238 and 235 eggs each for the year, not one, however, producing less than 200. Professor Gowell's methods of selecting se-lecting breeding r-tock for high egg production are to jave the eggs from the hens of greatest egg yield and hatch chicks from these By so doing his experimental peps are now filled with pullets and cockerels cock-erels the ancestors of which came from stock that had given 200 or more eggs in a year. |