The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-12-28
THIs HIN BEATs rHE REcoRp.
4 Plymouth Rock That Lays 251 Eggs
 in a Year.

A Plymouth Rock That Lays 251 Eggs
 in Year.
 After five years of careful breeding for egg production, regardless of all other accomplishments, Professor George M. Gowell, agricultural expert at the University of Maine, has sue ceeded in obtaining more than forty hens that have yielded more than two hundred eggs apiece in year, and has produced one hen which has laid two hundred and fifty-one eggs within twelve months, thus beating all previ- ous reported records in egg yield. This hen, known to the records as No. 617, is q small Plymouth Rock of pure strain, though not shaped according to the standard type. She is not only under the size demanded for perfect speci- mems of the breed, but her wing bar ring Is imperfect and her neck is tco slim for her body.
 Iii spite Of her defects, as viewed from the standpoint of the fapeier, she is in actual performance the most valu- able hen in the world, being capable under average Maine conditions of re turning to her owners 9 net profit of one hundred and seyenty-six per cent. d pear.
 The figures, which have been passed upon and approved by expert book keepers, are dedueed from counting the average cost of food and subtracting the total erpense of subsistence from the income derived from eggs at the average price paid in Maine, which is eighteen cents a dozen.
 Professor Gowell has devoted him self almost exclusively to breeding hens for specific purpose for the last five years. Beginning with one thousand hens divided into focks of about tWen- ty hens and two cockerels to a pen, he has employed trap nests and. been able to get at the exact performance of eve ry bird.
 The first year the best record was two hundred and twenty eggs, laid by a Plymouth Rock bullet. There were eleven other Plymouth Rock hens that exceeded two hundred eggs each the first year, though of the five hundred White Wyandottes only three reached the two hundred egg class.
 The next season the most prolific hens in their respective classes were put in pens together, and eggs saved from. these were kept for matching, Again the Plymouth Rocks outstripped the Wyandottes in egg yield by great majorities. so from that time on until the end no further attention was paid to the Wyandottes.
 Having matched male and female chickens from the eggs of his hens Of greatest ability to lay eggs, Professor Gowell mated the selected stocks and waited for results. At the end of the fourth year he had produced tWenty- six hens that had laid more than two hundred eggs each in a year, and one hen that beat all previous records by laying two hundred and thirty-eigh eggs. Again making his selection of breeding stock from the most prolific i'll his hens and mating the hens to cockerels from the same strain, he at last secured the most prolific hen in the world, No. SIT.
 h speaking of his labors, Professor Gowell says that the problem of deyel- oping a. flock of hens that will beget chicks to maintain or outstrip the an cestral records, is beset with many dit hculties After reaching a certain point in inbreedtng the physical stan1- Ina of the fowls degenerates. and the birds die from a too intimate mixture of allied bloods.