Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1915-01-08

almost any flock.
is THE 2OO-EGG HEN A MYTH?
A great deal has been said the last
few years about the 2O0-egg hen
Many have proclaimed her virtues
while many have cried fake" A
writer in one of the we'll known poul-
try journals unburdens himself of
several columns of scathing criticism
of all those who claim that anyone
ever had more than a few rare speci-
mems of the 200-egg hen and con-
cludes his remarks with these words:
"Of all the fairy stories ever created
by overweight imaginations, those
about flocks of hens that average 200
eggs each are about the thinnest in
existence. If any one man ever has
two dozen of them on his place I'll
eat them, feathers and ALL
There are plenty of poultrymen,
scattered from Maine to California,
who can give the gentleman in ques-
ton mighty good feast of chicken,
feathers and ALL" 1t is pretty safe
to say that the trouble with the writer
of the criticism is that he has pur-
chased fowls from stock bred for egg
production, put them in poor quar-
ters, paid no attention to the SANTA
ton of the building in which they
were placed, and knew or cared about
as much about what kind of food
they should receive as an Eskimo
would know or care about life in the
tropics.
The 200-egg hen is not a product
of the imagination, nor does she, like
Topsy, Gust grow" She is the prod
uct of intelligent selection and pains
taking care. 1t is not an uncommon
circumstance to find two plats of
ground side by side, planted with the
same seed, watered by the same rains
and warmed by the same sun, that
produce very different results-the
one an abundant crop of grain, the
other an abundant crop of weeds.
The difference comes in the industry
and intelligence of the owner. The
same is often the case with two fiocks
of chickens raised in adjoining yards.
The man who gets the poor crop
blames the soil or the weather, the
man who gets but few eggs blames
the hens or the fellow who sold them
to him.
That hens producing large egg
yield can be and are bred in all parts
of the country admits of no denial.
Breeders who are determined to get
as many dollars from their poultry as
possible are wedding out the drones
from their fiocks by the use of the
trap nest, which makes it possible to
know exactly the number of eggs
laid by each and every fowl. They
are studying their flocks in order to
determine the egg-laying types and
are breeding to produce majority of
such types, Intelligent selection,
year after year, is building up splen-
did egg laying strains. Eggs are set
from only the best layers of the
flock. Foods are studied with care
and scientific knowledge so as to sup
ply the elements needed to produce
eggs. Every detail is as carefully
worked out as the details of great
mercantile business.
Every poultry raiser, large or
small, can do much toward improving
the egg-laying propensties OF his
flock. 1t is not always possible to
use the trap nest That takes more
time than many can afford. 1t does
not pay with a small flock, but he
can study his birds and observe which
hens lay the most eggs. 1t is not
very difficult to determine, where the
flock is small, which hens are good
LAYERS and which are not. NO two
eggs are exactly alike and in short
time one can tell the eggs or the
hens that are making good. NO
tice the type of these prolific layers
and select from young stock those
that are of like type. ponder
little, talk less and work harder
isn't such bad advice after all.