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CORNING STRAIN UTILITY COCKEREL
Four Months and Twenty Days Old

THE CORNING
EGG FARM BOOK

BY CORNING HIMSELF

BEING THE COMPLETE AND AUTHENTIC
STORY OF THE CORNING EGG FARM
FROM ITS INCEPTION TO DATE

TOGETHER WITH FULL DESCRIPTION OF THE
METHOD AND SYSTEM THAT HAVE MADE
THIS THE MOST FAMOUS POULTRY
FARM IN THE WORLD

BOUND BROOK, NEW JERSEY
THE CORNING EGG FARM
PUBLISHERS
1912

Copyright, 1912, by
GARDNER CORNING

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTORY

The Method, and the style of the buildings, evolved and worked out on The Corning Egg Farm, when put into book form proved so helpful to so vast a number of poultry keepers, that the sale of this first literature, which for a time was added to as the months went by, reached the enormous total of over 140,000 copies in eighteen months.

The writings were the simple, plain statements of facts, and enabled others who followed them to reach a success which, until this System was used, may have been dreamed of, but was never realized.

The literature from this Farm has gone out over the entire civilized World, and the visitors, who arrive in ever increasing numbers from month to month, come from every quarter of the Globe.

The Corning Egg Farm has been written of in periodicals of every nature, and in almost every language the World over. For the last twelve months the requests for further, and more explicit, detailed information relative to breeding and feeding for eggs, the specialty from which The Corning Egg Farm has never swerved, have become a demand. So that, after mature deliberation, it was decided to write the history of The Corning Egg Farm, from its inception to date, including the work of the last two years, which has never before been fully published.

“The Corning Egg Farm Book by Corning Himself” is to-day the only publication giving facts in regard to the Farm and its unique Method right up to date.

As the book is read it must be borne in mind that, in breeding to produce a great layer, at first very marked increases in the number of eggs during the first ten months of laying may be gained. The general average number of eggs laid each year, from official reports, is less than 100 per hen. On The Corning Egg Farm, when the average had reached 143.25 eggs, the next jump, in the following year, was more than had been expected, and the record of 145.11 eggs for each hen for ten months, though showing an increase apparently small, in reality was a very great advance indeed.

From this time on, the gain, although representing a narrower margin of increase, was in reality a much greater achievement. The trotting horse may serve as an illustration. When Dexter trotted his famous mile he clipped off a number of seconds from the previous record, and it seemed as if it would be a matter of considerable time before his mark would be lowered. But within a comparatively short time a number of trotters turned off a mile in two-ten, and from this figure, within a short period, a large company of famous horses had reached the two-five mark, but every quarter of a second which reduced this mark meant greater achievement in breeding than was represented by the reduction of records from two-sixteen to two-five, and we have not yet seen the horse which, in single harness, without a running mate, can turn the mile track in two minutes flat.

The Corning Egg Farm realizes that from this on improvement will be shown by fractional figures, but these fractions will represent a greater progress than the figures which have gone before.

Two years ago the unequaled results of The Corning Egg Farm had seemed unsurpassable, but to-day we are able to look back from higher ground and see the road over which we have traveled to reach a point very considerably beyond the unequaled position of two years ago.

It is our hope and aim, year by year, to improve the present position. The man who believes he has learned all there is to learn is a failure. The successful man is the one who is sure there is an opportunity to advance considerably beyond the point he has already attained, and The Corning Egg Farm believes this to be true, and has constantly worked with that idea before it.

With an experience back of them of nearly six years the Builders of The Corning Egg Farm know that this Book furnishes the necessary guide for success in poultry culture. What has been, and what is being, done at The Corning Egg Farm is not experimental work. Successful results follow the Method and System employed as surely as day follows night. It is no longer necessary for the novice to try out the various plans proposed to him by the literary poultryman, whose methods are worked out on a mahogany desk, with pen and ink, or more often, perhaps, by dictation to a stenographer.

Years of careful thought and study, and the expenditure of much time and many thousands of dollars in developing the Corning Method have eliminated all necessity for experimental expenditure. The building up of an Egg Farm is within the reach of any man who will follow the Corning plan herein described faithfully and persistently.

The man or woman who determines to pursue some branch of the poultry industry must first decide what particular branch.

Shall it be to raise poultry for market?

If so, what? Squab Broilers? Soft Roasters? Or Capons?

Perhaps all of these.

Some utility line is the best to start with.

Fresh, sanitary eggs are a necessity and command the highest price in the market, daily, for spot cash, just as readily as stocks and bonds command a daily cash value in any financial market. There can be no better proof of the truth of this than the success of The Corning Egg Farm.

PULLET RANGE &
COLONY HOUSES

EACH HOUSE 6′ × 10′
BUILT ON SKIDS
MOVABLE

In whatever line a beginner decides to start he needs to go straight down that line without deviation, taking as his motto, “This one thing I do.” In the fullness of time, having established a reputation for the quality of his eggs and birds, the demand for his eggs for hatching purposes and for his birds as foundation stock for other people, will naturally come to him, and it is very profitable.

One certain fact should be settled in the understanding of every beginner, to wit: it is not possible to invest from five hundred to five thousand dollars in the Poultry Industry and double your money in the first year, or even to earn 50% on the investment. Neither is it possible with $300.00 to build a Laying House with a capacity for five hundred birds, if the house is properly built for warmth and meets sanitary conditions.

Housing for hens must be free from dampness. Concrete absorbs dampness, therefore, avoid it.

Any person starting in the poultry industry for profit, and, intending to follow it for a livelihood should begin in a small way, realizing that, like any other business venture, it must be built up and grow from year to year, and that, certainly for the first year, no money can be drawn out for living expenses.

These statements are made clearly and emphatically because quite the contrary has been given out as a fact. Such reckless representations, because untrue, are misleading and injurious to both those engaged in the poultry industry and also to those who contemplate entering it, and should be branded as false, and the authors of such statements should be prohibited from using the United States Mails.

We are not, and make no pretense of being, philanthropists. We have written this Book primarily with the expectation that it will make The Corning Egg Farm and the Corning Method of Poultry Culture even more widely and impressively known to the World, and so benefit us by increased demand for our stock, eggs, and all other goods we may have for sale.

Secondly, we know that the Book will benefit others if they will follow the Corning Method and System herein laid down, and so prove of mutual advantage to readers and authors as well.

The Single Comb White Leghorn is par excellence the Egg Machine, provided always first class and the best strain of birds is procured, and the Corning Strain, without doubt or question, is the very best strain of Single Comb White Leghorns yet developed anywhere in the World.

We know this new, large, complete and thoroughly up to date Book will be the means of bringing us, and our unequaled Strain of Single Comb White Leghorns, into favor with thousands of people who, as yet, do not know us, just as the publishing of the small and older booklet put us into touch with other thousands who are now doing a prosperous business by the use of this same Corning Strain Single Comb White Leghorns, and by following the Corning Method now more completely elaborated and explained in “The Corning Egg Farm Book by Corning Himself.”

Edward and Gardner Corning.

The Corning Egg Farm,
Bound Brook, New Jersey.
December, 1911.

The Corning Egg Farm Book

CHAPTER I
The Building of the Corning Egg Farm

Having determined, in 1905, to engage in some business connected with the feathered tribe, we decided to try out the squab proposition versus market poultry. After searching over a period of many months, in various parts of the country, with the idea of finding a place where the existing buildings might be utilized for our needs, we finally were obliged to abandon this idea and purchased, early in the year 1906, twelve and a half acres of land, now known as Sunny Slope Farm. This property lies about two miles west of Bound Brook, New Jersey, which town is reached by the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Philadelphia & Reading and the Lehigh Valley Railroads, and the Farm is most accessible, as it is on the trolley line which connects Bound Brook and Somerville.

In the early Spring of 1906 we began our buildings, erecting a house, for raising squabs, which would accommodate five hundred pairs of breeding birds, a hen house of the scratching shed variety, capable of accommodating some two hundred and fifty hens, and a work-shop with living apartments for the resident man.

We also sunk a well one hundred and seventeen feet deep, erecting over it a sixty foot wind-mill tower, which carries an eighteen hundred gallon tank. From this pipes were laid to convenient parts of the property.

Three hundred pairs of Homer pigeons were placed in the house built for that purpose, and we went diligently to work to prove that this was the quick and easy way to wealth which the ingenious writers of squab literature proved so conclusively on paper.

On the chicken side of the experiment we seemed to lean (possibly because of the fact that squabs take one into the slaughter house business) towards one or more of the market breeds, and, to meet the needs of this part of the business, we understood that any of the “Rock” family were best for the purpose.

Started with 60 Buff Rock Eggs

We purchased an incubator with the capacity of sixty eggs, being fearful of attempting the operation of a larger machine, because, like a great many novices, we had the feeling that an incubator was a very dangerous thing, and that anyone without a vast amount of experience should not attempt to handle it. We placed in this diminutive machine sixty Buff Rock eggs, and obtained a very fair hatch. With daily contact our fear of the machine decreased, and we exchanged it for one with a capacity of one hundred and twenty-five eggs, and this, in turn, was exchanged for one holding two hundred and fifty eggs.

INTERIOR STERILE LAYING HOUSE NO. 3 IN 1910

We obtained fairly large flocks of youngsters that season, but, as we had the usual hallucination that poultry culture was really a miracle, and required neither work, capital, nor brains, that all you had to do was to accept the profit and the chickens did it all themselves, we did not get so very far. The growth of the birds was so slow they did not reach a profitable weight until the broiler market had dropped the price to its lowest level. The pullets which we carried through the winter never produced an egg, for the simple reason that we had never studied the question out as to how the hen produces an egg. In other words, our lack of knowledge of the right methods was the reason for charging up a considerable loss instead of profit so far as the first season’s work with hens went.

We very early discovered there must have been a considerable amount of fiction in the writings on the squab industry. One reads that a pair of pigeons eats nothing like the amount of food which is required for one hen, and that they never eat more than their exact wants require, and that when they have young in the nest, this amount is very slightly increased. We found, however, that they ate in season and out of season. In fact one recalls, in this connection, and with considerable amusement, the song, in the light opera “Wang,” of the elephant who ate all day and the elephant who ate all night.

During our work with pigeons we tried out a number of different varieties: Homers, Dragoons, Runt Dragoon crosses, Homer Runt crosses, Maltese Hens, and the various crosses with Runt Dragoons; also Carneaux. We were led to buy these fancy breeds through the stories of extreme prices paid for large squabs, and we bred some heavy weights only to find, from the commission man who made a specialty of these birds, that it was impossible to pay the price which such birds were really worth, as trade for this class was extremely limited.

Very early in our experience we realized that the poultry side of our experiment was very much more to our liking and offered so much greater and more profitable outlook for our energies that we rang down the curtain on Squab raising—and turned our attention exclusively to the Hen.

While our minds were still running in the line of poultry for market purposes we tried out the Black Orpingtons, the idea being that, on account of their size, they would make ideal roasting fowls. We found, however, that they were a very much inbred variety, and it was almost impossible to hatch the eggs. Out of one hundred eggs, for which we paid twenty dollars, eight chicks hatched, and these were not of sufficient vitality to live.

ENTRANCE TO THE FARM IN 1909

More Money in Eggs

During all this time, however, we were studying the poultry question, and had arrived at the conclusion that there was more money in eggs, properly produced and marketed, than in any other branch. One of the difficulties we met with in our investigations was the fact that so many different writers had such a variety of ideas on the same subject, and practically no two of them agreed on any given part of poultry culture. What seemed to us even more confusing was that, in most cases, the writer summed up his article by contradicting everything he had said in the previous chapters. We were finally forced to the conclusion that the raising of poultry had not yet been reduced to a science, but was almost entirely made up of guesses. In our investigations, however, we found in the writings of the late Prof. Gowell, of Maine, an entirely different condition. He was the first man, so far as our observations went, who worked on the principle that effect followed cause, in poultry as in everything else. We studied his bulletins with great interest, and decided we would endeavor to prove that the same results gotten by him could be duplicated by others.

Adopted White Leghorns

We had also been studying the condition of the egg market, so far as New York and vicinity was concerned, and had found that this market paid a premium for a white shelled egg. This, then, was the determining factor in the selection of the breed of fowls, and after gathering all the information we could regarding birds which laid white eggs, we were satisfied, taking everything into consideration, that for an Egg Farm, the Single Comb White Leghorn, was the only fowl.

In the Spring of 1907 we collected a breeding pen, from different sources, of thirty Single Comb White Leghorn yearling hens, and three strong, vigorous cockerels. We purchased an incubator holding three hundred and ninety eggs, and three out-door brooders, and built a number of small Colony Houses to move the birds into as soon as they were large enough to be transferred from the brooders. The hens chosen for the initial breeding pen of the Farm were most carefully selected, for even then we had in mind the result which we intended to reach, as to the ultimate type of layer on the Farm. We placed the resulting eggs from this breeding pen in the incubator, using a primitive turning machine to keep them in proper condition until the requisite number was acquired to fill the incubator. Our hatch was a very good one, and we succeeded in raising a fair number of the youngsters hatched.

During the Summer we erected what is now known on the Farm as the No. 1 Laying House. This was built one hundred feet long, by twelve feet wide, and on the same twenty foot section construction which has proved to be so successful a plan for poultry houses. The one mistake in this house was its width, and that has now been remedied by widening it to the standard, sixteen feet in width, and sixty feet in length have been added to it.

The youngsters on range grew rapidly. We marketed the cockerels at between eight and ten weeks of age, and they weighed from one and a quarter pounds to a pound and three quarters. These were sold “on the hoof,” as we had decided for the future to do nothing in the slaughter house line, and to this decision we have strictly adhered, shipping alive also all culls and birds of any age showing imperfections, the majority of our stock finding ready market for breeding purposes when we are ready to dispose of it.

As a correct record of the mortality of our hatching, and the number of cockerels marketed, had been kept, we found that we should have in the Colony Houses about two hundred and twenty-five pullets to place in No. 1 House.

In catching up the birds we found that the number figured on was about right. These two hundred and twenty-five birds went into the House, October 31st. They were already laying on the Range.

First Use of Roosting Closets

It was a very interesting sight to us to watch these birds at work in the first house which had ever been successfully built without partitions, in other words, one large flock with the run of the entire house. Others had tried it, and had failed. They had had draughts, and had found the house, therefore, very undesirable. We conceived the idea of roosting closets, with a partition extending some little distance beyond the dropping boards, running from the ceiling to the floor, thus breaking the house up so far as extended circulation of air went, and at the same time giving the birds the benefit of the larger area.

It was also a matter of great interest to two novices to watch the egg output in this first house. On the first day of November five eggs were gathered; on the second, seven; the third saw a drop to four. Of course these pullets had been giving us more eggs than this on the Range, but a transfer from one place to another always means a set-back to a layer.

The middle of the month saw the hens producing above seventeen eggs a day. December was started with an output of forty, and from that the birds ran into larger numbers daily until the last of December, when, with the mercury registering well down around zero, they were turning out one hundred eggs a day. The increase in the egg output continued steadily, and we found that March was the record month, but the highest single day was in April, when the pen produced one hundred and seventy eggs.

AS YOU APPROACH THE CORNING EGG FARM FROM THE PUBLIC HIGHWAY,
IN 1911
Showing 264-Foot Brooder House, Breeding Cockerel House and Office

We were well satisfied with the result of the Winter’s work with these pullets, and, although we did not have the knowledge that has since come to us in feeding for eggs, the output was a most creditable one, and we found a ready market at a good price.

Early in the Fall we had mapped out our plans for a very decided increase in plant for the coming season. The excavation for the Incubator Cellar, sixteen by fifty feet, had been made, and the Brooder House above it was enclosed without difficulty before weather of any great severity overtook us. We were blessed with a very late Fall, and mild weather continued, with only occasional dips, well into December, 1907.

We installed in the Cellar ten incubators, with a capacity of three hundred and ninety eggs each. The Brooder House, with its arrangement for Hovers and Nursery pens, was all completed, and the month of March found us placing eggs in the machines.

In the Fall of 1907 we had enlarged our Breeding House, so that we were able to place in it some two hundred and fifty breeders. Out of our original pen of thirty, we had lost two. From different sources we bought yearling hens, and with our original twenty-eight, made up the breeding pen.

Of course, as we had planned to endeavor to produce some three thousand pullets for the Fall of 1908, we were obliged to very materially supplement the product of our own breeders, with eggs from other sources, and this we did, buying eggs from different breeders, in widely separated territories.

As the hatching season advanced we added one more incubator to our battery of ten, and we placed in these incubators a total of eleven thousand eight hundred and four eggs, of which two thousand and ninety-six showed dead germs and clear eggs on the fourteenth day test.

The resulting number of chicks placed in the Brooder House was five thousand eight hundred and sixty-six for the entire season.

We found that the eggs purchased did not produce anything like the number of chicks, that is, strong, livable chicks, that did the eggs coming from our own breeding pen, which proved to us that the method of feeding and caring for breeding stock, pursued by others, fell very far short of the results gotten by our own methods.

We Count Only Livable Chicks

The lesson of incubation, which it is so difficult to make people understand, is not so much a question of how many chicks may be hatched from a given number of eggs as of how many strong, livable chicks are brought out. We very early in our hatching experience decided to count only those chicks, which were strong, and apparently capable of a steady growth and a sturdy maturity. Thus, the count of the number of chicks produced, does not really show the number which came out of the shells.

OFFICE BUILDING

We were extremely fortunate in handling the youngsters in the Brooder House, and our mortality was very low, and when the youngsters were placed in the Colony Houses, which had been built during the early Spring months, and placed out on the Range in readiness for them, they were a sturdy, vigorous crowd.

Percentage of Cockerels Low

The number of cockerels was very low, and these, as rapidly as they developed, were taken away from the pullets and placed in a fattening pen which had been provided, and as our stock was still an “unknown quantity” in Poultrydom, we marketed the larger part of them at broiler size.

The pullets came on finely, and the records show that a large number of them came into eggs when they were a few days over four months of age.

Through the connivance of an employé we made a heavy loss in the way of theft, and, when the final round-up of the pullets came, we found we had one thousand nine hundred and fifty-three.

During the Summer, we had built the No. 2 Laying House, sixteen feet wide by one hundred and sixty feet long, and in this house the first fifteen hundred pullets were installed, the balance going into No. 1 Laying House.

A number of visitors had called at the Farm during the Summer of 1908, and we had listened to the different stories of the ease with which five thousand laying pullets were produced annually, but at the end of this season we had much more respect for the number five thousand than we ever had before, and realized very fully what it meant to produce that number of females each year.

With the placing of these fifteen hundred pullets in this House of one hundred and sixty feet in length by sixteen feet wide, without being divided into separate pens, each hen having the entire run of the House and no more (that is, she did not leave the house for a yard, but stayed right in that space and did her work), we accomplished what, from the standpoint of all authorities on the subject of Poultry, was an impossible thing to do, and have the hen produce anything. And yet each hen had only two and one third square feet of floor space, which included the dropping boards.

The secret of being able to work the hen successfully in such a limited space per bird is in the length of the house. In reality, every bird has one hundred and sixty feet by sixteen feet in which to exercise and roam.

The four hundred and fifty-three pullets which were placed in No. 1 Laying House were given the entire run of this house, of one hundred feet by twelve feet, and yet the Egg Record for the ten months, in which these birds never left either house, is rather in favor of the house containing the fifteen hundred pullets. The average number of eggs per pullet in these houses, from December 1st, 1908, to September 30th, 1909, was 143.25. Many people who had seen the No. 2 House filled with the fifteen hundred pullets could hardly believe what they saw.

The Great Flock System Succeeds

The extreme health and great vigor of the birds was evident to anyone who looked in through the wire doors. Articles were written in numerous papers stating that the thing was impossible, and that, before many months, absolute failure would result. But in spite of all the prophecies the great flock system, in the Corning style House, proved by its great success, that a decided forward step had been made in economical management and housing of poultry.

We had gone ahead handling poultry in just the same way that any business would be handled, plus the scientific study of the anatomy of the hen, and what it was necessary to breed in order to accomplish a great success as a producer of large, white, uniform eggs, with the ability added to that formula, of turning them out in large quantities.

Callers at the Farm brought very forcibly home to us the fact, then quite unappreciated by us, that the methods employed, and the results obtained, were very remarkable from the standpoint of anything done in Poultry Culture up to that time. It was pointed out that in almost every other case it was not known by the poultryman just where he stood at any time of the year, let alone being able to tell where he stood every day of the year. The success of The Corning Egg Farm really has that feature as its foundation stone.

Before the close of the ten months of laying of the 1953 pullets we had received a number of overtures to put our methods and results into a book, and, after a time, such a book was written. The tremendous sale and success of that book is now a matter of history, and the great number of people who were helped to better things in poultry, and the still greater number of novices who were started on the road, were enabled, through this book, to reach a success which, as many of them testify, would have been impossible without it. In eighteen months over one hundred and forty thousand copies of this first book were sold. Hundreds of people came to the Farm to find out for themselves whether or not the statements in the book were true, and these people found everything, down to the smallest detail, just exactly as represented.

Foreigners Visit the Farm

The Visitors’ Register, which is kept at the Farm, shows callers from almost every nook and corner of the Globe. In Scotland, a short distance from Glasgow, there is now almost a perfect duplicate of Sunny Slope Farm. The owner, who has twice crossed the ocean and come to the Farm, states that if you were blindfolded and taken from Glasgow the three miles out to his property it would be quite impossible for you to tell whether you were in New Jersey or Scotland, so absolutely alike are the buildings in every detail.

BREEDING COCKERELS, FALL OF 1909

In England, a short distance from Tunbridge, the Corning Laying House is again found. At this Farm both White and Black Leghorns are carried, and the owners write that they are meeting with great success in following the Corning Method.

Investigated for Germany

Germany sent a man who spent twelve months investigating the different methods of poultry raising and housing, and he visited all the plants of any note whatever from the Atlantic to the Pacific, including Canada, down to the Gulf of Mexico. He did not make his mission known, and it was only after his return to his native country that his identity was disclosed. His report is of more than passing interest to The Corning Egg Farm, as it states that the Method and System envolved on The Corning Egg Farm surpasses anything that has as yet come under his observation. The investigator is not only conversant with what he saw in the line of poultry breeding during his twelve months’ sojourn in America, but he is thoroughly posted in regard to everything in Europe.

The pullets were hardly placed in the Nos. 1 and 2 Laying Houses, in the Fall of 1908, before we began to plan for the Spring of 1909. We had enlarged the Breeding House again, so that we now had housed some four hundred and seventy-five yearling and two year old hens. These were made up from our breeding pen of the year before, and as many of our two hundred and twenty-five pullets as qualified. We bought a few other yearling hens from different sources, and likewise the necessary complement of cockerels.

Selection of Cockerels

We gave great care to the selection of the males heading the breeding pen, every bird having perfect head points, being strong and vigorous, and as large as we could find him, where we felt sure that no outside blood had been introduced.

The Brooder House during the Fall, was materially added to, giving us twenty Hover Pens, three feet wide, and twelve Nursery Pens, each nearly five feet wide, this giving us a Brooder House 118 feet long by 16 feet wide.

We again this year (1909) supplemented our own breeding pen with purchases of eggs from different sources.

Pullets Lay in 129 Days

Our hatches this Spring were very successful, and the chicks which went up into the Brooder House were strong and vigorous. The mortality was low, and when placed on Range they grew rapidly. The pullets came into eggs, as they had in the two previous years, within a few days after they passed the four months’ mile-stone.

We had added some six Colony Houses to our range equipment. The building originally designed for pigeons we planned to change over into a Breeding House, for, in the Fall of 1909, we would have a sufficient number of yearling hens to carry quite a breeding establishment. This house was about completed in the month of May, when it mysteriously took fire, and was a complete loss. Fortunately the fire broke out at about ten o’clock in the morning, and, by the timely assistance of the boys of the Wilson Military Academy, under the able direction of the Military Officers of that Academy, we were able to confine it to this one building in spite of the fact that a high wind was blowing, which carried the sparks directly on to the other buildings. The water supply on the Farm proved more than adequate to the necessities of the occasion, and the loss was entirely covered by insurance.

As we desired to recognize the services of the young men, and at the suggestion of the Commanding Officer, medals were struck off commemorative of the fire and of the bravery displayed by these young men at this time, and were presented to them.

An addition to the Breeding House, extending over the site of the burned building, was immediately erected, and the small building which had been used as a fattening pen for cockerels was rebuilt, and became the breeding pen for the production of unrelated cockerels.

Also during this season the No. 3 Laying House was built, this being an exact duplicate of the No. 2 House.

Our selection of Breeders for 1910 was of course made from the birds which had completed their first ten months of pullet laying, in the houses Nos. 1 and 2. The mortality during these months had been about 7 per cent. With our method of selection only 950 of these birds qualified to be used as yearling breeders, and these were placed in the Breeding House which had been prepared for them. We had made a most careful selection of cockerels, and these we had reared in two Colony Houses, placed in a large yard, where we were planning to eventually erect a Cockerel House for the housing of cockerels specially selected for breeders.

The balance of the birds from Nos. 1 and 2, together with our breeders of 1909, were sold, and we were able to face the hatching season of 1910 with a very decided step forward towards the realization of the ideal yearling breeder, which The Corning Egg Farm is working nearer to each season.

INTERIOR LAYING HOUSE NO. 2 IN 1910

We placed in the Laying Houses Nos. 2 and 3 about 2750 pullets, and our respect for the man who could successfully, yearly, produce and raise to maturity five thousand pullets, increased materially.

Keeping Down Labor Bill

The question of keeping down the labor bill on the Farm has at all times been a matter of careful study, and the machinery which is in use is of large capacity, enabling us to turn out whatever may be required in a very short space of time, and allowing the men to get at other work. As an illustration; the Clover Cutter on the Farm has a capacity of 3000 pounds an hour, cut in one-fourth-inch lengths, which enables us, when we are cutting green food, to turn out the amount required for the day, fill the tubs, and have it on the way to the Laying Houses, in less than fifteen minutes.

The question of economy in time in handling the Incubator Cellar had been a problem, which we finally solved by piping gas into the Cellar and Brooder House, from the mains which are laid in the road passing the Farm. Thus we did away with the danger of fire from sixteen incubator lamps (for we now had in the cellar sixteen machines) and the twenty Hover lamps, and the time and labor of cleaning and filling them. We placed a governor on the gas main, so that it was impossible to increase the pressure at any time of the day or night, and the gas worked most satisfactorily in incubation and brooding.

The extensions on the Farm planned for 1910 were a Cockerel House, for the housing of breeding cockerels, and the widening and lengthening of No. 1 Laying House. These alterations were made in No. 1, so that it was an exact counterpart of Nos. 2 and 3. We also planned, as soon as the breeding season was over, and the 1910 breeding pen was shipped to the various buyers who had purchased these birds for August delivery (and the entire pen was sold early in 1910), to add another section to the Breeder House, and to build a few more Colony Houses. Then we built what we thought would be an adequate Office to handle the business of the Farm, but which has since proved large enough for only one quarter of the present requirements. We increased the size of the Egg Packing Room, and installed a freezer with a capacity of over two thousand pounds of green bone. This practically covers the enlargements on the plant for 1910.

Adopted Hot Water Incubators

For three years we had been investigating quietly the so-called Mammoth Incubators, or in other words, the Coal Heated, Hot Water Incubator, and before the close of the hatching season of 1911 we had decided to install two such machines in a cellar 146 feet long by 22 feet wide—this cellar to be built so as to allow us to extend the present Brooder House to the same length and width as the cellar.

This cellar has since been constructed, with a Brooder House over it, so that we now have capacity for the incubation of 15,600 eggs at one time.

The Hot Water System for heating the air supplying the Hovers has also been installed, and the Brooder House now has a capacity of some 12,000 youngsters, before it is necessary to move any of them to the Range.

The Breeder House has again been enlarged, and, with the addition, a year hence, of another Breeding House, which is planned to be 180 feet long by 16 feet wide, and a larger house for the breeding of unrelated cockerels, The Corning Egg Farm will have reached the limit planned for since the inception of the Farm. We shall then have a capacity of 4500 sterile pullets, 3500 yearling hens for breeding purposes, and housing for 1200 cockerels.

Why Great Farms Fail

One reads of Poultry Farms carrying anywhere from twenty to forty thousand layers. Experience has taught us that the plant that gets beyond the size where those financially interested can supervise and know the condition of the Farm from one end to another daily, falls down of its own weight, as it is impossible to find men, unless financially interested, who will look after the endless details, which spell success or ruin on a large poultry plant.

The planning and designing of all buildings on The Corning Egg Farm was done by ourselves, and all the construction has been done under our personal supervision. In the first two years we did not contract even the labor, employing simply “handy men” who worked with us under our instructions. Latterly, with the large amount of routine and office work pressing upon us, we found it to be wise economy to contract the labor, ourselves supplying the material and supervising the work.

The buildings, with the arrangement of all equipment, are built in accordance with ideas thought and worked out by ourselves, on lines which seemed to us common sense, and economical in time and money for the handling of Poultry.

Until within the last two years we had never seen another poultry farm, and those we have seen have only strengthened our conviction that no serious error has been made in laying out The Corning Egg Farm Plant.

CHAPTER II
Egg Farming the Most Profitable Branch of Poultry Keeping

The profits are surer and larger. The reason this is not more widely known is because, in the past, few people have been able to resist the temptation of attempting to cover a number of the different branches of poultry culture. They have tried to get into the “fancy,” and have dreamed of taking a blue ribbon at Madison Square Garden, or at some other large Show. Then the broiler branch has engrossed their attention, and from that they have gone on to soft roasters, and the other phases of the slaughter house side of poultry for market purposes, and they have endeavored to cover all the different branches from which money is made in poultry, while entirely overlooking the fact that this is an age of specialization, and that the person who would succeed in any business must make up his mind to follow one branch of it, and bring that branch up to the highest efficiency.

Developing the Great Layer

From the start the Builders of The Corning Egg Farm, at Bound Brook, N. J., realized these conditions, and were never led into side issues but gave their entire thought and attention to the development of a great layer, realizing that if this was to be accomplished everything except an egg must be considered a by-product, and disposed of along the line of least resistance: in short carrying out the Scriptural injunction, “This one thing I do.” This one thought has been so successfully adhered to that the development of The Corning Egg Farm in five years has been remarkable in its production of the greatest laying type of hen yet produced, the Corning Strain Single Comb White Leghorn, placing the Farm head and shoulders above any other Egg Farm anywhere in the Country.

Egg Farming is profitable not only when carried on in a large way, but, to the suburban dweller, a small number of hens in the back yard is a profitable investment, and the system, as worked out on The Corning Egg Farm, succeeds with a few hens, and enables the owner of a small plot of land to always have sanitary, fresh eggs, to reduce his grocery bills, and materially increase the pleasure of suburban life.

Corning Method in Small Flocks

Two illustrations of the working out of the Corning Method in a small way would doubtless be of interest. While it is true that the 16 feet wide House is the most desirable from all standpoints, the length of the house may be anything from 20 feet to 200 feet, as the house is of sectional construction, 20 feet being a section.

In the back yard of a gentleman living in Bound Brook was kept a small pen of birds, in all eighteen, composed of hens and pullets. These were a mixture of Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds. The pullets were of early hatch and should have come into eggs at least in the first week of October. The hens completed the moult much earlier than is generally expected, and still the owner was without eggs.

Different methods, and nostrums of guaranteed egg producing foods, were tried, but all without success. After a call at The Corning Egg Farm, he stated that in one week and three days the first eggs were found in the nests, and the continuance of the Corning Method of feeding and working the hens produced eggs steadily through the Winter months, beginning with the middle of December, and the birds continued to lay more than an average output until they went into the moult the following Fall.

A gentleman, who has a small place within a mile of The Corning Egg Farm, some four years ago purchased hatching eggs from our Breeding Pen, and the following Fall he also bought a small pen of Breeders. He aims to produce and carry through the Winter about one hundred pullets, and for four years now, by adhering strictly to the Corning Method, and with the Corning Strain Single Comb White Leghorns, he has met with a success almost phenomenal.

Before he became conversant with the Corning Method (and with the stock he was then carrying before beginning with the Corning Strain) his success was represented by zero, but to-day his balance sheets, which he displays with great pride, are extremely interesting reading.

This gives a very fair illustration of two small flocks of different size, and of the results obtained.

On Large Farms

Turning now to the story of two egg farms which have been built within the last two years, one in New Jersey and the other in Pennsylvania, we find again most interesting and successful conditions.

The Pennsylvania Farm started its first season by the purchase from us of fifteen hundred hatching eggs. The owner came to our Farm and asked our assistance in planning his campaign of growth. His hatch from the fifteen hundred eggs, and he never had run an incubator before, was some 75 per cent. of all eggs set, and, by following the feeding methods prescribed, his mortality was very low. He placed in his Laying House that Fall some five hundred pullets, and in July, 1910, he had sent us an order for three thousand eggs for the season of 1911.

As he told this story on a visit to The Corning Egg Farm, in the month of February, 1911, he had done the almost impossible, simply by following the Method laid down in the literature published by The Corning Egg Farm, and had made money from the second month that his pullets had begun to lay. The quality of his eggs was such that he took over the trade of the largest hotel in a neighboring city, so far as he was able to supply their wants.

PANORAMIC VIEW OF PART OF THE CORNING EGG FARM, PHOTOGRAPHED IN OCTOBER, 1910.

The Jersey Egg Farm referred to is owned and run by a gentleman of advanced years. His first season’s start was on a very small scale, but he was most successful in bringing his pullets to the laying point, and getting a remarkable output of eggs through the Winter months. In his district he was able to dispose of all his eggs to people who came to the door and paid the cash for them at prices ten to twenty cents per dozen above the market. The Corning Egg Farm received from him a very large order for hatching eggs for the season of 1911, and this Fall he had an elegant flock of pullets ready to house and turn out an ever increasing supply of eggs for the coming Winter.

These four illustrations are a few of the many which The Corning Egg Farm is able to point to as the result of the use of its Method.

CHAPTER III
What is a Fresh Egg?—An Egg Should be Sanitary as Well as Fresh

The answer one generally gets to this query is, an egg so many hours old, and, as the average grocer prints the card, “just laid.” “Fresh” and “new laid,” as applied to eggs, mean nothing. Hens improperly fed lay eggs not only often unpalatable, but that are carriers of disease. The hen’s productive organs are so constructed that bacteria which she may take into her crop with impure food are passed into the egg.

Manure Drainage to Drink

An egg being eighty per cent. water, consider the effect on eggs produced by the farmers’ flocks, where the water supply is mainly pools in the barn yard, which receive the drainage from the manure piles, and where the principal food supply is scratched out of manure heaps, consisting of undigested grain that has already passed through another animal.

A hen must have a large proportion of animal food to lay well, and to produce rich, nutritious eggs.

Diseased Meat to Eat

Consider what in many instances this animal food consists of, carcasses of glandered horses, tuberculous cows, and putrid and maggoty meat. If a dish of putrid beef were placed on the table before people they would shrink back in horror, yet they will eat eggs which have been produced by hens which have been fed on these identical ingredients, apparently entirely oblivious of the fact that the hen performs no miracle in the production of an egg, but simply manufactures the egg from the materials, whatever they may be, which she gathers into her system.

As the Food, so the Egg

The Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, says that while such conditions undoubtedly do exist it cannot be proven that such eggs are shipped from State to State, and that, therefore, it does not come under the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and cannot be controlled under the National Pure Food Law.

What is needed, then, is to know that eggs are not only fresh, but sanitary. The Corning Egg Farm layers are fed the best quality of grains and meals that can be procured. The animal food is supplied by fresh, green bone, cut and prepared daily. This bone comes from inspected cattle only, and the Farm is equipped with a large freezing plant for the purpose of carrying the bone in a perfectly fresh condition. The hens are housed and cared for under absolutely sanitary conditions.

A Perfect Egg a Rarity

The growing interest in Poultry Culture is bringing the Public to a realization of the fallacy of the old idea that “any egg not rotten must be a good egg.” Comparatively few people have ever eaten a perfect egg. With the growth of real egg farms through the country, the time is approaching when the words “fresh” or “strictly fresh” will no longer mean anything to the purchaser, and the word “sanitary” will take their place, and in some way the egg trade will be controlled, and the grocer, and butcher, and peddlers of eggs, will not be allowed to put cold storage eggs out as a sanitary article of food.

Some of the New York papers are now beginning to agitate the question of Sanitary Eggs, notably the New York Commercial, which is a leader in this educational line. The day is coming when the person who is operating an egg farm that is known to produce the egg of real quality will have no difficulty in obtaining the price that such an article is really worth.

Unlimited Demand for Quality Eggs

There is an unlimited demand for an egg which can be depended upon as to quality. The difficulty that the seller meets with when going to a hotel or restaurant is the fact that the proprietor has been fooled many times. As they have put it, “people start well, and for a time keep up the quantity, and the quality is all right, but when the stringent time of year comes they fall down as to quantity, and a little later they have evidently been tempted to keep up the quantity by gathering eggs from other sources than their own, and then we meet with the questionable pleasure of having a patron at our tables return to us an egg just ready to hatch.”

When one seeks private trade for the output of his hennery it is possible to obtain extreme prices, provided the buyers can be convinced of the absolutely high quality of what they are purchasing.

In New York, last year, for a few weeks, a man, gotten up as a veritable “hay-seed” farmer, sold eggs from house to house through the streets running from 45th to 65th, in large quantities. They were all marked in red ink with the date on which they were said to be laid.

He did not last very long, and his liberty was curtailed, and for some time he graced one of the free institutions where iron bars obstruct the view of the surrounding country. It developed that this enterprising crook was buying the culls from cold storage houses, and, in a basement on 43d Street near the North River, he had eight girls steadily at work marking the alleged dates when these eggs were laid.

The difficulty seems to be that when you reach the question of a “fresh egg,” everyone, almost, becomes a fakir. The grocers, many of them, buy case after case of storage eggs, and, when the retail price reaches sixty-five cents a dozen for so called “fresh eggs,” they are supplying all buyers with the cold storage product, in quantities practically unlimited. Their counters are always decorated with baskets of these “just laid, perfectly fresh eggs.”

Therefore, it becomes necessary for the Egg Farmer to satisfy customers, beyond peradventure, as to his ability to himself supply the goods which he contracts to deliver, and after once doing this his experience will be the same as that of The Corning Egg Farm, not to be able to keep and properly look after enough hens to turn out half the eggs he could sell at profitable prices, because the price he asks does not discourage customers who are willing to pay well for a really satisfactory article.

The following is the basis on which The Corning Egg Farm makes all its contracts for table eggs.

Sunny Slope Farm
(The Great Corning Egg Farm)
PRODUCES
Eggs for the Table
“WHICH CANNOT BE SURPASSED”

THEY ARE:

WHITE,
STERILE,
SANITARY,
FRESH,

STERILE.—The hens producing Eggs for the Table are housed by themselves and their eggs do not contain the life germ, giving a purity not otherwise obtained.

SANITARY,—because of the clean, fresh air housing and best quality of pure food and water. People are learning the necessity of investigating the source from which Eggs come more carefully than milk or water, as it is now known that Eggs can be a greater carrier of disease than either milk or water.

FRESH,—because eggs laid one day are delivered the next.

OUR METHODS and feeding formulas give these eggs a delicious flavor, peculiarly their own.

EVERY EGG sold by us is produced on Sunny Slope Farm, and is guaranteed as above stated.

ONCE BOUGHT, ALWAYS SOUGHT

Sunny Slope Farm

BOUND BROOK NEW JERSEY.

CHAPTER IV
Preparation of Eggs for Market

If high prices are to be obtained for eggs they must not only be good, but have a look of “class,” to the would be purchaser. They must be spotlessly clean, and, as far as possible, each dozen should present a uniform appearance.

One is able to know each day the exact price of the class of eggs which he is selling, for the Egg Market is like the Stock or Bond Market, and one who is in the Egg business is dealing with a commodity which at all times is salable at a price. At The Corning Egg Farm we receive daily the reports from the Exchange, as given in the New York Commercial. These are cut out and placed in a scrap book, so that, from year to year, we are able to tell exactly what the conditions were on any given date, and form a very close idea as to what can be expected in regard to prices. And so we have an absolute basis of prices for contracts.

The nearest quotation to the egg which is produced by The Corning Egg Farm is what is termed “State Pa. and nearby Hennery, white, fancy, large.” This we take as a basis and arrange our prices from it daily, adding the advance which the Corning sanitary table egg brings.

30 DOZEN CORNING SANITARY FRESH EGGS READY TO SHIP

It is quite impossible, with the growth of the country and the demand for better things in all food products, to over-do the production of Sanitary Eggs.

The following pages show the manner in which the quotations are placed in our Scrap Book.

CHAPTER V
The Selection of the Breed—The Strain is of Utmost Importance

To a man engaging in any branch of Poultry Culture the selection of the proper breed is of grave importance, but to the man who is planning an Egg Farm it is without doubt of graver importance than where any other branch of the poultry business is to be carried on.

For many years different localities have believed that there was very decided merit in the different colored egg shells. The Culture of Boston was certain that the dark shell contained an egg with a richer flavor, while New York and vicinity would believe in nothing but the white shelled egg. It is, however, noted with interest that the Culture of Boston has discovered that the color of the shell really has nothing to do with the flavor of the egg, and to-day the rigid adherence to a premium paid for the dark shelled egg, generally throughout the New England States, is rapidly passing into history.

THE STRAIN THAT MAKES THE CORNING EGG FARM FAMOUS

As The Corning Egg Farm was located within a few miles of New York City the breeds which laid the white shelled egg were the only ones worthy of consideration, and, in the study of the question, it was found there was another important matter confronting the egg farmer, as to the breed which he should keep, whether a setter, or a non-setter. On an egg farm, where hundreds of layers are to be kept, if any of the Asiatics, or so called American Breeds, were kept, they would be a source of considerable added expense, first, in the way of loss of eggs during their numerous broody periods; second, in the necessary buildings in which to carry the “broody biddies” until they have become sensible, and are in a proper frame of mind to be returned to the Laying House. This might look on its face a small affair, but success to The Corning Egg Farm has come through watching every corner, and while sparing no needed expenditure, avoiding unnecessary and foolish outlay.

So, to the man who would really meet with a large success, all the breeds which lay the dark shelled egg, because of their setting propensity, must be eliminated.

All the members of the Mediterranean family are layers of the white shelled egg, and are what is termed “non-setting.”

S. C. White Leghorns Outclass All

Before deciding we looked the different members of this family over with considerable care, and we found that the Single Comb White Leghorn is the fowl that out-classes all the others for the purpose of an egg farm. It is a bird, where properly bred, of great hardiness and stamina. It readily adapts itself to all conditions of climate, and, where the right “strain” is procured, it is never a disappointer as to the number, size, and the class of eggs which it produces. We, therefore, decided to adopt the Single Comb White Leghorn, and we have outlined, in a previous chapter, how we went to work to build up the unequaled Corning Strain, by the most careful selection, and scientific mating.

Prof. Gowell, at the Maine Agricultural Station, carried on his breeding with Barred Plymouth Rocks, and it is interesting to note that his average for some eight years, taking his star performers, was 134.27 eggs per hen for twelve months, while at The Corning Egg Farm the flocks of fifteen hundred pullets averaged per hen, for ten months laying, 143.25 eggs in 1909, and 145.11 eggs in 1910. Here was a difference of two months in time, and yet the large flocks, taken as a whole, not weeding out a few star performers, surpassed the twelve months’ record of the Barred Plymouth Rocks at the Maine Station by almost nine eggs in 1909, and ten eggs in 1910. This significant fact made considerable impression on a number of breeders in the neighborhood of Boston, with the result that, in the last two years, The Corning Egg Farm has supplied a large number of hatching eggs and considerable breeding stock for farms in New England.

As one gentleman from Boston pointed out, even with the difference in price between the brown and the white egg, he found that he could not really afford to continue with the breeds laying the brown egg, for the Leghorn, in numbers, more than made up for the slight difference in price between the two colors, in the Boston Market. And, as he still further pointed out, it took less food to supply the Leghorn than it did any of the larger breeds, and this, of course, was another source of economy.

It should be remembered that the “Strain” of any breed is most important. One may purchase White Leghorns where the inbreeding has been so great that they are not capable of laying eggs in large numbers, and the percentage of fertility from the hatching standpoint in such birds will be a most uncertain quantity. Such chicks as may be hatched will be far from strong, and the mortality will run into figures which will dishearten anyone.

Line Breeding—Not Inbreeding

In the building up of a great strain of birds it is necessary to “line breed,” for, if the old theory of introducing new blood to prevent inbreeding, and the method of introducing the new blood, was, as is done in so many places even to-day, by introducing males from other sources, the entire system falls down. Nothing is accomplished and time is worse than wasted. The possibility of handing down the virtues of mother to daughter, and of father to son, is eliminated. If all the qualities of a given “Strain” are to be handed down line breeding must be adhered to in the strictest sense. Inbreeding, however, must be avoided, or disaster will follow.

How Corning Farm Produces Unrelated Cockerels

The Method of The Corning Egg Farm is as follows: a pen of carefully selected yearling hens is set aside in what is known as “the pen for the production of unrelated cockerels.” A most carefully selected cockerel to every twelve hens is placed in the pen. Incubators are run with eggs from this pen only, and the resulting chicks are marked before being placed in the Brooder House. The cockerels which appear with this marking are grown to maturity, those coming up to our standard being selected to head the breeding pens for the following season. The marked pullets are placed in the Laying Houses with the other pullets, but are never selected for yearling breeders on our own Farm. In pens sold to others we always furnish unrelated cockerels.

Having hatched a sufficient number of chicks to produce about four hundred cockerels, no further eggs are set from this pen, and, at the end of the season, all the birds comprising this pen are sold.

This Method of line breeding hands down the laying quality which has been so developed, and which is being increased from season to season in an unbroken line, but inbreeding is absolutely avoided, and the vigor of the stock is maintained.

Perhaps, in closing the chapter, nothing could be more apt than a letter received from a Breeder of Crystal White Orpingtons, in the neighborhood of one of the large Western Cities. The letter-head, in large type, states, “Breeder of Crystal White Orpingtons, the Great Winter Layer.” The contents of the letter is as follows:

“As I am now planning to go into the Egg business, and desire to follow your method as closely as possible, and, while in this locality there is not such a marked preference for the white egg over the brown, still the White Leghorn, of a good strain, doubtless outlays any other breed known, and the shape of its egg is such that it is superior for table use, to any laid by the dark shelled family. It, therefore, is my purpose, as rapidly as possible to work into a large flock of Leghorns, with Corning stock as a basis.”

It will be noted that the gentleman is a breeder of Crystal White Orpingtons, and prints in large type on his letter-head, “The Great Winter Layer,” but that when it comes down to “brass tacks,” from the standpoint of the hen which will produce an egg for table use, and the hen that will give you the requisite number to make the dollars, the Breeder of the Crystal White Orpingtons wants to put in the Corning Strain of Single Comb White Leghorns.

CHAPTER VI
Advantages of the Large Flock System—Reduces Cost of Housing and Economizes in Time and Labor

For many years the floor space per hen has been an interesting study to anyone reading poultry literature, either in books or in magazine articles.

Some fifteen years ago it was generally considered for a hen to do at all well she must have at least twenty square feet of floor space. Later, the number of feet was divided by half, and for some time ten square feet was considered to be the very least a hen could possibly do with. Then we come to the four square feet period, and this created a great deal of controversy. Many writers declared that it was impossible for any hen, no matter how housed, to do well in such a restricted space. At times, some visionary writer pictured a flock in one house, of what was then considered an enormous size. One Professor of poultry went so far as to state that he had successfully kept some three hundred hens in one flock, and had obtained most satisfactory results. This statement, however, was denied by others, and the Professor wrote an article in which he set forth that, while he had done this, he would never think of suggesting that the average poultry-keeper attempt it. In his statement there were some truths that it is well to remember, namely, that the average poultry-keeper would not give the flock the care and supervision necessary to keep it in health. In other words, the poultry-keeper would not attend to the necessary cleanliness, and disease would break out, and, in the average poultry house, under such conditions, this would mean the total annihilation of the flock.

THREE STERILE LAYING HOUSES CONTAINING 4500 PULLETS, WITH A FLOOR SPACE OF 7680 SQUARE FEET

Draughts the Stumbling Block

As economy of space and labor is one of the main factors in getting a commercial profit where poultry is operated with, the large flock system appealed most strongly to The Corning Egg Farm. Long houses, under one roof, without divisions, had been attempted by others, and the endeavor to discover the reason for the failures, where this had been attempted, was a very interesting study. It was found that the main stumbling block in houses of this type was draughts. To eliminate the draughts was the problem we then undertook to solve. It was found that if the houses were built in sections of twenty feet, and the partitions which divided the house into roosting closets were extended twelve inches beyond the dropping boards, and were carried from the floor to the roof, the air currents were broken up, and the difficulty of draughts was overcome.

Houses, as we believed in constructing them, were expensive, unless it was possible to carry a very large number of layers successfully in them. In studying the two hundred and twenty-five pullets as they worked contentedly in the No. 1 Laying House, which was but twelve feet wide, we became convinced that it was perfectly possible in a house sixteen feet wide by one hundred and sixty feet in length to carry fifteen hundred layers. This, to be sure, allowed the hen only a little over two square feet of floor space, with the dropping boards included. But, as we figured it, the hen also had the entire house for floor space, and, while it is true that fourteen hundred and ninety-nine sisters were her near neighbors, they all enjoyed the same large space to roam in. A house, then, of this size, accommodating fifteen hundred layers, was not an expensive house per bird, and, when you consider that the construction was such that the up-keep was practically nothing, it became not only not an expensive house, but really a very cheap one.

The success of the fifteen hundred layers in one house proved itself at once, and we never have seen the slightest necessity for altering the plan of the Laying House, as we first laid it out.

2,000 Birds to a House

The large flock system works economies, then, in housing, in the amount of labor necessary to care for the birds, and in gathering the eggs. And there is no doubt but that a house of considerably greater length, with a flock ranging as high as two thousand birds, could successfully be handled. In fact, on one farm which has been in existence over twenty-five years, a Corning Method Laying House of two hundred feet in length has been in operation now for twelve months, and the owners write us that it is the most successful house on their entire farm, and that as rapidly as possible they are rebuilding all their Laying Houses, and making them of this type.

CHAPTER VII
What is the Winter Layer?—The Properly Hatched and Reared Pullet

Many people have a very erroneous idea with regard to getting Winter eggs. They seem to think any hen should produce eggs in Winter. The hen generally moults in the early Fall, and Nature has provided this time of rest for her. The egg organs cease to produce, for the hen finds she has all she can do to supply the necessary material for her new dress, and this is a very serious drain on her system. The natural time, however, for a pullet to begin to lay is when she reaches maturity, and, as the pullet hatched in the early Spring, properly cared for, should come into eggs in the early Fall, the pullet, then, is the Winter layer.

It must still be remembered that the domesticated fowl of to-day is a bird of evolution. In its wild state a pullet did not begin to lay eggs in the Fall, and neither did she lay a large number of eggs at any time. With the coming of Spring, and an abundance of succulent green food, and large quantities of animal food in the shape of a great variety of worms and insects, she laid and hatched her brood. Therefore, to have successful Winter layers, it is necessary to produce as nearly as possible the Spring-time conditions.

INTERIOR LAYING HOUSE NO. 1 IN 1910

Must Feed Green Food

On The Corning Egg Farm, when the pullets are brought up from the Range into the Laying Houses, the majority of them have already been laying on the Range, and they are in fit condition to be brought strongly into eggs. They are fed a large quantity of succulent green food, in the form which, perhaps, is more delicious to the hen than any other, that is, Sprouted Oats. The quantity of animal food in their mash is increased, and, with the vigorous digging for the grain in the deep litter, the problem of Winter eggs is solved, and from day to day, the number of eggs coming from the pullet houses, increases very rapidly.

On the other hand, the pullet which has completed its first ten months of laying is well advanced in the moult, and is becoming a yearling hen. Those qualifying under the drastic examination for perfect type are selected for the next year’s Breeders, and are removed to the Breeding Houses, which have been thoroughly disinfected and put in the most sanitary condition to receive them. Those not reaching the Corning Standard are marketed, as we sell culls only to the butcher.

The aim in handling the yearling hen is not to get eggs from her during the Winter, but to give her a long rest, and to build her up, and put her in the pink of condition for the coming breeding season, and it is the aim at The Corning Egg Farm to have as few eggs produced as possible from the breeding pens until about the first of January, when an increased amount of animal food is added to the daily ration for the purpose of bringing the hens into eggs, and within a few days there is a very rapid increase in the number of eggs from these pens.

It must be remembered that the profit in Winter eggs is made from pullets, and to be successful in this line the Laying Houses must be well stocked with them.

Yearling and two year old hens are the proper breeding females. The Corning Egg Farm Method is one of continuous rotation, as follows:

Incubator to Brooder House.

Brooder House to Range.

Range to Laying House. Those selected as coming up to the Corning Standard go to the Breeder House.

At the end of the second year the Breeders are all sold for foundation stock.

This gives an opportunity to the public to procure the very best Breeders at a most reasonable price.

CHAPTER VIII
A Great Laying Strain—The Selection of Breeders to Produce It

The first requisite is to breed from a mature animal, from a real yearling hen. The term “yearling hen” is a misnomer, for, when she is twelve months of age she has not as a rule developed into a true yearling hen. The female has five months of growth, ten months of laying, and then she moults, which process varies in duration from eight to ten weeks.

Eighteen Months Old

When she has completed the moult, her entire anatomy has undergone a change, and she is a mature animal, about eighteen months of age, a fit specimen to reproduce her kind, and her off-spring will be strong and vigorous youngsters.

The great mortality one reads of among chicks can be traced more to breeding from immature females than to any other cause.

The general method of selecting breeders for a great many years has been by the use of “trap nests.” Surely the use of a mechanical device is a poor method to determine what hens are proper for breeding purposes, and really the trap nest tells you nothing.

In every pen there are daily a number of eggs which are not laid in the nest at all. To what particular hen does the attendant credit eggs found in hollows scooped out in corners under the dropping boards? It is a peculiarity of “Biddy” that where she sees an egg she almost always decides it is a good and proper place for her to lay another. Thus, on some days, where trap nests are in use, it may be necessary to make a great number of guesses as to which hen did not lay in the traps, but on the floor.

Trap Nests a Failure

There is another reason why trap nests really tell you nothing. Take two females of a pen whose numbers are one and two. For the first few weeks No. 1 surpasses her sister No. 2 in the production of eggs. To this pen, clover has been the green food fed, and of this ingredient the farm has run short. The shipment has been expected daily but did not arrive, and, because of that failure, for four or five days no other green food was provided. Then cabbage was resorted to to take the place of the clover. The pen having been without green food for a number of days was fairly greedy for it, and good, crisp cabbage suits the palate of many hens exactly, and they are very apt to overdo the matter in eating it. A great layer must be a large eater, and so hen No. 1 gorged herself on the cabbage. Her digestive organs were upset, and for a number of weeks she ceased laying, while hen No. 2 continued to shell out a fair number of eggs. The owner of these birds, when it came time for the selection of the breeders, expressed his great disappointment over hen No. 1. She had started so well, and then had blown up entirely, and so she is passed up, and hen No. 2 is accepted as a breeder.

ONE OF THE BREEDING HOUSES JUST AFTER MATING 1910

Now, if the anatomy of these two birds had been studied, it would have been found at once that hen No. 1 was much better qualified to take a place in the breeding pen than hen No. 2. The mere fact that the trap nest record of any female shows a phenomenal number of eggs laid in ten or twelve months does not necessarily prove that she is a proper animal to breed from. Post-mortem examinations show in many cases that they are freaks, and, while they have laid a great number of eggs, there was much to be desired in regard to the eggs, as to their size, shape, and color. As a matter of fact it would have been a great mistake to have bred from such an individual.

Type Reproduces Type

It must be remembered that type produces type, and the only proper way to select birds for the breeding pen which will produce progeny capable of great egg production is to thoroughly understand their anatomy. It is impossible to produce a great performer in any line unless the animal is of a build capable of the performance. No one would expect to breed a two-minute trotter from a Shetland Pony.

The hen which is capable of becoming an ideal layer must have a deep keel, a long body, and, as she faces out, she must have an appearance of broadness, and must be the shape of a wedge back to the point where the wings join the body.

The Large Flock System is carried on in the Breeding Pen on The Corning Egg Farm, and it has been most successful. It has been found that the small pen does not produce the high fertility continuously which the Large Flock System does. During the season of 1910, for long periods, the fertility ran as high as 96%, and as early as the first of March it was above 90%. In the season of 1911, eggs incubated in the early part of February, ran above 91%, and during the season there were times when the fertility reached 97%.

The Breeding Pens are mated up two weeks before eggs are to be used for incubation, and early hatched cockerels are used to head these Breeding Pens. It has been found that the mating of cockerels with yearling hens produces a very decided predominance of pullets, and the youngsters are strong and vigorous from the start.

The proportion of mating is one to twelve, and the records of The Corning Egg Farm show that by this method of mating the number of cockerels produced, through the years that the Farm has been in operation, has been as low as one-quarter, and as high as one-third.

The males to head the pens are selected with the same care that the hens are. They are all perfect birds, of large size, and conform as closely as possible to the standard requirements, without interfering with the paramount aim of producing a Great Layer.

CHAPTER IX
What is the Best Time to Hatch?

The question which is the title of this chapter is asked over and over again. You see it propounded to the editor of almost every poultry paper in the country. And it is a difficult one to answer, because the various needs of different people are so diversified. April and May are doubtless the natural hatching seasons for all varieties. Climatic conditions are then kinder, the food which is necessary for the production of many eggs, and eggs of the strong hatchable kind, is supplied by Nature in great abundance, and the young chick coming into life in these months finds a great variety of natural food of the very best kind for growth awaiting it. In Spring eggs run strongly fertile, and in every way Nature seems to lend herself to successful hatching, and the starting of the young chick properly on its journey.

The man, however, who is operating an egg farm, and has made contracts for the delivery of a continuous supply of eggs to exacting customers, cannot well afford to wait until these months to hatch in, for it is necessary for him to have a large number of pullets reaching maturity and beginning to lay, before his last year’s pullets reach the moulting period and stop egg production. To accomplish this it is necessary to have in his brooder house, by not later than the first week of March, a goodly number of yellow babies. From that time on he must keep them coming, so as to have a sufficient number a few weeks apart to take the place of the yearling hens going into the moult. In this way he will succeed in keeping up a continuous flow of eggs.

It is true there is a danger in these early hatched pullets. They may go into what is called the Winter moult, after laying well into the month of December, but they will not all moult, and before there is a marked shrinkage the later hatches will be laying strongly.

The moult which occurs with early hatched birds does not last as long as the moult coming in the regular season. The birds soon return to the nest, and the house rapidly jumps back to a very large output of eggs for the coming Spring months. Thus the great increase in numbers helps to offset the decrease in price, and to equalize the bank account.

It must be remembered, however, that Leghorns hatched up to the 25th of June make good Winter layers provided they are properly cared for, and given the food and attention which produces a great growth, and under such conditions one will find no difficulty in getting them into laying eggs readily by the time they are five months of age.

An Interesting Experiment in Late Hatching

In the season of 1910 The Corning Egg Farm made a very interesting experiment, in a large way, so far as late hatching goes. We incubated two large batches of eggs, the first being set so that the chicks hatched from the 18th to the 26th of July; the second batch completed incubation August 15th. The resulting pullets from these two hatches were some fifty odd over twelve hundred. We carried them on Range until December 1st, and then placed them in a Laying House by themselves. They had not begun to lay on Range so far as we were able to discover, although many of the pullets had the appearance of eggs. Almost from the start, after they were placed in the Colony Houses, we fed them, in addition to the regular Range ration, a good supply of Sprouted Oats each day. This was done for the reason that of course the succulent green food had passed away, and we consider it of vital importance that growing birds be given the opportunity to gather a large supply of succulent green food. The records show that within three days after the pullets were placed in the Laying House we began to gather from one to three eggs a day. Before December was over the house was producing 10%; January saw 35% output of eggs, and before February was very far advanced we were doing better than 60%. There was a time in March when the House was yielding a 75% output.

SPROUTED OATS CELLAR

These birds laid strongly all Summer, and we were interested in noting when they would start to moult. We had seen the statement made a number of times that late hatched pullets were very late moulters. In our experience, however, this did not prove to be true, for this pen of birds moulted at just about the same time, and in the same proportion, as the earlier hatches did.

We had frequently seen it stated that birds hatched in the very last week of August, or the first week in September, would produce eggs at the same time that the June hatched pullets would begin to produce them. Our experience with June hatches, and we have had four years of it, disproves this statement absolutely. We find that the June hatched pullet, properly cared for, comes in quite as rapidly as those hatched in April and May.

We do not wish to go on record as advocates of July and August hatching, but we simply wish to show what could be accomplished if a Breeder met with some misfortune, and was compelled to hatch late or not at all.

CHAPTER X
Succulent Green Food—Satisfactory Egg Production Impossible Without It

A goodly supply of green food is necessary to all birds, the growing chicken as well as the yearling hen, for it is a great aid to digestion, helping to properly assimilate all foods as they are taken into the crop, and passed through the great grinding mill of a chicken.

There is no possible hope of a full egg supply from any Laying House where a large quantity of green food is not fed daily. It may be fed in many forms. Clover or Alfalfa (and we are now speaking first of the Winter supply of green food) may be procured in a dry state, and by properly scalding it with hot water it may be made to almost live again, so far as its freshness and delightful odor go. In many cases the preparation of Clover or Alfalfa spoils it. The water should be quite at the boiling point, and it should be poured over, preferably it should be put on with a sprinkling can. The method at The Corning Egg Farm is to place whichever we are using of the Clover family in pails, a given number for each Laying House, and as they stand in rows the hot water is applied with a sprinkling can. The contents are not allowed to steep, but as soon as the second wetting of the long row of pails is reached they are placed on the delivery wagon and at once taken to their destination. When the contents are emptied from the pails they will be steaming hot, too hot for the birds to take at first, and you will find them standing in a ring around the Clover, and from time to time testing the heat. As soon as it is cool enough they will devour it with great avidity.

Where Alfalfa is fed some flocks give considerable difficulty at first as they do not seem to relish it, but after a short time they seem to acquire the taste, and become very fond of it. It contains a higher amount of protein than the ordinary Clover which can be bought in the market, but in purchasing Alfalfa products one should be careful not to buy a large quantity of dirt, but get what is known as “short cut,” and have it carefully sifted.

By many people cabbages are considered a most excellent green food for Winter use, but if they are chopped up and fed to the layers considerable caution should be used in the feeding. They are very apt to upset the digestive organs of the birds, and that means a very decided decrease in the number of eggs. This is equally true of Mangle beets and other roots which in many cases are used.

Sprouted Oats Best

At The Corning Egg Farm we are strong believers in Sprouted Oats as a green food, and we now maintain a cement Cellar, with good drainage, which is used for nothing else. The method of sprouting oats is really very simple, and does not require the arduous labor which one would imagine from numerous articles written on the subject.

How They Are Grown on the Farm