MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



143 



SENIOR YEAR. 



This outline of a fonr-jear course in Animal Husbandry is merely 

 tentative, its practicability has not been tried out in actual practice and 

 doubtless many changes would have to be made in putting it into use. 

 So few special four-year courses in Animal Husbandy have been devised 

 that guides in preparing a syllabus of this kind are scarce. 



Aside from those subjects treating directly on animal husbandry, crop 

 production, botany, chemistry and bacteriology should be strong features. 



In this course 380 hours are devoted to the study of breed types of 

 horses, cattle, sheep, swine, and poultry, and the judging of these classes. 

 This includes a brief consideration of the origin, history and characteris- 

 tics of the various breeds as well. This is considerably more time than is 

 usually allotted to this work in the four-year courses in agriculture. It 

 is highly desirable that this work be distributed throughout the four 

 years. It is absolutely necessary, too, that numerous typical specimens 

 are available for study in. the class room, as little can be accomplished 

 from the text book alone. As first impressions are frequently lasting, 

 poor specimens should not be presented before classes except following a 

 critical study of the best for purposes of comparison. 



Thirty-five hours only are devoted to the subject of animal breeding. 

 Most features of this subject are still shrouded in mystery and more 

 scientific investigation is needed to clear up this extended theoretical 

 field. 



It is important that much of the chemistry and botany precede the l-tO 

 hours' stock feeding work in the spring time of the junior year as 

 planned. Note that Physiological Botany and Physiological Chemistry 

 come in the same term with Poultry Feeding, Care and Management, 

 and precedes the spring term work in animal feeding. This particular 

 botany and chemistry is extremely essential to a course of this nature. 



Ten hours per week throughout one year has been assigned to live 

 stock experiments. During the first term the instructor should review 

 with the student all the methods employed and results secured in live 

 stock investigation work by leading American institutions. Modern 

 methods and recent discoveries are factors which tend to qualify some of 

 the results on record. The second term should be given up, if necessary 

 (in part), to a continuation of the first terms' work and the planning of 

 a live stock experiment to be conducted by the student during the spring 

 term. 



The work in slaughtering and meat cutting is not intended to train 

 students for butchering, but rather to give them an opportunity to study 



