66 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I90O. 



opening's during the summer, are quickly taken out and replaced 

 on cleaning days, and the delivery of bedding and worn litter 

 back and forth, from wagon to buildings, is very directly made. 

 Yards, similar to those in front, will be constructed in the rear 

 of the building and by alternating their use it is hoped to keep 

 them clean, and more or less covered with green plants . 



Packing and Shipping House. 

 A house 20 by 24 feet in size was made, in which to handle 

 and pack the eggs for market. Its walls are packed with planer 

 shavings, to prevent too great changes in temperature during 

 extreme weather. It is well heated and lighted. The eggs are 

 expressed to market when not more than one day old. The 

 express company takes the shipments at the house daily and 

 returns the empty crates. 



Residence of Foreman. 



A neat four-room cottage house, finished and painted, was 

 built for the foreman and his family. It has long distance tele- 

 phone connections and in this way the foreman is within reach 

 of the owner at all times. 



Every building on the plant is new, having been constructed 

 for the special purpose of poultry business. The equipment is 

 also entirely new and uniform, only one kind and size of incu- 

 bators, and one kind of indoor brooder being used, which 

 relieves the operators of the annoyances which arise from the 

 use of dififerent kinds of machines. 



Investigation Relating to Breeding to Increase Egg 



Production in Hens. 



In 1898 the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station designed 

 and constructed fifty trap nests and put them in use by the 

 pullets kept that year. From time to time, the work has been 

 extended until now 200 trap nests are in use by a thousand hens. 



By the trap nest it is possible to know the exact daily work 

 which every hen is doing. At the end of the year those that 

 had laid 160 eggs, or over, were selected and saved for breeders. 

 They were bred to males whose mothers had laid 200, or more, 

 good eggs per year. No female has been used in the breeding 

 pens, for six years, whose mother did not lay at least 160 eggs 

 in her pullet year. No males have been used as breeders unless 

 their mothers laid above 200 eggs per year. The breeding pens 



