EEPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 153 



MAINE, 



Maine Agricultural Experiment Station, Orono. 



Department of the University of Maine. 



C. D. Woods, Sc. D., Director. 



The Maine Experiment Station celebrated its twenty-fifth anni- 

 versary March 9, 1910, with appropriate exercises. Dr. G. E. Fel- 

 lows, president of the University of Maine, retired at the close of the 

 college year and was succeeded by Dr, Robert J, Aley, professor of 

 mathematics at the University of Indiana, The station came into 

 possession of the new farm at Monmouth, and experiments were 

 again taken up along certain lines of orchard management which 

 had been held in abeyance as a result of inadequate facilities. This 

 farm will also offer facilities for other lines of field work. Miss 

 E. M, Patch, at her request, was made associate entomologist, with 

 Dr. O. A. Johannsen as the head of the department. 



In addition to an appropriation of $4,500 for the printing of sta- 

 tion bulletins and reports, the institution receives $9,000 a year from 

 the State for all the inspection work, and has the fees from testing 

 creamery glassware. 



The different lines of Adams-fund work of the station were con- 

 tinued, and good progress was made. In the work with poultry by 

 the department of biology the growth of the organs of reproduction 

 in connection with egg production was studied in its relation to the 

 growth of the chick. The histology of the oviduct was worked out 

 with the result that a much more complete and exact knowledge of 

 the anatomy and physiology of the Qgg tube was gained than has 

 ever existed. The questions of age and weakness in relation to prog- 

 eny and the transmission of dominant qualities under favorable phys- 

 iological conditions also received attention. An extensive experi- 

 ment was carried on in the reciprocal crossing of Barred Plymouth 

 Rocks with Cornish Indian Game for the purpose of combining into 

 one strain the desirable characteristics of the two breeds. Observa- 

 tions on the growth of hybrids as compared with pure races were 

 made by this department with corn and poultry. 



In connection with its poultry-breeding work the station has shown 

 that egg production is inherited in pure lines or within families 

 showing the ability to transmit that quality. Biometric methods 

 applied to the study of the factors which influence the hatching of 

 eggs resulted in data indicating a small but still sensible correlation 

 between fertility and hatching quality of eggs. It is believed on 

 the basis of this result that if a hen under a given set of conditions 

 produces eggs high in fertility, the fertile eggs will also run high in 

 hatching quality, and vice versa. Other statistics collected in this 



