670 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. [Vol 40 



The dietetic value of wheat bran, K. G. Linton and W. S. Petrie (Vet. 

 Jour., IS (1911), No. 504, PP- 185-199, pis. 2).— The contention of some vet- 

 erinarians that the, consumption of wheat bran by horses results in various 

 physiological disturbances is discussed and concluded to be largely baseless. 



Practical experiments conducted by tlie cleansing department <»f the City of 

 Edinburgh Corporation are cited to show that a ration where the energy for 

 work is furnished by bran and oats is as satisfactory as one in which this 

 energy is furnished by beans, maize, and oats. The authors hold that the pur- 

 chase of feed for work horses on the "food unit" basis is misleading; the 

 thermic or dynamic value must be considered. They conclude that " the chief 

 use of bran for horses would be for those unthrifty, weedy colts which have 

 mainly subsisted on fibrous dead grasses deficient in vitamins, and excellent 

 results may be looked for if the bran is fresh and is fed in conjunction with a 

 leguminous straw or inorganic calcium." 



Feeding for egg production: Animal v. vegetable protein. P. MOOBE (-lour. 

 Amcr. Assoc Instr. and Invest. Poultry Hush., j, (1918), Nos. 5, i>i>. 38-49; '>'. 

 pp. J f 7, Jf8). — The first year's results of a long term experiment at the Idaho 

 Experiment Station are presented, together with a summary of another ex- 

 periment already published (E. S. It., 37, p. 271). 



Four pens of 25 White Leghorn pullets were started November 1, 1915. Two 

 of the iicns were fed a scratch feed of ]>eas. wheat, and corn, and a mash of 

 bran, shorts, corn meal, wheat meal, pea meal, and linseed meal. Pea 8 were 

 omitted from the scratch in the other two pens, while pea meal and linseed 

 meal were replaced by beef scrap in the mash. The feeds were so adjusted 

 that the rations of one of the meat-fed ami one of the exclusively grain-fed 

 pens had a nutritive ratio of 1:4.2. The nutritive ratio in the case of the 

 other two pens was i : 5.5. The egg records are not given, hut it is stated that 

 the narrow ration meat-fed pen produced during the year 55.8 per cent more 

 eggS than the pen receiving the narrow grain ration. 61.] per cent more than 

 the one receiving the wide grain ration, and 35.2 per cent more than that re- 

 ceiving the wide meat ration. Similar results are shown where egg weights 

 are considered. 



Rearing chickens, L. E. Cabd and W. F. Kikkiw i km k [Connecticut Starrs 

 Sin. liiil. 96 (WIS), pp. S5S 894, fl9* 8).- This bulletin is divided into two 

 parts, each dealing with separate topics. 



I. Normal mn of growth in Whiti Leghorns and Rhode Island /.'< ds i pp. ::"> 

 372). — With the object of determining the feed requirements of growing white 

 Leghorn and Rhode Island Red chicks and of providing a growth standard for 

 these breeds whereby the pouliryman can discover whether he is getting satis- 

 factory growth in his own (lock, the authors have made weekly weighings and 

 kepi complete feeil records of four lots of chicks of each breed from the date 

 of entering the brooder to the age of 24 weeks. The observations were made 

 during the years 1915 to 1P1T and the batching dates varied from April 21 to 

 May 17. "In most cases enough eggs were incubated to bring off a hatch of 

 300 Strong chicks. No obviously weak or puny chick- were placed in the 



brooders, a policy of rigid culling was followed throughout the series of ex- 

 periments, the whole idea being to handle the flocks just as they would natur- 

 ally be handled under good commercial management This culling, of course, 

 helped to swell the mortality figures and no attempt has been made to differ- 

 entiate between chicks that were killed and those which died from natural 

 causes." The number of Leghorns started totaled 1,028, and the number of 

 Rhode Island Reds S65. The weighing was done in groups early in the morning 



