676 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



ley meal, with addition of suet, tallow, and plenty of skim milk. The price for 

 lean chickens, as bought by these farms, is 20 to 25 copecks a pound (10 to 13 

 cts. a pound) live weight, the selling price for dead fattened ' poulai-des ' being 

 not under 50 copecks a pound (25 cts.), going sometimes up to 1 ruble (0.515 

 cts.) a pound, which makes the price for a good specimen about 4 to 8 rubles 

 ($2.06 to $4.12) apiece." 



The sporting element has been influential in developing the poultry industry 

 in Russia, but the direction followed has been as a rule toward utility rather 

 than special fancy. Poultry associations and poultry courses in schools and 

 colleges are doing much to promote poultry culture. Cooperative societies have 

 been formed for the iiuri)Ose of marketing poultry and other farm products. 



How to kill and bleed market poultry, M. E. Pennington and H. M. P. 

 Betts (U. S. Dept. Agr., Bur. Chem. Circ. 61, pp. 15, flgs. 5). — This circular was 

 prepared to assist dressers of poultry to improve the quality of market stock 

 by correct methods of killing and bleeding. The details presented are the pre- 

 liminary results of a study which will include all branches of handling, storing, 

 and marketing dressed poultry. 



"A very large proportion of the unsightly poultry in our markets, aside from 

 the rubbing and tearing of the skins, is caused by an incomplete removal of 

 the blood. ... At least 30 per cent of all the poultry coming into the New 

 York market is incompletely bled. Much of it is so badly bled that it results 

 in a loss of from 2 to 5 cts. a pound." 



The anatomy of the skull, position of the neck veins, and the correct posi- 

 tion of holding the fowl to make the cut are illustrated and briefly described. 

 The cut should be made on the right side of the roof of the chicken's mouth, 

 just where the bones of the skull end. The oi)eration calls for accuracy rather 

 than for strength. The blade of the knife should be about 2 in. long and i in. 

 wide and of a heavy piece of steel so that it will not bend. " Brain for dry ' 

 picking by thrusting the knife through the groove which runs along the middle 

 line of the roof of the mouth until it reaches the skull midway between the 



eyes." 



Tricks of the poultry trade, R. V. Hicks (Topcka, Kans., 1910, 2. cd. rev., 

 pp. 61, flgs. 15). — A brief popular work on the breeding, feeding, and manage- 

 ment of fowls. 



DAIRY FARMING— DAIRYING. 



Officials, organizations, and educational institutions connected with the 

 dairy interests, 1910 {U. S. Dcpt. Agr., Bur. Anim. Indus. Circ. 162, pp. 31).— 

 This circular explains the nature of the work of the Dairy Division, and con- 

 tains lists of state dairy officials, state, national, Canadian, and intei-national 

 dairy associations, city milk producers' associations, city milk dealers' associa- 

 tions, courses in dairying offered by the state agricultural colleges, and lists of 

 medical milk conunissions in the United States and Canada, and of associations 

 of breeders of purebred dairy animals. 



The composition of milk fat as affected by a ration containing- beet leaves, 

 M. SiEGFELD (Ztsclir. UiitcrsHch. Nahr. u. GenussmtL, 11 {1909), No. .',, pp. 177- 

 181; ahs. in Milchiv. Zenthh, 6 {1910), No. 8, pp. 381, 382 ) .—Physical and 

 chemical constants are reported of butter made from the milk of cows fed a^ 

 ration of beet leaves, with wheat and barley straw during the latter part of 

 the lactation period. The Reichert-Melssl. saponification, and Polenske numbers 

 were very high. The iodin number and the molecular weight of the nonvolatile 

 acids were low. After the feeding of beet leaves ceased there was a return to 

 normal conditions. 



