40 



THE BOOK OF POULTRY. 



year's experiment, where the figures do appear 

 to tally with the facts and details stated, and 

 are accordingly lower. Thirdly, the results 

 from both rations are wretchedly poor. Whether 

 it is the fault of bad management, or unsuitable 

 food (including want of green food), or of the 

 fowls being bad layers, the egg-results are 

 almost beneath contempt. The highest summer 

 return (0-32) is less than 120 per annum if all 

 the year were summer; the lowest (O'li) is 

 only 40 per annum if all were winter. The 

 alleged enormous superiority of 91 per cent, 

 in maize for Plymouth Rocks for winter, means 

 a difference between about 20 and 38 eggs per 

 hen in six months I As a test of results in 

 promoting egg-laying between maize and wheat, 

 or narrow and wide nutritive ratios, such 

 figures are farcical. Either these eighty hens 

 could not lay well anyhow, in which case the 

 real conclusion is, as above stated, that a forcing 

 diet is not only useless, but injurious to such as 

 cannot respond to it ; or else all alike were 

 prevented laying by some bad management, 

 quite apart from maize and wheat. Such 

 ridiculously low figures as these in no way 

 upset the theory and practice of numerous 

 skilled American egg-farmers, who do get from 

 150 to nearly 200 eggs per annum from a high 

 nutritive ratio, compounded with adequate pro- 

 portions of cut clover (properly prepared), and 

 cut bone or meat-meal. The recorded cost per 

 egg (in food alone) points the same moral in 

 another way. 



We described the rations given in this " e.x- 

 periment " as poor, and this leads to a further 

 question, above hinted at — whether 

 Substitution jj really jg indifferent hozv a given 

 Albuminoids, nutritive ratio is attained, so long as 

 it is made up. Are the albuminoids 

 in pulse, for instance, really able to take the 

 place of animal food in all respects .' Broadly 

 and roughly, e.xperience shows that they are ; 

 if it were not so, our dietaries are worth 

 nothing; but is it so altogether? On this 

 point some interesting and valuable experiments 

 were made at the New York Experimental 

 Station at Geneva, during the same periods.* 

 Two lots of chicks were fed from half -week 

 to twenty-five weeks old, and two others for 

 fourteen weeks after si.x weeks old, upon foods 

 compounded so as to have a similar nutritive 

 ratio, but one feed all grain, while in the other 

 the albuminoids were largely supplied from 

 animal sources, such as meat-meal, dried blood, 

 and cut bone. Both feeds, however, contained 

 some skim-milk. Much more food was eaten 



* See r.ulletins Nos. 149 and 171, by F. H. Hall and 

 W. P. Wheeler. 



per day by the lot receiving animal food ; but 

 the gain in weight was so much more rapid, and 

 maturity was reached so much earlier, that less 

 food was required per pound, and each pound 

 gained only cost 4I cents as against 5I cents. 

 Those with animal food reached 2 lbs. five 

 weeks before the others, and 3 lbs. eight weeks 

 sooner. With the chicks started at six weeks, 

 the differences were similar, but less marked. 

 Lots of cockerels were also similarly fed from 

 three months old, and for eight weeks there 

 were similar differences ; after that the birds did 

 not make paying progress on either food. The 

 most startling difference was, however, in duck- 

 lings. The "animal-food" lot developed rapidly 

 and were healthy ; the grain-fed ones were 

 stunted, pitifully thin, and after fifteen weeks 

 only twenty out of thirty-three were alive. 

 These were then given the other ration for four 

 weeks, and made rapid gain, but never overtook 

 the others. Similar advantages were obtained 

 in the case of laying hens. 



Here would appear conclusive proof that the 

 albuminoids in grain alone can not altogether 

 replace animal food. But those who conducted 

 this experiment found that they had not yet 

 considered all the factors concerned.* The in- 

 gredients in the foods which went into the 

 " ratio " had been made equal ; the birds were 

 alike, and placed under the same conditions. 

 But study of the analyses showed that the two 

 diets did differ in one other respect not reckoned 

 in the ratio. Owing largely to the fact that 

 one of them consisted largely of maize, whose 

 deficiency in albuminoids was corrected by 

 gluten feed, while the other contained a con- 

 siderable proportion of dried meat-meal, the 

 animal - food mixture contained considerable 

 more of ash, or mineral salts. A second series 

 of experiments was therefore commenced, in 

 which two mixtures were used as before, of 

 similar ratio, but one containing animal food. 

 But to the grain-only mixture was now added 

 the ash from bones, burnt so as to get rid of all 

 organic matter, in proportion sufficient to make 

 the mineral ash fully equal. The results were 

 remarkable. Upon the grain ration thus supple- 

 mented by mineral ash, the chicks now did as 

 well as upon animal food. Laying hens also 

 did as well for most of the time they were 

 tested (thirty weeks), but towards the end showed 



* It is from want of cotniJering all the factors that the other 

 experiment above quoted (only here quoted in the hope of 

 counteracting in some degree the mischief which we know it to 

 have done) lias been interpreted as leading to such results as 

 were staled. Of course, facts are always useful if correctly 

 recorded. But the truth of any conclusions drawn depends 

 upon the question, whether all the facts have been duly taken 

 account oi. 



