INHERITANCE OF WINTER EGG PRODUCTION 121 
APPENDIX 1 
Changes in management 
At the outset of these experiments, it was determined that 
methods of management should remain constant; but, unfor- 
tunately, serious difficulties in rearing the young stock appeared 
and radical changes were necessary. As later events demon- 
strated, the trouble was disease, and not methods of manage- 
ment in the narrow sense. We were much more fortunate in the 
methods selected for handling the adult stock and in the selec- 
tion of our methods of incubation. It is the purpose of this 
section to describe briefly such changes as have been necessary 
in order that the reader may be able to understand their bearing 
on the results of the breeding work. 
Adults. Feeding. Rations and methods of feeding have 
remained constant, except in the sort of green food fed. When- 
ever possible, green cabbage has been fed during the winter, but 
on a few occasions it has been necessary to substitute mangels. 
At other seasons any green feed available has been fed. 
Housing. Large open-front houses have been used, except in 
1913-14 when about half the pullets were placed in six small 
pens (accommodating twenty-five to thirty birds each) of a long 
open-front laying house. The large houses are of two types, 
but very similar. It has never been possible to observe any 
difference in production attributable to the differences in housing. 
Numbers in flock. One type of the large house was built for 
72 birds to a pen, the other for 100. The partitions are solid so 
that each pen is virtually a separate house. During recent 
years, in order to accommodate the birds, it has been necessary 
to place more than the theoretical number of birds in each pen, 
as high as a 70 per cent increase having been made in one in- 
stance. This theoretical overcrowding, if it has any effect at 
all, should result in decreased egg production, and therefore in a 
direction opposite the observed results of the experiments. 
Time of placing birds in the laying houses. At first the pullets 
were placed in the laying houses late in October or in November, 
according to age. No eggs, however, were laid on the range. 
