1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 2G5 



very sunny exposure, where the snow went off early and left 

 the ofround bare. His hens were scratching: about amono; the' 

 leaves, and did not lay until warm weather came on. I 

 noticed his hens out there under the trees, and I thought I 

 would stop and buy some of his eggs. I did so, and put 

 five dozen of his eggs into my incubator, and filled it up with 

 my own. From that five dozen I got forty-three vigorous 

 chickens, while from my own eggs I only got about thirty- 

 three per cent instead of sixty per cent. This experience 

 led me to conclude that there was much depending upon 

 hens being in their natural condition to give me what I 

 wanted. Of course neither of those percentages is what I 

 want to get. If I could find any system that would give me 

 eighty per cent of hatchable eggs, I would not ask for any 

 better branch of farming. 



I want to urge this question upon the experiment stations. 

 I presented it to Dr. Goessmann, and he gave me a favorable 

 reply, sa3'ing that he would try to have something done. 

 My question is, why do not our experiment stations, while 

 experimenting upon the feeding of dairy stock and the 

 analysis of feeds suitable for the dairy, pay some attention 

 to the poultry interest ? I do not know but there may be 

 some experiment stations that are doing something for us 

 upon this question, but I fail to discover it, if they are. 

 There is a good chance for experimenting on the food that 

 will produce eggs that will produce the most vigorous 

 chickens. It seems to me that when chickens grow fifteen 

 or twenty days in the shell, and then die, there is some- 

 thing lacking in the egg. It is not a perfect egg. The 

 ration was not perfectly balanced, as the speaker has said 

 to-day, and was adapted to the production of a large quantity 

 of eggs instead of the production of eggs that would produce 

 strong, vigorous chickens ; and hence the chickens grew until 

 there was a lack of material to build up the system. I would 

 like to ask the speaker whether there is anything in that 

 idea, or not. 



Dr. TwiTCHELL. A chicken g^rows as lono^ as there is 

 anything in the egg for it to feed upon, or as long as there 

 is any virile energy remaining. In the case the gentleman 

 mentions, I think there must have been something lacking 



