24 N. H. AGR. EXPERIMENT STATION. [Bulletin 163 



REPORT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ANIMAL 

 HUSBANDRY. 



J. M. JONES. 



The writer has recently been placed at the head of the Animal Husbandry 

 Department, having taken up his work at this Station September 1, 1912, 

 therefore this report must necessarily be brief. So far as I have been able to 

 ascertain the department was left in commendable condition by Prof. T. R. 

 Arkell, former Animal Husbandmsn. 



The experimental work in this department is confined entirely to investiga- 

 tions in the breeding and feeding of sheep. 



Sheep Breeding. 



This project as orginally outlined was inaugurated primarily: 



1. To determine the principles involved and the best methods to be employed 

 in gnding up a (lock of sheep, particularly for early lamb production, studying 

 the characters of crosses with reference to Mendel's law, and, 



2. To determine the principles involved in fixing certain characters in sheep, 

 studying the closeness with which the characters of the hybrids follow Mendels 

 law, and their application to breeding problems. This project is still being 

 conducted with the same ends in view, although several additional characters 

 are being studied at this t ime which were not instigated at the time the experi- 

 ment proper began, namely inheritance of horns, inheritance of wool and 

 the inheritance of wrinkles. 



This breeding project has been carried on as an Adams Fund Project in 

 cooperation with Dr. C. B. Davenport, Station for Experimental Evolution, 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington, Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. The 

 department is, indeed, fortunate in having the advice of Dr. Davenport upon 

 the various questions and difficulties that arise during the the course of an 

 investigation of this character as he is recognized the world over for his able 

 work in genetics. 



The only bulletin so far published relative to the breeding investigation is 

 New Hampshire Bulletin No. 160, entitled, "Some data on the Inheritance of 

 Horns in Sheep." Horns being a patent character to investigate. 



Arkell and Davenport formulated the hypothesis that horns in sheep repre- 

 sented the typical sex-limited character. This was based on the assumption 

 that there is an inhibitor to horn formation located on the sex chromosome. 

 The hypothesis further assumes that the male (sheep) is heterozygous (simplex) 

 in sex. One sex chromosome is expected in the male. The female is expected 

 to be duplex in respect to sex. Consequently since the inhibitor is sex limited 

 it will be simplex in the male and duplex in the female. 



While this bulletin does not pretend to have definitely proven the inheritance 

 of horns in sheep, neveitheless, much light is cast upon that phase of genetics. 

 This bulletin is strictly a scientific treatise and, rather than attempting to 

 elaborate in detail in such a short paper, it is urged that the parties especially 



