100 Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting 
and shipped. The experiment could not be concluded owing to 
lack of eggs. 
Experiment No. 3 was the best test of the solution since the 
experiments were started. It was carried on at Battle Creek 
Station where a large number of eggs had been killed by heavy 
storms carrying great quantities of mud into the hatchery during 
the very critical period. 'The acting foreman telephoned that it 
would be impossible to pick them by hand as in some cases the 
bad eggs greatly outnumbered the good, and extra pickers would 
have to be employed. It was impossible for the superintendent 
to go there at the time, and the acting foreman was directed to 
place the bad lots in a salt solution of 1 to 9 and if this did not 
work to strengthen or dilute the solution as required. ‘The man- 
ner in which the experiment was conducted renders it worthless 
because the strength of the solutions is unknown but it is valu- 
able in that it shows what may be done with large numbers of 
bad eggs. About 20 gallons of the solution, 1 of salt to 9 of 
water, was placed in a tub and 6,000 eggs in a basket were im- 
mersed in it. As soon as the eggs were placed in the solution 
they were at once agitated with the hand to break up any bunches 
among them. All the eggs floated and after remaining in the 
solution for three minutes they were returned to the basket. 
Fresh water was then added to the solution and the basket of 
6,000 eggs was again placed in it. This time 75 per cent. of the 
bad eges floated and were skimmed off, a few good eggs also 
floated but not enough to count. The good eggs went to the bot- 
tom in one minute. A little salt was added from time to time 
to keep up the strength of the solution as it became diluted by 
fresh water carried from the troughs by the eggs in the basket. 
Eggs were thus treated to the number of 2,267,500. As there 
were about 45,000 eggs to each basket it was necessary to divide 
them into seven or eight lots as good results could not be obtain- 
ed with a larger number. In making the transfer from the 
trough basket to the dipping basket they were handled the same 
as in packing for shipment, that is, they were dipped from one 
and placed in the other with the regular hatchery dipper. After 
the eggs were removed from the salt solution they were emptied 
into another basket placed in the trough with running water, 
~ 
where the 25 per cent. bad eggs that failed to come to the top 
toto) 
rn 
