no MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I9II. 



years of the experiment the flocks were large (always contain- 

 ing more than 300 birds and usually nearer a thousand). While 

 there was no close inbreeding no "new blood" was introduced 

 into the strain from the outside during the period of the experi- 

 ment. 



11. Experiment regarding the inheritance of fecundity. In 

 1907 the experiment described above, having led to definite 

 results was brought to an end. There was planned for 1908 a 

 new experiment designed to test from another standpoint the 

 conclusions which had been tentatively reached from the earlier 

 experiment. In the conducting of the long selection experiment 

 the females used as breeders were grouped into two classes, 

 viz., (a) "unregistered" or birds laying 150 to 199 eggs in the 

 pullet year, and (b) "registered" or birds laying 200 or more 

 eggs in the pullet year. 



It had been noted that the daughters of the so-called "regis- 

 tered" hens (namely hens that had produced 200 or more eggs 

 each in the pullet year) did not usually make high egg records. 

 The "200-egg" birds which made up the "registered" flock came, 

 in most instances, from the "unregistered" mothers. 



Experiment II was planned primarily to answer the follow- 

 ing question: Will the daughters of high laying hens ("200- 

 egg" birds) on the average produce more eggs in a given time 

 unit than will birds of less closely selected ancestry? 



The experiment was carried out according to the following 

 plan : On the first of November, 1907, there were put into 

 house No. 2, of the Station plant, 250 pullets. Each of these 

 was the daughter of a hen that had laid approximately 200 eggs 

 in her pullet year. As a matter of fact 11 of the 33 hens which 

 produced these 250 "registered" pullets had each laid a • few 

 eggs less than 200 in a year forward from Nov. i of their pul- 

 let year. The writer has been criticized for including these 

 birds in the work. When carefully considered such criticism 

 appears to be without any real significance. In the first place 

 nearly all of these 11 birds luere "200-egg" hens in the sense 

 that they laid this number of eggs (or more) in a period of 365 

 days following the laying of their first egg. The records were 

 for the sake of uniformity in presentation and analytical dis- 



