BULLETIN 261 



REPORT OF PROGRESS ON ANIMAL HUSBANDRY 

 INVESTIGATIONS IN 1916^ 



BY RAYMOND PEARL. ( 



As in former cases, this report will deal with the progress 

 .which has been made in the animal husbandry investigations 

 carried on by the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. It 

 is a pleasure to be able to report that these investigations have 

 progressed in a generally satisfactory manner during 1916. In 

 the succeeding portions of this report we shall consider one by 

 one the different lines along which these investigations are pro- 

 gressing. , 



1. COOPERATIVE BREEDING RECORDS. 



The cooperative breeding record project, in which about 

 200 of the leading breeders of cattle in Maine, and a few out- 

 side of the State, have contributed for purposes of study, exact 

 records of the breeding operations in their herds, has gone for- 

 ward satisfactorily. A very large amount of new material 

 has been collected in the year. It is expected that with the com- 

 pletion of the Service Records for the calendar year 1916 there 

 will be in hand approximately 2000 complete and connected Ser- 

 vice and Birth breeding records. This constitutes a wholly 

 unique mass of material for the study of many vitally important 

 problems in the physiology of reproduction in cattle. As the 

 amount of material mentioned will be amply sufficient for the 



"Papers from the Biological Laboratory of the Maine Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, No. 111. 



This report of progress during the year 1916 of the work on animal 

 breeding and related lines (exclusive of work with poultry) carried on 

 in the Biological Laboratory of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion, was in part presented as the report of the Committee on Breeding 

 of the Maine Dairymen's Association, at the meeting held in Augusta 

 on December 7, 1916. 



