68 Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. 1919. 



are printed on orange paper ; incubator records on pink paper ; 

 autopsy records on blue paper, and so on. This point of us- 

 ing different colored sheets for different parts of the records 

 is a valuable aid in quickness of reference. 



It will be noted in the account of the system of record 

 keeping which follows that an effort is made at every possible 

 point to make the numerical features of the records run in 

 continuous series. . Consequently all bands are bought from 

 the manufacturer stamped consecutively from one up to the 

 number desired. 



Irr connection with the matter of consecutive numbers it 

 may be said that in keeping the breeding and egg records in 

 the work here, an automatic numbering machine has been found 

 to be an extremely valuable mechanical aid. 



The Mating Sheet. 



The fundamental starting point of the present system of 

 records, is the use of what will be spoken of throughout as 

 "mating number." The idea is this : When a particular hen 

 and cockerel are put together in a mating pen there is given to 

 the mating so formed an arbitrary number called the mating 

 number. While these mating numbers are perfectly arbitrary 

 they are taken consecutively for reasons of convenience re- 

 ferred to in the preceding section. The mating number itself 

 gives no statement of the pedigree but it forms one element 

 of an index wherewith the pedigree can be very quickly and 

 easily looked out. At the time when the mating is made up 

 and the mating number is assigned, there is prepared a mating 

 sheet so-called, which is shown in Figure 10 somewhat re- 

 duced. The purpose of this mating sheet is to show in one 

 place the individuals which comprise a given mating and all 

 the progeny which arise from that mating. The mating sheet 

 might with equal propriety be called a "family sheet" since it 

 would include in a human pedigree records of a given pair of 

 parents and all their children. Similarly the mating number 

 might be called the "family number." It corresponds to the 

 family name in a human family for a single generation. It 

 differs from a family name in that it is not transmitted either 



