204 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 1908. 



The work of the Station in these two directions (breeding for 

 egg production and poultry management) has attracted wide 

 attention not only in this country but abroad as well, and has 

 been very generally held to have been of notable practical benefit 

 to the poultry industry at large. A brief "account of stock" of 

 what has actually been accomplished in the two general lines of 

 poultry work followed will be useful here. The work in 

 poultry management will be first considered. 



THE CURTAIN-FRONT HOUSE. 



Of all the improvements which have been made in poultry 

 management at this Station undoubtedly the so-called "curtain- 

 front system" of housing ranks first. Up to the time when 

 Professor Gowell began the first tentative experiment in the 

 direction of making a more open house for laying poultry it 

 was practically universally believed by poultrymen that in order 

 to get good winter egg production it was necessary to imitate 

 in the poultry house, so far as possible, summer conditions. 

 The Experiment Station itself constructed its first poultry 

 house on the plan of a tight house with a system of supplying 

 artificial heat. It was very soon demonstrated after the "cur- 

 tain-front" principle was tried in a small house (the so-called 

 "Pioneer house" of Station bulletins) that the old idea of the 

 necessity for a warm house for winter egg production was 

 essentially wrong. It clearly appeared that a low temperature 

 in itself had no bad influence on egg production during the 

 winter months. Further it appeared that getting the birds into 

 the open air every bright, sunshiny day during the winter was 

 a great stimulus to egg production. This is practically what 

 the "curtain-front" house does. During bright days the, cur- 

 tains are up and to all intents and purposes the birds are in the 

 open air. The house, however, gives two conditions which 

 could not be duplicated in the open air during the winter months. 

 First, the birds are protected from drafts and, second, they 

 scratch in a dry litter. The general idea that the lowness of 

 the temperature does not matter in egg production provided the 

 birds have plenty of fresh air and the house is dry, has proved 

 itself in the experience of the Station a correct one. 



The essential correctness of the underlying idea in this "cur- 

 tain-front system" of housing is further indicated by the fact 



