EXPERIMENT STATION WORK 
question at issue, it was decided to repeat the experiment a 
third year, and feed a large number of birds on each ration. 
No. Hens. Diet. Ave. Egg Yield. 
LOO wiscee eee es Nitrogenous ......-.-ee sence 126.9 
100 sa%-5 acess Carbonaceous ..........eeeeee 127.2” 
I will leave the last without comment, for the whole thing 
is a hoax. The Illinois Experiment Station has never owned 
a chicken. These “Illinois” experiments were planned and 
executed in a few minutes of the writer’s spare time. The 
basis of the experiments was a pack of cards containing the 
individual records of the Maine Experiment Station hens, 
shuffling the cards and averaging the desired number of rec- 
ords as they come in the pack, made the distinction between 
the various diets. 
Experimental Bias. 
Pet ideas consciously or unconsciously mold practice. A 
bias toward an idea may show itself in the planning and 
conducting of an experiment, or it may come out in the later 
interpretation. 
An illustration of the first kind is found in the early work 
of the West Virginia Station (Bulletin 60). With the precon- 
ceived notion that hens should have a nitrogenous diet an 
experiment was planned and conducted as follows: , 
One lot of hens was fed corn, potatoes, oats and corn meal. 
A contrasted lot reveled in corn, potatoes, hominy feed, oat 
meal, corn meal and fresh cut bone. The results were in 
favor of the latter ration by a doubled egg yield. 
To any experienced poultryman the reason is evident. The 
variety of the diet and the meat food are what made the 
showing. 
About the same time the Massachusetts Station planned a 
similar experiment. The bias was the same, but it took a 
fairer form. The hens were both given a decent variety of 
food and some form of meat. The bulk of the grain was corn 
in the carbonaceous, and wheat in the nitrogenous ration. The 
results were in favor of the corn. This astonished the experi- 
menter. He tried it again and again tests came out in favor of 
corn. At last the old theory was revoked, and the fallacy of 
wheat being essential to egg production was exploded. If by 
186 
