EXPERIMENT STATION WORK 
Gowell, actually resulted in lowering inherent egg capactiy of 
the strain of Plymouth Rock hens under experimentation. 
Had Professor Gowell’s successor been a practical poultryman, 
it is my candid opinion that the public would have been given 
a radically different explanation of the results. 
‘ Professor Gowell is the author of the following statement: 
“fhe small chicken grower is earnestly, urged to use an incu- 
bator for hatching.” This opinion is not in accord with that 
of the majority of breeders and the more progressive experi- 
ment station workers. The opinion has been expressed by 
Professor Graham and others, that the particular results at 
the Maine Station may have been due to the decrease of vital- 
ity caused by continued artificial hatching. This view may be 
wholly without foundation. Nevertheless, as the common type 
of incubator is under heavy criticism, and it is pretty well 
proven that chicks so hatched have not the vitality of nat- 
urally hatched chicks, surely a series of breeding experiments 
would carry more weight if the replenishing of the flock had 
been accomplished by natural means. 
For the first few years of the breeding work the house used 
was the old-fashioned double walled and warmed pattern. The 
last few years of this work were conducted in curtain front 
houses. That the cool house is an improvement over the 
warm house is generally conceded, but there are many poul- 
trymen who are still of the opinion that the warm house will 
give a larger egg yield, though at a greater expense and less 
profit. 
In the early years of the work the method of feeding was 
also a time-honored one, and included a warm mash. About 
the middle of the experimental period Professor Gowell 
brought out the system of feeding dry mash from hoppers. 
This custom became a great fad and Professor Gowell and 
Director Woods have preached it far and wide. Perhaps it is 
an improvement, but it is to-day much more popular with 
novices than with established egg farms. Many old line poul- 
trymen have tried dry mash only to go back to wet mash, by 
which method the hens can be induced to eat more which is 
conducive to high egg yields. Whether these changes in 
housing and feeding have been improvements as claimed by 
those who introduced them, or whether their popularity may 
be explained in part at least by the psychology of fads, is a 
i 189 
