DRY-MASH FEED 151 
necessary to get at least two lots of birds of the same strain and 
feed them from birth according to the best methods of each system. 
Better still if the birds to be dry fed had come from several genera- 
tions of dry-fed stock. The same would also hold about the birds 
to be fed on the moist-mash method. But it would probably be 
difficult, if not impossible, to find the same strain of birds that had 
been reared from birds fed in the two different styles. 
Thus it seems to me that to get the same strain of birds at the 
same age one must select them either from parents that had been 
reared on dry food or wet food. In order to make the test quite 
fair it would be necessary to get two lots of young birds from dry- 
fed parents and two lots of birds hatched from parents fed on wet 
mash. We would then have four lots of birds. Those reared from 
dry-mash parents would be divided into two and one lot fed dry 
and the other fed moist. The same would be done with the birds 
from wet-mash parents. We would then have two lots as follows : 
Birds from Dry-Mash Parents 
(a) To be dry fed ; (b) to be moist fed. 
Birds from Wet-Mash Parents 
(c) To be dry fed ; (d) to be moist fed. 
The eggs produced from groups (a) and (c) would be added 
together and the eggs of groups (b) and (d) would be added together, 
and the numbers produced would determine the result. Thus, if 
(a) and (c) produced 90 eggs, and (b) and (d) produced 100, the 
latter would be winners. If, on the contrary, the figures went the 
other way the test would be equally conclusive. 
So far as public competitions are concerned we have only one 
that I know of. 
I find that in Victoria (Australia) the Board of Agriculture has 
taken the matter up and held an egg-laying competition over 
twelve months, in which there were two sections—dry-mash and 
wet-mash. 
Unfortunately for the experiment the competitors had the choice 
