New Yorx AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 23 
The first series of experiments did not definitely indicate the 
cause for the superiority of the one ration. It appeared that the 
more favorable results when animal food was fed might be due 
either to the more efficient forms of the nitrogen compounds or 
with the rapidly growing young birds and the laying hens to the 
much larger proportion of ash consisting largely of phosphates. 
Subsequent experiments have shown that while ducklings re- 
quire a certain amount of animal food, hens and chicks are able 
to do well on wholly vegetable food, supplemented by ash rich 
in phosphates. In these experiments, rations of vegetable food, 
to which bone ash was added to make up the assumed deficiency 
of ash, in growing chicks gave identical results with those from 
rations containing animal food. With laying hens the rations 
were equally efficient for most of the time but good results were 
not sustained quite so long by the vegetable food ration. The 
addition of bone ash did not, however, enable ducklings to make 
as good use of a ration wholly of vegetable foods; such a ration 
being decidedly less efficient than one containing animal food. 
BULLETINS PUBLISHED IN 1899. 
No. 158 — May.— Combating the striped beetle on cucum- 
| bers. F. A. Sirrine. Pages 32, plates 
2. 
No. 159 — October.— The forest tent caterpillar. V. H. Lowe. 
Pages 30, plates 6. 
No. 160 — October.— Report of analyses of commercial fertil- 
izers for the spring of 1899. L. L. 
Van Slyke. Pages 90. 
No. 161 — November.— Treatment for gooseberry mildew. OC. 
P. Close. Pages 12, plates 2, diag. 1. 
No. 162 — November.— Leaf scorch of the sugar beet, cherry, 
cauliflower and maple. F.C. Stewart. 
Pages 14, plates 6. 
