Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1912 — RAISING POULTRY FOR EGGS [ARTICLE]

RAISING POULTRY FOR EGGS

Maine Agricultural Experiment 3tation Issues Bulletin Glving Results With Plymouth Rocks. ■' - f Under the above title.! the Maine agricultural experiment station has Issued Bulletin 192, which summarizes all of the results of the experiments which have been carrted on at the station during the last 13 years in attempting to improve by breeding the average egg production of a strain of Barred Plymouth Rock poultry. An account is given of the results of the earlier experiments in selecting the highest producers as breeders without regard to any other qualities than their trap nest records. It is shown that this plan of breeding failed to obtain any distinct improvement in flock production. The experiments of the station to find out whether continued artificial incubation and brooding has a harmful effect on egg production are described. The effect of inbreeding on egg production Is discussed on the basis of extensive experimental records. This is followed by a clear and simple explanation of a new plan of breeding which has been tried during the past five years, and which is based upon the conception that high egg productiveness is inherited in certain “blood lines” and not in others, and that by a proper system of pedigree selection it is possible to isolate the high producing lines. The last section of the bulletin is devoted to an exposition of the, gratifying success which has attended the application of this new plan of breeding to the station flock. Strains which have high egg productiveness .fixed as a definite character have now been obtained and are being propagated at the station.