66 Therefore, the Ontario Agricultural and Experimental Union would strongly urge upon the Government the necessity, “(1) For establishing at the earliest possible date a School of Forestry, where instruction will be given in practical methods of dealing with forestry problems; "(2) For collecting accurate information from the municipal authorities as to the amount of lands unfit for agriculture in the settled townships of Ontario ; “(3) For undertaking the practical re-forestation of areas sufficiently large to afford forest conditions, as a demonstration of the utility of the work on these lands, which, from their surroundings, enjoy practical immunity from fire; 68 '(4) For considering some means of adjusting taxation so as to encourage rather than to discourage the preservation of farmers' woodlots." Hon. John Dryden, Minister of Agriculture: I have been very much interested in the discussion on the forestry question, and while I can agree with everything that has been said, I am not prepared to say, as I have no doubt you would like me to do, what can be done with regard to creating a centre for forestry operations. A great many men in public life are moved this way or that by the politics in it, so that you have to keep up the agitation, and if you young men who are just coming into usefulness in this country will keep stirring up this question, you will probably get what you are working for. I cannot sit down without saying, as I have often said before, that this organization of young farmers and older farmers is one of the most important agricultural organizations we have in this country. You who are carrying on these experiments do not know perhaps how much value there is in your work, and you will not know for years to It is a work that requires a great deal of thought, and there are yet many things for you to take up which will be of increasing usefulness as the years go by. come. I have just returned from the International Exhibition at Chicago, the largest of its kind in the world. I saw great things there, for it is a country of great wealth and great resources, and everything is on a very extensive scale. But when I come back here and visit the Union and the Winter Fair, and listen to the reports and discussions, I see the working machinery running, as it were. It is doing wonders for us, and I feel proud of my country, for I feel when I see this machinery in operation that, although they on the other side of the line have many things that are far superior to ours, yet we shall be able to hold our own with them, and to send our products wherever theirs will go; and it is because of the educational work that is being done by this Union and other similar institutions in this Province. I wish you every success. Anything I can do shall be done, but the best way that a Government, or a Minister of Agriculture, or a President of a college can help you is to try to find out some way whereby you can help yourselves. I do not believe in spoon-feeding the people. If I could only inspire our young men with the thought that they can help themselves by co-operation in their work, I should be doing far more than by shovelling out money for them to spend. Work along those lines, and you are assured of great success. COOPERATIVE EXPERIMENTS IN POULTRY RAISING. By W. R. Graham, B.S.A., Guelph. This year we had six successful incubator experiments. This work requires a great deal of detailed information, and we find difficulty in getting experimenters to fill out the charts properly. We find that, while the charts that were used are good as far as they go, they do not go far enough, and that we should have a great deal more information. They should indicate, for example, how many chickens are alive on the tenth day. Those who have operated incubators will understand that it is a comparatively easy matter to hatch a large percentage of chickens, but it is a very different matter to hatch a large number that are sure to live. The difficulty we have is that the .chickens take diarrhoea at about the age of ten days. This is a form of indigestion, and is largely due to imperfect incubation. The temperature is too high, or the humidity is too high, or it is not high enough. We want a chart that will show this. To give the desired information properly, some knowledge of embryology will be necessary on the part of the experimenters. We therefore wish to get about a dozen men who are willing to devote any amount of time to this work, and examine the eggs every day, and in that way we may be able to come to some conclusion. We have had a larger number of chickens from our incubator experiments this year than last. Six experimenters hatched 7,057 chickens, the incubators holding 197 eggs on an average. There was an average of 135 good germs in each machine, or 68.7 per cent. of the eggs set. The machines made an average hatch of 58 per cent. of the eggs set. The greatest trouble in connection with artificial incubation is the handling of the incubator during the first ten days. If you run the machine at 105 degrees, and at the same time leave the ventilators wide open you will find that the greater number of the chickens hatched will have bowel trouble. The way we found this out was by the introduction of pure oxygen gas. We found that, while this may be of some value towards the end of the hatch, at the beginning it was a bad thing. It seemed to stimulate the heart action, and the chickens grew too fast, and on examination the eggs showed a blood ring following around the embryo. When you see that indication at the eighth day, you may at once come to the conclusion that you have run the incubator at too high a temperature or have given too much air, probably both, and you may be sure that you will have trouble with those chickens after they hatch. In our experiments this year we found that while an experimenter would succeed in hatching from 80 to 90 per cent. of the living germs, and that the chickens seemed to do well for five days, at the end of that time in many cases a lot of them died. In the next batch, perhaps all would live. The reason for this is the point upon which we want to get more detailed information. Q. Would there be any ill-effects from running the machine at a little lower temperature at the beginning? A.: If you hold the machine at 101 or 102 degrees, not higher, and keep the ventilators shut, you will get good results. After the twelfth day you may open the ventilators a very little, and also air the eggs. During the first eight days I would put the eggs back into the machine as quickly as possible. Q. In early spring hatches, which month is the best? Mr. Graham: We find it practically useless to hatch February eggs. If you have mild weather towards the end of January, and can get the hens out to exercise, and give them plenty of clover hay and meat food, not mashed food, you will get eggs that will give good chickens. Our experiments show that it takes three December eggs, four January eggs, and from five to six February eggs to produce on an average a good marketable chicken. Q: What is the cause of chickens failing to break through the shell? I notice that sometimes they succeed in getting the beak through and then die. Mr. Graham: It may be due to weakness in the breeding stock. Another cause for this is lack of moisture in the machine towards the finish of the hatch. Q. The incubator had plenty of moist ure. Mr. Graham: At what season was it? A.: A February hatch. Mr. Graham: Then it was probably due to defective stock. Mr. R. Thomson, St. Catharines: I had the same difficulty with March and May hatches, and my hens were allowed out. Mr. Graham: It is not always an easy matter to explain these things. Q. What is the proper time to close the ventilator for good? Mr. Graham: From the night of the eighteenth day. I do not think you can air the eggs too much during the last week. If the outside temperature was 60 degrees, I would not be afraid to let the eggs air for half an hour, but I would not do it at th start. Table Showing Digestible Constituents Also Total Indigestible Matter and Water Peas. Buckwheat_ Flax Seed... Soja Beans_. Horse Beans. Cotton Seed Meal Low Grade Flour__ Oat Dust___ Oat Hulls. Malt Sprouts. Brewer's Grains. (Dry). Brewer's Grains, (Wet) (Continued from last page) Kentucky Blue Grass Pasture Timothy, Green) Timothy, Hay) Red Clover, (Green) A Red Clover, (Hay) Alsike, Green) Alsike, Hay) Alfalfa, (Green) Alfalfa, (Hay) Crim. Clover, (Green) Crim. Clover, (Hay) L Soja Beans, (Green) Oat Straw Wheat Straw Corn Stover Fodder Corn, (Green) I Fodder Corn, (Dry) Corn Silage Mangels Turnips Sugar Beets Artichokes THE PRINCIPAL FEEDS AND FODDERS AVAILABLE TO ONTARIO FARMERS. By Prof. G. E. Day, Agricultural College, Guelph. Everybody knows that the different parts of an animal must be built up from what enters the animal's stomach, and that in the animal's body we have different classes of materials, for instance, first, the bony skeleton; second, the muscles and the tendons, and a great many other products somewhat similar in composition, which all contain the element, nitrogen; and, third, the fats of the animal body, which contain no nitrogen. Only a part of the food the animal con sumes can be utilized. A certain portion is digested and assimilated by the animal, and the remainder thrown off, and it is only that part which the animal digests and assimilates that can be of use to it, and therefore we shall deal simply with the digestible constituents of the food. These constituents may be divided into three, or, I might say, four, main classes; first, those which go to build up the muscle, a portion of the blood, a portion of the milk, part of the hair, horn, hoofs, etc. There are a large number of these compounds, differing more or less in composition, but similar in their effects on the animal's body, and they are all grouped under the general term, protein. Then we have another group of substances which are concerned in building up the fatty portions of the animal, and also in keeping up the heat of the body, or the energy of the animal. To this group belong such substances as starch and sugar, and many other substances somewhat similar in composition, and they are all grouped under the general term, carbo-hydrates. In all foods we also have substances similar in composition to fat; flax-seed, for instance, has a high percentage. In an analysis of a food, the substances that come under this head include other substances that are not true fats. Consequently the chemist usually employs another term for these. He calls them ether extracts-but we shall simply refer to them as fat. Then, we have another class of substances which comprise what is called "ash." These go to form bone. In the accompanying chart, an attempt has been made to represent the amount of digestible protein, carbo-hydrates, and fat in a number of our leading food stuffs, and of these I have endeavored to make a fairly representative selection. I have been unable to represent the amount of ash contained in these foods on a chart of this kind, because it exists in such small quantities. We have also included the water content. An animal requires all these constituents in order to thrive properly. Of course, it is possible to maintain some animals for a considerable time on a ration that is free from certain of these constituents, but if you took an animal and fed it on pure protein, you would soon sicken it; and the same is true of the other constituents. To do its best, an animal requires a certain amount of each. When we have a ration containing all these constituents in the most suitable proportion for a given purpose, we have what is called a "balanced ration." A great deal of time and labor has been spent in investigating what constitutes a balanced ration for different classes of animals. We have as a result certain feeding standards put forth. Thus, the dairy cow requires per day, per thousand pounds live weight, so much protein, so much carbo-hydrates, and so much fat. I should like to point out just here what seems to be rather an inconsistency, or a divergence of our practical experience from some of these feeding standards. The peculiarity about the dairy cow is that if you feed her a ration that is poor in protein, which is used in building up the case in in the milk, she will not give you milk that is poor in casein. She will give you milk of the same quality, or practically so, as you got from a ration rich in protein, but she will give you less milk. So that if you cut down the amount of protein in a cow's ration, if she is going to give you milk of the same quality, she must necessarily give you less of it. In the case of a dairy cow, the standard works out fairly well, but in the case of a fattening animal, there seems to be some divergence. In certain standards the amount of protein for a fattening animal is usually stated to be about equal to what is required for a cow, but we have found in our work that a steer which is fed a comparatively small amount of protein in proportion to carbohydrates, has given the most economical gain. Prof. Henry, in his book on "Feeds and Feeding," gives as an average amount of grain required for 100 lbs. of gain in the case of a fattening steer, to be 1,000 lbs. He makes this estimate from the results of experiments at experiment stations, and from the experience of practical feeders. But if you study the methods followed generally in the United States in feeding steers, you will find that they feed exceedingly heavy meal rations. In our results we have had experiments with light and heavy rations, and when feeding what we call a heavy meal ration, we find that it requires about 565 |