Farm and Garden

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 249, 9 April 1910, Page 3

Farm and Garden

BREEDING LAWS. Since Mendel's law of heredity was rediscovered a few years ago, the Washington Bureau of Agriculture has been carrying out experiments, several of which are detailed in an article by W. A. De Puy, which is published in a recent number of "Hoard's Dairyman." Under the direction of Dr E. C. Schroeder, Mr De Puy says, rats were selected as objects for the first experiments. Two plainly marked members of the rat family were used, the one being »of solid colour and the other white with a black head. Of the first generation resulting from this cross every member was solidly gray, like the dominant strain of the parents. This was as Mendel said it would be. Two members of the generation were crossed, not necessarily brothers and sisters, as other lines had been started simultaneously. In this case the two gray rats of the first generation produced part gray and part hooded. The hooded rat that had failed to make itself ,ielt in the first generation showed itself in 25 per cent, of the second. These hooded rats bred hooded in the following generations. A portion of the grays, 25 per cent., bred all grays, and a remaining portion, still having the unset characteristics, repeated the proportions of the second generation. The number of families of rats in which the experiment was followed out was increased from year to year, and the figures kept to the minutest details. It is still going on, but the experiments have been drawn out to such length as to have no doubt as to the findings. They all go to prove that Mendel's law is correct. This does not mean that the proportions of these qualities are absolute and unvarying; but they are in this proportion on an average. Neither does it mean that all the qualities will remain independent, for in many cases the offspirng will be a compromise between the two parents. It has been shown that a black Minorca chicken crossed with a white Leghorn will produce all white the first generation. The second generation, however, will be 25 per cent, black as the original Minorca, despite the fact that both parents are pure white in colour. Frizzled chickens crossed with those which are plain feathered will produce all frizzled in the first generation, and 25 per cent plain in the second. "This

general law," Mr De Puy says, "is intended a3 a guide for the farmer, the stock-x-aiser and the father of a family. From it he may forecast the future and prevent the recurrence of the undesirable. Upon it he can build an ideal in breeding and intelligently work towards that ideal. With it in mind we can understand what has always been known as freaks of nature and attribute them to the elements that actually cause them. It has more of interest and importance in it, if intelligently used, than have many of the discoveries that have set the world agog; for the life of to morrow springs from that of to-day, and an intelligent reckoning would do much towards the improvement of plant and animal life, even unto that of the all-dominant creature, man himself." FRESH AIR FOR CHICKS. Air and water are two important but neglected factors in growing chicks. Most hens with their broods are confined in little coops. For at least a third of the time they are shut up as closely as possible lest some prowling animal find an opening and make havoc of the brood. Generally the coops are allowed to become filthy, and the air the chickens are compelled to brenthe is foul and unwholesome. SULPHUR AND EGGS. One of the constituents of egg albumen is sulphur. The bad odour of rotten eggs is due largely to the presence of this gas and phosphuretted hydrogen, which is also formed. The shell of the egg is porous, and the micro-organisms which cause the egg to ferment —i.e., to rot or spoil—gain access to the egg through the minute openings.