GERMAN EXPERIMENTAL STATIONS

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 590, 2 August 1913, Page 2

GERMAN EXPERIMENTAL STATIONS

- -- - -<s—' An American agricultural writer has been paying a visit to Germany, and in the Chicago Farmers' Review he gives an interesting account of the experiment stations at Mockern and Halle. At the former the chief experiments conducted ava in connection with stock foods. At Halle more attention, it is said, is paid to the study of heredity and to the cross-breeding of animals than anywhere else in the world. From the particulars given it would appear that a good deal of the work is of more scientific than practical value, as so many of the animala used in the experiment are not of the most useful Kind. One of the interesting exhibits in the stables at Halle wag two typical specimens of the Simenthaler cattle, standing side by side. One of these cows weighed about 13001b and the other about 700b Ib, and both were fully develoved animals. The larger was raised in a

good country, with an abundance of feed The smaller was the product of a sterible country, where feed was •scarce. The two, standing together, afford a striking illustration of the effects of good md bad feeding in the development of animals. Indian cattle, which are immune to Texas fever, were crossed with native breeds to determine how far this im munity would extend. There were crosses of native cattle with the buffalo, yak, and Indian cattle, and the progeny again crossed, to study atavism cr breeding back. There were brown and white Bavarian hogs, Hanoverians with white bodies and black heads and hams, wild hogs, and improved breeds of many kinds. There were wild horses- and crosses with the zebra and the ass in which the characteristics of the latter predominated, but showed the zebra stripes on the legs and part of the body. Ifi the pens Were every variety of sheep, tame or wild, and many cros = breds. There were Austrian milking sheep with long tails that were as bare oi' wool as a rat's tail. This variety of sheep is raised in 13rge numbers in Austria, and, besides producing wool, is a substitute for tlie dairy cow, the milk being u:ed lor food. Another curious breed was the Persian fat-tailed sheep, so-called because of the great accumulation of fat on the tail, often of enormous sree. Professor Holzman staled that on one of their sheep this lump of fat weighed 401b. It is stated there are about 300 students in summer and -l"i0 in winter, attending the Halle Agri cultural School, and no doubt the extraordinary collection of animals affords them a good deal of interest.