Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment Station

EGG weight has long been one of the problems confronting the hatching industry in the broiler-producing areas of the United States. Heavy demands for chicks during the months of September, October and November place the hatcheryman in a difficult situation. During this period the supply of satisfactory hatching eggs is more limited than at any other time during the year. There are two factors responsible for this limitation of supply. First, the flocks supplying the eggs are comprised largely of young pullets which have not reached heavy production. Second, the eggs these young pullets lay are usually quite small. This study was initiated with a twofold objective in mind. The first was to determine the justification of weight restrictions on hatching eggs to be used only for broiler chicks. These restrictions have been favorably revised since this study was begun. Second, this test was made to determine the influence of . . .

Various investigators (2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 15) have demonstrated that the toxic effects produced in certain plants grown on acid soil are caused primarily by the presence of aluminum in the soil. Poor growth of the plants has been attributed to a phosphorus deficiency caused by the precipitation of phosphorus in the soil by aluminum (3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14). On the other hand, some research (4, 13, 17) has indicated that aluminum may precipitate phosphorus within the plant, and thus make it unavailable for metabolic processes. As recorded in an earlier publication (20), the writer grew barley in drip culture solutions wherein the root system was divided, each half being placed in separate containers, and receiving different culture solutions. By this method a plant could have access both to aluminum and to phosphorus, and precipitation in the culture solution could be avoided. Analyses for phosphorus and for aluminum in the various plant fractions revealed that the internal precipitation of phosphorus by aluminum evidently plays an important r?le in the poor development of plants grown in contact with aluminum. The findings reported in this paper further support the thesis that aluminum toxicity may in part be caused by the precipitation of phosphorus internally, thus inactivating phosphorus.

While habitat functions are determined by ecological (physical) relationships, social values for these functions are determined by public preferences. Rhode Island residents' preferences for salt marsh functions were estimated through an application of stated preference (conjoint) analysis. The two models were designed to integrate production with values of wetland functions, thereby providing insights into the set of restoration actions that would offer the greatest potential for welfare improvement, given a fixed restoration budget. This paper discusses the design, implementation and estimation of the integrated model, and provides an example of how the model may be used to prioritize multiattribute restoration policies.

NUMEROUS sulfa drugs have been found valuable in the prevention and treatment of coccidiosis in poultry. Also various methods of using these drugs have been recommended. It is the belief of the authors that the inclusion of the medication in the feed continuously over a sufficient period of time to allow immunity to develop from natural exposure would be the safest and most economical method for controlling coccidiosis. This procedure would call for controlled infection rather than complete prevention of infection in order that the desired immunity might be established. Work at this station (Delaplane et al. 1947, and Grumbles et al. 1947) has shown that sulfaquinoxaline is effective against both cecal and intestinal coccidiosis. In these experiments 0.05 percent sulfaquinoxaline, fed in mash intermittently, and 0.033 and 0.0125 percent, fed continuously in mash, gave good results. These studies also have shown that sulfaquinoxaline used thus did not prevent the . . .

FOR years it has been known that egg weight exerts a control on the weight of baby chicks at hatching time. A small egg produces a small chick, large egg produces a large chick. One would be apt to assume that such a start in life extends back into embryonic development prior to the hatching of the egg. Further, one might assume that any disadvantage suffered by the chick hatched from a small egg would be continued on through to maturity. Evidence was presented by Benjamin (1920), Hablersleben and Mussehl (1922), Upp (1928), Graham (1931), and Munroe and Kosin (1940) which showed a highly significant, positive relationship between egg weight and chick weight at hatching time. Jull and Quinn (1925) reported an influence of egg weight on body weight differences between male and female chicks, but contrasting results were published by Munroe and Kosin (1940) who used percent of egg . . .

The Maillard nonenzymatic browning reaction is known to cause serious reduction in the nutritionai value of foods. The reduced nutritionai value does not seem to be limited to the loss of amino acids, as supplementation of the diet with those amino acids does not completely restore its biologic value. When rats were fed a browned egg albumin diet and a control diet of equal protein quality for up to 12 mo, the rats fed browned diet showed enlarged cecums, livers, and kidneys and reduced weight gain. In addition, intestinal digestive enzyme activities decreased, and serum alkaline phosphatase and serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT) activities increased compared to the control group. The livers of the rats fed browned protein showed histopathologic changes including fatty change and an unknown pigment accumulation. The data indicate a possible cumulative toxic effect due to the long-term feeding of Maillard browned compounds. The mutagenic activity of Maillard browned egg albumin was also tested. No mutagenic effect was observed. The products of the nitrosation of the Amadori compound fructosyl-L-trytophan were mutagenic, however, in strains TA 1535 and TA 100 of the Salmonella/mammalian microsome mutagenicity assay.

The determination of the fertilizer requirements of individual crops has furnished a fertile field of investigation, and although many contributions have been made, much still remains to be accomplished before rational methods of fertilizer applications may be relied upon to produce normal crops. In the past the physiological chemist has attacked this problem chiefly from two angles. He has investigated the content and availability of the nutrient elements in the soil, and he has determined the total content of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium occurring within the plant. Both of these methods have failed to furnish a satisfactory basis for determining the mineral nutrient needs of plants. We cannot satisfactorily determine the quantity and kind of amendments needed on any given plot of land by making a soil analysis ; neither can we tell by an analysis of the plants grown on the soil the amount and kind of fertilizer that should be added. This is no doubt due to the very large number of factors involved in crop production, especially with reference to the relationship between the plant and the soil in which it grows. In this paper, work carried on during 1925-1926 is summarized, and a different mode of attack is suggested, which may prove helpful. Quite aside from the practical applications of this work, it is believed that other workers may find the methods here developed useful in studies of mineral nutrient metabolism.

The recent interest in the differences in vitamin content among varieties of vegetables is a result of increased knowledge of human dietary requirements. The demands of the present war and the establishment of the National Cooperative Project for the Conservation of the Nutritive Value of Foods have given impetus to such investigations. MacLinn, Fellers, and Buck (7) have reported on the ascorbic acid content of varieties and strains of tomatoes. These authors found a varia-

Abstract The level of endogenous root-promoting and inhibiting substances in 3 clones of rhododendron were compared at seasonal intervals in order to study the clonal and seasonal variation in rooting response of cuttings. The highest levels of 4 rooting cofactors in any season were found in both stem and leaf tissue of Rhododendron cv. ‘Cunningham’s White’ followed by ‘English Roseum’. The clone ‘Dr. H. C. Dresselhuys’ contained the least amount of the rooting cofactors. An inhibitor was often found in all clones, but it appeared less responsible for clonal differences in rooting response than variation in levels of the rooting cofactors. Rooting cofactor levels contained in the stem tissue of ‘Cunningham’s White’ were not less than those in the leaf tissue. In contrast, cofactor levels present in the stem tissue of ‘English Roseum’ and ‘Dr. H. C. Dresselhuys’ were less than those in the leaf tissue. The promoting activity of rooting cofactors in all tissues of the clones increased in September and decreased again in November to the level of July extract. The inhibitor found in the July extracts disappeared in September and reappeared in November. Rooting of cuttings of ‘Dr. H. C. Dresselhuys’ was significantly improved by grafting a leaf and bud scion of ‘Cunningham’s White’. On the other hand, scions of ‘Dr. H. C. Dresselhuys’ resulted in decreased rooting of cuttings of ‘Cunningham’s White‘. Rooting capacity of ‘English Roseum’ was less affected by a leaf and bud scion of other clones of Rhododendron .

THE work of Horton-Smith (1942–43), Swales (1944–46), Hawkins (1943), Levine (1939–41), Farr and Allen (1942), Ripsom and Herrick (1945), Thorp (1947) and Seegar (1946) has shown the value of the sulfonamides in the control of cecal coccidiosis. Delaplane (1945) first reported the use of sulfaquinoxaline as a preventive against enzootic Pasteurella avicida infection in chickens. Delaplane, Batchelder and Higgins (1947) reported that 0.05 percent sulfaquinoxaline in the mash, when given four days out of eight, 50 percent of the time, was effective in preventing Eimeria tenella infection in chickens during the summer months. They also reported that 0.033 percent given continuously in the mash gave good protection against cecal coccidiosis. Further studies of the prophylactic use of sulfaquinoxaline were continued on a commercial poultry farm where 33,126 broilers were given 0.05 percent of the drug with various feeding schedules. The work was carried on for a period . . .

The pigments were extracted from crayfish carapace with soy oil. Astaxanthin and its esters were purified and concentrated by using microcrystalline cellulose adsorptive chromatography. The concentration of the purified pigments was approximately forty times that of the original pigmented oil. The separation of the pigments from the pigmented soy oil enabled us to reduce the amount of oil necessary to fortify the diet. In a feeding trial, rainbow trout Salmo gairdneri were fed with the diets containing the purified pigments and desirable pink coloration was found in the flesh. The analysis of the pigment in the test diets and flesh of rainbow trout was carried out. The diets with the higher levels of oil had a higher level of pigment decomposition.

THE work of Delaplane, Batchelder and Higgins (1947) showed that sulfaquinoxaline was effective in preventing mortality from Eimeria tenella infection and apparently did not interfere with the development of immunity. Further studies were made on chickens obtained from a commercial broiler plant where sulfaquinoxaline was being used in various intermittent feeding schedules in an effort to obtain more information as to whether the use of the drug interfered with the development of immunity. MATERIAL AND METHODS The chickens at the plant where this this study was made were brooded in battery brooders for three weeks, then were moved to the main broiler building. Approximately 1,000 to 1,200 chickens were placed in each pen on clean peanut-hull litter. The litter was not changed until the birds were marketed at about 12 weeks of age. Ten representative, including Barred Rocks, New Hampshires and crosses, were obtained from each pen when the birds . . .

In an attempt to shorten the procedure for the estimation of sulfur in urine, Benedict (1) used an oxidizing solution containing copper nitrate.Denis (2) modified this solution, and since that time both the original method and this latter modification have been used increasingly in biological work.Pinchussen and Konarsky (3) used Benedict's original solution for the estimation of sulfur in the organs of animals by adding the solution directly to the finely ground tissue and carrying out the entire procedure in a porcelain centrifuge tube.Trotman and Bell (4) have used the Denis modification to determine the sulfur in wool, first dissolving the sample in nitric acid.Hoffman and Gortner (5) used the Denis modification to estimate the sulfur in pure organic compounds, after dissolving them in a suitable solvent, and these authors (6) have described the use of the method on plant saps.Wolf and Osterberg ( 7) have used the Benedict method after a preliminary treatment of the sample with fuming nitric acid to oxidize most of the organic matter present.This method is complicated by the use of large amounts of fuming nitric acid, and the resulting values for blank determinations are usually high in comparison to the quantity of barium sulfate from the sulfur of most organic materials.Halverson (8) has further altered this procedure by digestion and disintegration with hot water for 10 hours, and by reducing the amount of fuming nitric acid used in the preliminary treatment.Even this last simplification does not render the determination

In 1927 Gilbert and Hardin (4), and later Gilbert and Smith (5), published data showing that there is a correlation between soil fertility and the chemical composition of expressed plant juice. McCool and Weldon (7) and Pettinger (8) in more recent work have substantiated the findings of Gilbert et al. The juice work of the Rhode Island workers has recently been extended to include the estimation of a number of the nitrogenous fractions. This has necessitated a study of methods, since the present chemical procedures used in plant work have been developed for water or alcoholic extracts of plant tissue. Accordingly the method for the determination of ammonia was chosen for adaptation to expressed juices, for the estimation of this plant constituent is one of the most frequent determinations made in the study of plants at this station.

SINCE the discovery of vitamin A, investigators have been trying to find a source of the vitamin that would combine high availability with high stability to overcome the oxidation of the vitamin and its precursors in a mixed feed. Johnson, Carrick and Hauge (1948) found that the carotene from dehydrated alfalfa leaf meal gave better growth and liver storage than the vitamin A from fish liver oil with Barred Plymouth Rock chickens. Reynolds and co-workers(1948), also using Barred Plymouth Rock chickens, observed that better growth to seven weeks of age was obtained from a ration containing stabilized carotene, stabilized vitamin A or vitamin A ester. The work of Castano and his associates (1951) indicated that crystalline vitamin A acetate was more effective than “Black Cod” liver oil or crystalline carotene in producing concentrations of vitamin A in the blood plasma and livers of chickens. When Kramke, Lloyd and Fritz (1952) …

IN the summer of 1931, experiments were started at the Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment Station to obtain data concerning the persistency of viable oocysts in soil of various types and to note the effects, if any, from this infection on the health of chickens running on the same soil over several seasons. The idea is common among poultrymen and others that these organisms are capable of living over in soil for a year or more. Until recently, experimental data in this respect have not been available. Warner (1933) recently reported the results of his studies concerning the duration of time coccidial oocysts are capable of surviving in soil. He found that soil on which infected chickens had run showed viable oocysts at 49 but not at 81 or 370 days after all fowl had been removed from the runs. Experimental plots seeded with oocysts showed viable oocysts at 197 but . . .

THE facts have been established that egg weight has a definite influence upon the weight of the chick at hatching and that the disadvantage produced by small eggs diminishes by the twelfth week. It has further been shown that the effect of egg weight on body weight does not start until late in embryonic development. In previous studies the effects of egg weight on feathering, hatchability, mortality and feed utilization as well as on body weight were determined. The object of this study was to determine any influence that egg weight might have on the shank length-body weight ratio as a measure of body conformation in broilers. Shank length has been compared with body weight since Wright (1932) attributed over-all growth to general size factors, and growth of head and limb regions to group factors. Lerner (1937a) first proposed growth gradients in the posterior limb for all breeds of fowl . . .

Several observers have reported that leaf transpiration is increased with many plants by the presence of copper sprays. It has also been quite definitely proven, especially by Wilson and Runnels (4) with Coleus, that the greatest increase takes place at night. Little data, however, have been gathered to explain this phenomenon. This paper reports certain experiments carried out with tomato plants which both substantiate the findings of earlier workers as to the increase of transpiration rates due to copper sprays and give some evidence as to the mechanism by which it takes place.

ジャガイモのデンプン価は食味や調理・加工適性に大きな影響を及ぼす．各種の栽培条件下でジャガイモのデンプン価は変動し，製品品質や加工工程にばらつきをもたらすため，しばしば消費・実需面からのクレームを生じることがある．そこで，我々は可視・近赤外分光法を用い，実用レベルで，デンプン価の非破壊測定法を検討した．透過スペクトルは，コンベアで分光測定部へ試料を50m/min. の速度で連続的に供給しながら，光源からの光を塊茎にあて，対面するCCDエリアイメージセンサー（測定波長範囲730～930nm）で受光して測定した．比重法により求めた塊茎のデンプン価（実測値）と本法で得られた2次微分スペクトルからPLS回帰分析により検量線を品種毎に作成した．その結果，「男爵薯」，「メークイン」，「キタアカリ」の全規格込みの予測標準誤差（SEP）は，それぞれ0.87％，0.58％および0.86％であった．また，産地，付着土の有無および品温が測定精度に及ぼす影響は小さく，いずれの処理でもSEPは目標値の1％未満に抑えられた．以上のように，選果ラインを組み合わせた光学的評価法により，ジャガイモ塊茎のデンプン価の非破壊測定およびデンプン価に基づいて選別（毎秒約3.3個）できることが示された．

Abstract One spray application of 5000 ppm succinic acid 2, 2-dimethyl hydrazide (Alar) on July 18 or August 22, or 2 spray applications, one on July 18 and another on August 22, significantly retarded new shoot elongation of ‘Collins’ and ‘Bluecrop’ highbush blueberries. The number of flower buds per unit length of new growth was increased. Blossom opening and ripening of the berries was delayed, but fruit size was not appreciably affected. All responses of the 2 cultivars to treatments were more pronounced when they received the 2 spray applications.