When early in 1908 Bulletin 157 of the Maine Experiment Station was published, it showed by averages as given in the table on page 202 that the egg yield at the station was for the entire period on the decline. In Bulletin 157, the statement was made that "arithmetical mistakes" and "faulty statistical methods" accounted for the discrepancies between the former publications and the criticised data. The further explanation that "the experiment was a success as an experiment," etc., only appeared to the public mind as a graceful way of explaining what was, to the practical man, an utter failure of the entire work. The unfortunate death of Professor Gowell, together with the fact that he had equipped a private poultry farm with station stock, added to the confusion, and the result of the bulletin was the precipitation of a general "pow-wow" in which the poultry editors were about equally divided between those who were casting insinuations upon the personnel of the station, and those who decried the whole effort toward improving the egg yield. After going over the publications of Professor Gowell, visiting the station and meeting the present force, I came to the following conclusions regarding the matter: Professor Gowell's work is open to severe criticism. Errors have been made in conducting the work at Maine which have made it possible for a mathematical biologist to take the data and seemingly prove that selection, as practiced by Professor Gowell, actually resulted in lowering inherent egg capacity of the strain of Plymouth Rock hens under experimentation. Had Professor Gowell's successor been a practical poultryman, it is my candid opinion that the public would have been given a radically different explanation of the results. Professor Gowell is the author of the following statement: "The small chicken grower is earnestly urged to use an incubator for hatching." This opinion is not in accord with that of the majority of breeders and the more progressive experiment station workers. The opinion has been expressed by Professor Graham and others, that the particular results at the Maine Station may have been due to the decrease of vitality caused by continued artificial hatching. This view may be wholly without foundation. Nevertheless, as the common type of incubator is under heavy criticism, and it is pretty well proven that chicks so hatched have not the vitality of naturally hatched chicks, surely a series of breeding experiments would carry more weight if the replenishing of the flock had been accomplished by natural means.