New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. St 
to a solution of lime and salt (to which a little boracic acid was 
added) of a specific gravity somewhat lower than that of eggs, 
because the common materials could be cheaply obtained in pure 
condition and the preserved eggs were easier to clean than those 
from more costly solutions which gave no better results. Though 
of course no preserved egg could grade with a fresh one, little 
a Bh oes 
y difference in quality of eggs, as tested by many individuals, could 
3 be detected between those preserved in the few efficient solutions. 
3 
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>. 
_ THE FEEDING OF CAPONS. 
Some years ago after general agricultural development brought 
a condition where the margin of profit in winter feeding of beef 
cattle and swine in this State had been so small that the chief ad- 
4 vantage was the possibility of thereby using coarse fodders and by- 
products on the farm, the demand for other animal products at- 
tracted more attention. The unusually high prices quoted for 
capons led to considerable discussion in the agricultural and poultry 
press relative to the profit in producing them. This discussion 
was not free from exaggerated statements of interested individuals, 
and little satisfactory information was available. To get some data 
concerning the growth and food cost in fitting capons for market 
several feeding experiments’* were made during the two seasons. 
Six lots of capons and one lot of cockerels were fed for several 
months and several lots of capons for shorter periods of several 
weeks. Birds of several breeds and crosses were used, chiefly 
Asiatics, but none of the smaller breeds. No special comparison of 
breeds was attempted, although for the most part each lot’ was of 
one breed. 
To all of these fowls sweet skim milk was fed nearly all of the 
time in place of water, and much of the time constituted about 60 
per ct. of the total food, supplying generally from 12 to 15 per ct. 
of the total dry matter in the ration. 
Detailed reports were published giving records of the food, its 
composition, the rate of growth and food cost of growth by short 
periods, and also charts showing graphically the increasing cost of 
added weight as the birds approached maturity, the food cost per 
pound weight at different stages, and the relation existing through- 
out growth between the cost of production and the market value. 
* Bul. 53; also in Rpt. 11:236-270 (18902). 
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