A GUIDE FOR KEEPERS OF POULTRY U7 
initiative, so caponizing spreads by slow growth from 
neighborhood to neighborhood. Some one begins capon- 
izing cockerels and sells them at a very high price com- 
pared with the prices paid for other classes of poultry. 
This induces others to begin caponizing cockerels and a 
center of production is formed from which city markets 
draw supplies. Thus in many parts of the country there 
are isolated points where capons form a considerable 
item in the poultry receipts, and poultry-keepers in these 
places make profits accordingly. 
There is much ignorance concerning the whole sub- 
ject. A very large number of people do not understand 
that a capon may belong to any breed of fowls. They do 
not understand that a capon is simply an emasculated 
cockerel. As these words are being written a letter lies 
on the writer’s desk asking him where capons for breed- 
ing may be secured. Nor is this a solitary instance. 
CAPONIZING.—Caponizing is the art of removing 
the sexual organs of the males of our domestic fowls in 
order that they shall not become sexually active and that 
their growth may be retarded and the quality of their 
flesh improved. Caponizing is performed with instru- 
ments invented for the purpose that may be bought of 
any dealer in poultry supplies. As full directions are 
furnished with every set of caponizing instruments sold 
it is needless here to describe the process. 
Caponizing usually is performed about the time cock- 
erels begin to exhibit sexual proclivities, say about the 
time they begin to crow. The operation seems to be 
comparatively painless, as birds frequently begin to eat 
at once after being released after the operation. The 
operation is comparatively safe, but from 2 to 5 per cent 
dying from it and these die by bleeding in a few minutes, 
