A GUIDE FOR KEEPERS OF POULTRY 245 
cent a pound when fed to laying hens. Milk fed to laying 
hens or growing chicks makes better returns than when 
fed to pigs. 
MINERAL MATTER.—The mineral matter or ash in 
the feed of a laying hen is so important that we want to 
emphasize the fact that unless feed contains a liberal 
quantity of mineral matter the hen can not produce the 
largest possible number of eggs. There is nearly eight 
times as much mineral matter in the dry substance of an 
egg as there is in corn or wheat, and no system of feed- 
ing with grain can supply a good laying hen with enough 
mineral matter to manufacture eggs. To supply this de- 
ficiency we must feed crushed bone, oyster shell or lime- 
stone grit in abundance. One or more of these should 
always be kept before laying hens and growing chicks. 
MOLTING OF FOWLS.—The most careful series of 
observations covering the molting of fowls at all ages 
that were evér made were those of Prof. James E. Rice, 
Miss Clara Nixon, and Clarence E. Rogers at the Cornell 
University Experiment Station. To Miss Nixon is due 
the honor of having discovered where the down that 
covers a chick at birth goes. She discovered that this 
down is really the tips of the feathers which appear later 
in the life of the chick. As the chick grows the feather 
pushes its down tip farther out and the down is worn 
off while the feather appears in full form a little later. 
Miss Nixon also discovered that a pullet molts four or 
more times before reaching the laying period, the feathers 
dropping out to be replaced by others more in accordance 
with the size of the chick from time to time. 
The so-called Van Dreser method of molting consists 
in cutting down the rations of fowls at the time the molt 
would naturally begin until. they lose something in 
