398 THE BEGINNER IN POULTRY 



through two complete molts during the twelve months' 

 test. Indeed, the Secretary's report stated this fact. 

 It is well known that hens seldom lay during the heavier 

 part of the molt, and the fowl which lays on until late 

 autumn usually molts in the later fall and winter. This 

 shows something of the bearing of feather making upon 

 egg production. 



Late molting appears, from some of the work at Cor- 

 nell, to have a bearing different from that which is usu- 

 ally supposed, in that the late molters, while not laying 

 nearly so many eggs in winter as those which molted 

 earlier, did molt in less time, and also did lay ■mo7'e eggs 

 during the year. From this one experiment it must be 

 adduced that the late molting bird is the better one to 

 keep, since the extra eggs laid by these, even at lower 

 prices, made an added profit of about ^47 per hundred 

 hens above that of the early molting birds. The fowls 

 in this experiment consisted both of those whose molt 

 had been "forced" by a period of palatial summer star- 

 vation, followed by a heavy feeding, and those which 

 had not been so treated. A point strikingly shown by 

 the charts given, is that the line showing food consumed 

 climbs upward in almost exact sympathy with the up- 

 ward trend of the weight lines, and the egg production 

 lines ; except that food consumed and weight are always 

 a little in advance of increase in egg production, all 

 increase together, — a good hint for the feeder. All fowls 

 in the experiment " consumed a larger quantity of food 

 and increased in weight before beginning egg production.'^ 



It has long been a belief among poultrymen that a hen 

 would molt later with each year of age. The Cornell 

 experiment did not prove this, but showed that the old 



