82 TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY REPORT. 
On the average for the eight lots of capons for which records 
were kept the longest time, from hatching to maturity, the lowest 
cost per pound live weight was at the average weight of four 
pounds. Largely because the market prices were always lower for 
the smaller fowls the cost of food to grow the birds to four and 
one-half pounds in weight represented the highest proportion (a 
little over 50 per ct.) of their market value found at any time from 
earliest marketable size as broilers to the heaviest capons. From 
the time the capons weighed five pounds until they weighed ten 
and one-half pounds the total cost of food consumed did not at any 
time reach half of their market value. Although the cost of every 
pound added to the weight was greater as the birds approached 
maturity than it had been for any earlier increase, the prices for 
the largest fowls were so much higher than for the smaller. that the 
margin over cost of production was always greater with the nearly 
full-grown capons. On this account the later feeding was justified, 
so long as there was a regular increase in weight, until the spring 
months, at which time the greatest demand for capons and highest 
prices usually prevailed. 
COCKERELS AND CAPONS COMPARED. 
One lot of capons!® was fed for comparison with a lot of cockerels 
taken from the same flock of chicks. For the whole period that 
record was kept for the cockerels — nearly six months —they in- 
creased in weight about 30 per ct. faster than the capons, but the 
rate of growth was much more irregular. At the average weight 
of six pounds the capons had cost for food 12 per ct. more than 
the cockerels; but more food was required on the average by the 
cockerels, so that at nine pounds’ weight they had cost over 8 per ct. 
more than the capons. As the cockerels grew faster and larger than 
the capons they averaged about ten. and one-quarter pounds in 
weight before the capons had reached the weight of nine and one- 
half pounds, and at the heaviest weights had cost no more for food. 
At the average prices then existing in New York State markets 
the cockerels could have been sold at the greatest profit at about 
six pounds’ weight, and the capons not until they had reached the 
weight of nine pounds, at which weight the difference between the 
cost of food and the market value was two and one-half times as 
great as for the cockerels. In some markets and more generally in 
~ Bul. 53; also in Rpt. 117250, 200 <e02). 
