The boundaries of Section 7 are not arbitrary and should be noted carefully.  The line runs from Mattawan, New Jersey, across to the main line of the Pennsylvania and down this to Washington.  To the north and west of this, the soils are heavy clays which are wet, cold, slushy and easily befouled.  Likewise, the line on the south is distinctly marked by the Norfolk and Western Railway and is a matter of freight rates on grain.  Norfolk gets a rate of sixteen and a half cents from Chicago; a couple of hundred miles south, the rate is about twice as much.  Cheaper grain rates would of course extend this belt on down the coast where the climate is even more favorable.

Chicken Climate.

Climate is a big figure in the cost of poultry production.  Every day that water is frozen in winter means increased labor and decreased egg yield.  Mild winters means cheap houses, cheap labor, cheap feed (a large proportion of green food), an earlier chick season, which, together with the mild weather and green feed, mean a large proportion of the egg yield at the season when eggs are high in price.

The American poultry editor wastes a great deal of ink explaining why the Australian egg records of 175 eggs per hen, cannot be so, because in this country, the hens at the Maine station only averaged 125.  The Maine Experiment Station lies buried in a snow drift for about five months of the year.  The Australian station has a winter climate equal to that of New Orleans.  The Australian records do not go below thirty eggs per day per hundred hens at any time during the year.  Our New York and New England records run down anywhere from one to ten eggs per day per hundred hens.  The following table will show the effect of the climate upon the distribution of the egg yield throughout the year.  The records at New York are from a large number of hens of several different flocks and probably represent a normal distribution of the egg yield for that section.  The Kansas and Arkansas lists are taken from the record of small flocks and are not very reliable.  The fourth column gives the Australian records with the months transferred on account of being in the southern hemisphere.  The last column gives the railroad shipments from a division of the N.C. & St. L. railroad in Western Tennessee: 

    Column Headings: 
    Ny—­Central New York per hen per day
    KS—­Kansas Ex.  Station per hen per day
    Ar—­Arkansas Ex.  Station per hen per day
    Au—­Australian Laying Contest per hen per day
    NH—­Shipments from New Hampshire egg farm
    TN—­Shipments from Western Tennessee