VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 73 



when you realize the fact that upon the average only sixty eggs per hen 

 are laid in the United States, that is a mighty small record. Why, the 

 farmers of the State of New York do not produce eggs enough to feed 

 Greater New York. 



Eggs are being imported into the United States — millions of dozens a 

 year. With the price that exists to-day, and which is constantly going 

 up, don't you see we are victims of lost opportunities, and we should be 

 benefited by the mistakes we have made; and I am so sorry that my 

 attention was not called to this business earlier in life. 



Now, don't you see, poultry and dairying go hand in hand. One is an 

 adjunct of the other, and you can pull in on this, as a side industry, a 

 dollar on a hen, above all expenses, at the present price of eggs as you 

 sell them to the grocery store; and I know whereof I speak. So you see 

 it would make a great difference in regard to our finances, and you 

 might just as well have that amount of money that you do without now. 



Well, now, one morning I was out in the orchard admiring those pul- 

 lets, and the boy came to me and said: "I would like to have you come 

 down to the barn." I went down there, and what do you suppose he 

 wanted of me? He told me he would like to have me step into the 

 poultry house. I had not been in there for fifteen years. I never 

 thought of such a thing as cleaning the poultry house. Our business 

 was altogether on different lines. We were taking care of the dairy, 

 you see, and I reluctantly opened the door and went in, and to my 

 surprise, there were a couple of dead hens, and the place was neglected 

 and broken down, ill-smelling and bad-looking. He said to me: "What 

 are you going to do about it?" And I looked him square in the face, 

 and said: "You tell." "Well," he said, "if I were you I would just go to 

 work and take the interior out of this house, put it on a wagon, draw it 

 down into the lot, pour on some kerosene and set it on fire." No quicker 

 said than done. It was right after breakfast, and I off with my coat 

 and hitched the team, and when I drove up the boy had the interior of the 

 house out, ready to put on the wagon. You see, he was afraid I might 

 change my mind. We loaded it on the wagon and drove down into the 

 meadow and put it on a pile, poured on some kerosene and set it on fire, 

 and it went up like a rocket — a hundred thousand lice to the square 

 inch! Then we refitted the house by running tar paper right up along 

 the studding; then began ceiling, and stuffed between the ceiling with 

 soft meadow hay, to make the room dry — and I am going to tell you 

 moisture in the hen-house means death every time. The great secret of 

 success in poultry raising is a dry room. When our house was finished 

 we had a room fifteen feet square, with a southern exposure, two 

 windows in it, and made frost proof by stuffing between ceilings, with a 

 wallowing box and a nest box, a roosting device and a watering device, 

 making the home very attractive and pleasant. 



But we didn't dare to put those old hens back into the new depart- 

 ment — we did not even introduce them to the pullets. Those old hens 

 had something on them besides feathers! So we let them roost in the old 

 orchard, out of doors, and the pullets we kept in the young orchard, 



