342 Junior Naturalist Monthly. 



"Every morning I feed my poultry at 7:30; the earlier they are 

 fed the better, for the more hours the hen is active, the better she lays. 

 I give them food made up of three parts, wheat, oats and corn. Then 

 I fill a pan about the size of a large roasting tin with warm water 

 for the little flock to drink. I always try to have my poultry well 

 fed, to give them pure water and to see that they have plenty of sun- 

 light and warmth and a dry, clean pen. 



"In order to keep the pen clean, I remove the hen manure every 

 day and scatter a little soil or coal ashes about. If left in the pen, 

 the manure gives off a gas poisonous to the air. Since hen manure 

 makes a good fertilizer for the land, particularly for the garden, I 

 save it for this purpose. 



"At 11:45 I again feed my poultry. This time I give them boiled 

 potatoes and meal. The meal mixture contains corn meal, wheat 

 bran, and middlings. For my 40 hens I use about eighteen potatoes. 

 These I mash and add the meal mixture with a little water. This 

 noonday meal is carried out to the pen and placed in a trough. In 

 addition to the food and water, I see that there is some gravel, 

 cracked oyster shells, and meat scraps in the pen. The meat scraps 

 have been cooked and ground and take the place of animal food 

 which the flock would find if allowed to roam about out-of-doors. 

 As a special treat, I give them a little extra vegetable food, con- 

 sisting of beets or lettuce. At night the food is the same as in the 

 morning. One thing that I try to remember in feeding my chickens 

 is to scatter the food so that they will have to scratch for it, thus 

 getting exercise. 



"The matter of pure air is important to poultry. During the 

 night, I remove the glass window and put in a cloth screen. I have 

 foimd that by putting in the cloth screen the air in the pen is not 

 much colder and it is much better because more fresh air can enter 

 through the cloth than through the glass." 



v„.,You see the poultry that I visited was well cared for. I wonder 

 how many of our boys and girls have chickens of their own. If you 

 have, I wish you would try some of the arrangements I have described 

 for keeping a successful flock of poultry, and I believe that you will 

 be more than repaid for j^our extra labor and care. Let us know 

 what success you have. 



PROTECT THE WILD FLOWERS. 



In many places the ' spring blossoms are disappearing. People 

 gather them carelessly and often uproot them. Last fall we asked 

 Junior Naturalists to suggest some way of protecting the wild flowers. 



