FAKMERS' INSTITUTES. 237 



passage to the rooms, and nest boxes. On this side are two veutihitors four feet. 

 long and one foot wide. These are opened daily daring the winter, and as fre- 

 quently as the air becomes vitiated. Fowls have not that aversion to ventilators 

 that too many school officers manifest when building houses in which to confine 

 their children six hours a day. The end room contiguous to the garden has a 

 large covered box for receiving the droppings, which are removed in the spring to' 

 the garden from a door on the outside with which this box communicates. 

 There is also a box at the entrance door in Avhich the fowls soon to be killed are- 

 confined to fast for half a day or more before killing. On the south is a range 

 of windows extending the whole length. Above each window is a sash ventila- 

 tor movable at will. The perches, four feet long and three inches wide, are 

 placed endwise to the windows, and eight inches below them. The fowls greatly 

 enjoy these winter days, the full, unobstructed sunlight completely covering 

 each and all. Nothing is more invigorating and jileasant to them- than this all- 

 day sun bath. Under the perches are shelves placed six inches below in the- 

 rear and seven inches in front to catch the droppings, Avhich are removed every 

 morning and evening, thus preserving the floor comparatively clean, and the 

 house free from taint. The perches are two feet and a half high. A little in 

 front of them are placed the feed boxes, — five feet long, one foot wide and four- 

 teen inches high, — which serve as a step between the floor and the perches. 

 Each room is furnished with a feed box, water trough, and boxes for ashes, 

 lime, and gravel. There are, I believe, twenty ash boxes scattered through the 

 building. The fowls may be seen revelling in them at all hours of the day. 

 At times the air is dense with ashes. An addition was found necessary for a 

 sitting-room. This joins the main building and communicates with it. It is- 

 sixteen feet by eight, making the entire length forty-eight feet. This, you will 

 see, makes six hundred and forty square feet in the hennery. My stock birds- 

 number one hundred, thus allowing each fowl a fraction over six square feet. 

 The sitting room has an earth floor ; that of the main building is double of one- 

 inch boards. Its walls are lined with the view of filling in with saw-dust. Last 

 winter they were covered with a pasteboard material prepared for such a pur- 

 l^ose. They will either be filled as first intended, or plastered. The latter I 

 think preferable. The hennery has a chamber for storing articles for future 

 use, also a little cellar for the fowls' fresh meat in the summer. There are twa 

 covered yards or runs joining the house on the south, which the fowls greatly 

 enjoy when the weather favors. The entrance door is protected by a " storm- 

 house" four feet by four, which is of no small value, particularly in the winter. 

 The sitting-room is utilized by the chickens as soon as they graduate from their 

 nursery coops. 



My feed for the morniug meal consists of Avheat bran, buckwheat bran, corn 

 meal and boiled potatoes mashed hot in the bran and all scalded. To make 

 variety, these are alternated. Their evening meal is of grain in the kernel, — 

 wheat, buckwheat, corn, and occasionally oats. Some green vegetable and 

 chopped bones and broken meat are given them daily. At first their vegetables 

 were chopped for them, but this proved to be mistaken kindness. Cabbage- 

 heads laid before them will entertain them more or less all day, and they come 

 eagerly to them with a will to work. At evening there will be nothing left but 

 the stem, showing how happy they were in working for a living. Like wise 

 people, they like to be well employed. 



They are quite intelligent and affectionate in their way. x\t the first sound 

 of the hatchet upon the chopping block they will gather in from all parts to- 



