HOUSES FOR SITTERS. 67 



in the introduction, and which will be more fully given 

 further on, to reach a greater development than in any 

 other part of the United States or of the world. 



Numerous unsatisfactory methods of managing sitters 

 on a large scale have been tried. The plan of confining 

 each m a small, separate pen, like that shown in Fig. 24, 

 or some modification thereof, has been weighed in the 

 balance and found wanting. It may be occasionally 

 tried to advantage by the villager, vvho keeps only a 

 dozen fowls or so and has only a very limited space for 

 them, but on a large scale this separate confinement 

 plan will not do at all, because the sitter does not suffi- 

 ciently air her plumage, nest and eggs, and what is of 

 still more importance, her bowels get out of order for 

 lack of exercise, resulting in foul nests. This trouble 

 does not always- occur, it is true, but it will happen in a 

 sufficiently large proportion of cases to be very objec- 

 tionable indeed. No person can long endure the sight 

 of a lot of sitting hens, some badly out of condition, and 

 none just right, if he has a keen sense of what is thrift. 

 We mean that instinctive demand that his charges shall 

 be in the pink of condition, which distinguishes the best 

 keepers in all departments of livestock raising, and with- 

 out which nobody can make a good poultry man anyhow. 

 Nature has provided that the sitter shall bustle around 

 at a great rate, and race up and down the range as if 

 determined to crowd in a half hour the exertion she 

 spread over a whole day when a laying fowl. If denied 

 this running exercise, sitters are liable to be afflicted 

 with constipation, alternating with the other extreme, 

 resulting in nests of unspeakable filthiness. Study 

 nature, and you will find that a sitter allowed a free 

 range never fouls her nest, and nobody has to bring a 

 basin of warm water to wash her eggs. Any system of 

 managing sitters in great numbers that calls for the 

 washing of egs;s and renovating filthy nests, cannot com- 



