HEATING AND VENTILATING BKOODERS. 319 



cover which nature gives. Unlike the feathers, it is not 

 furnished with millions of interstices for the air to strain 

 through, nor will it permit the escape of the poisonous 

 elements derived from the lungs of the birds. Mr. John 

 Loughlin, proprietor of the largest broiler plant in the 

 United States, conceived the idea of omitting the brood- 

 ers, and put it in execution with great success, as suc- 

 cess goes in artificial rearing. 



His hot-water pipes have nothing whatever over them, 

 and the chicks congregate at night between these pipes 

 and the floor, several hundred in a brood. By having 

 the whole of the brooder room well warmed, the crowd- 

 ing is reduced to a minimum. The absence of 'a top 

 over the pipes does not make the chicks too cold, because 

 the heat in the room, which contains thirty broods, is reg- 

 ulated with great care, and the room well ventilated. The 

 thirty broods are of thirty different ages, ranging from 

 one day to thirty days respectively. When past the latter 

 age they are removed to another room, heated to a lower 

 degree, and, like the first, without tops over the hovers. 

 This first-mentioned large room, with many chicks, 

 resembles, as regards heat, the Brooder of the Future 

 which will be described later. Mr. Loughlin has shown 

 how a thing may be done well, as such things go, by 

 doing enough of it so that it will pay to hire hands to 

 do it. Yet, at best, the death rate at his establishment 

 is too great. Take all the brooder houses in the coun- 

 try, little and big, one-horse gig or six-horse coach, the 

 trail of the serpent is over them all, so long as they fail 

 to keep alive no more than seventy-five to eighty-five 

 per cent of the innocents committed to them. 



Unless the usual mortality of brooder chicks can be 

 reduced, the artificial method of rearing is of questiona- 

 ble morality and a fit subject of investigation by the 

 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. A 

 friend of ours in South Dakota says in a letter : " Out 



