POULTRY AND BEES, 475 



be by Thanksgiving, worth a dollar. Deduct from this the 

 cost of two hundred bushels of grain, and the hire of an attena- 

 ant, to whom he may pay two hundred and fifty dollars a year 

 and board, perhaps more. They eat up the grasshoppers, grubs, 

 worms, eggs of insects, larvae, beetles, snails, katydids, and 

 June bugs, so clean that his farm is less beset wdth pests than 

 most others about him. He has apples when others are ruined 

 by the borer, the caterpillar, the tent worm, the canker worm, 

 or the curculio." 



This looks like a hazardous business, but it is not, and there 

 are hundreds of rough farms in the vicinity ot cities where u 

 flock of five hundred fowls, to begin with, would soon become 

 a vast army of producers. Since writing the above we have 

 read a somewhat elaborate article in a western paper to prove 

 that one hundred a year is all that caji profitably be raised 

 together, yet the above poultry farm has been carried on for 

 years with unbroken success. The best points in Mr. L.'s 

 system are, free range in summer, cleanliness at all times, 

 liberal feeding and warmth in winter, and a change of cocks 

 every spring : and these things can be secured by every farmer. 

 We will try to give a few plain directions for farmers. 



First, get a cock of some good breed for everj^- twelve hens. 

 Secondly, build a poultry house for the winter protection of 

 the fowls, for nests, for a roosting place, and for the sake of the 

 rich ammonaical manure they will drop. The droppings will 

 soon pay for a good poultry house. "We recommend the follow- 

 ing plan. {Fig. 97.) This is ten by thirty feet, and eight feet 

 above ground, with a roof sloping one way. It can be built up 

 against a shed or other building, the shed answering for the 

 backside of the poultry house. In the first place a cellar is 

 dug six feet deep, and the bottom filled one foot with cobble 

 stones, rammed down hard; afoot of the earth thrown out is 



