212 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



The entrance holes may be made 2j 



inches in diameter if 

 square, or 2| inches if round. 



Mr. J. Warren Jacobs of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, who 

 probably has had more experience in building martin houses 

 than any one else now living, recommends making each apart- 

 ment 6 inches square and 7 inches high. Any box about this 

 size may be used for the apartments, and all 

 may be backed by a square box running up the 

 center of the barrel into which a square pole will 

 fit. The barrel may be attached to the pole by 

 two angle irons and roofed with zinc. Every mar- 

 tin house should be well painted outside but not 

 inside, with two or three coats of good white or 

 light-colored paint. Dark-colored houses are very 

 hot in sunny weather. Care is taken not to let 

 the paint run into the entrances, and to paint only 

 up to the edge of each. 



Mr. Arthur W. Brockway of Hadlyme, Connect- 

 icut, has established a large colony of martins by 

 building small cottages out of grocery boxes. (See 

 Fig. 28.) 



Mr. Jacobs asserts that a martin house should 

 have only entrance ventilation, but Mr. Dodson of 

 Chicago makes the attic of his martin house so that 

 it may be entered from either end, and claims that 

 the martins invariably occupy these upper rooms 

 first. I have noted that when cold storms destroy 

 young martins, those on the sides of the house, ex- 

 posed to the cold winds, die first. 



Mr. William A. Sayward of Allston, Massachu- 

 setts, has invented an ingenious device to turn the 

 openings of the house away from strong winds and rain (Figs. 

 29, 30 and 31). 



He takes a piece of 1| inch iron pipe, 7 feet long, and sets it 

 into a cylindrical piece of cement, made by filling with cement 

 a funnel or stove pipe 7 inches in diameter and 30 inches in 

 length. This cement is set into the earth so that the top of 

 the cement is level with the surface of the earth. At the top 

 of the 7-foot pipe a reducing coupling is put on, and another 



dt^ 



7. 



Fig. 29. — Sayward 

 house. 



