No. 1.] POULTRY KEEPING. 421 



that it shall not remain in such places or in such condition 

 that it is a danger and a menace to the health of the fowls. 

 The rough of the droppings on the floor of the poultry 

 house must be removed at frequent intervals, and once a 

 year, at least, the earth floor must be removed to a depth 

 of four or five inches, and renewed. Labor is required to 

 thus renew the floors of the houses yearly ; and if the soil 

 taken out is not utilized, or is used simply as so much 

 rubbish to fill a hole or ditch, the cost of this labor must 

 be paid for directly out of the cash receipts. If this soil, 

 saturated and thoroughly mixed as it is with hen manure, 

 can be applied as a top-dressing to grass land, its value for 

 this purpose will more than compensate, in the increase of 

 the next year's hay crop, for all the labor of renovating the 

 floors. Of course this soil is useful for many other crops, 

 but I have mentioned this one as that to which it is most 

 generally applied. I have seen on farms in this State 

 pieces of mowing land heavily dressed year after year with 

 hen manure and soil from the poultry houses and yards, 

 when the annual cut was sometimes as high as four and five 

 tons per acre. 



The droppings deposited outdoors are to be considered 

 next. When hens are kept in small yards, these have to be 

 treated much as the floors of the houses are. Even with 

 much larger yards, something must be done to purify the 

 soil. If the } r ard, though not very small, is not large 

 enough to be kept permanently in grass, frequent spadings 

 are necessary to keep it in habitable condition ; but these 

 mere spadings or stirrings of the soil, while they improve 

 it, do not put it in perfect condition. Nothing will do that 

 like growing a crop on it. If the yard is large enough to 

 be kept in permanent sod, but still so small or so heavily 

 stocked that every part of it is trampled over by the fowls 

 many times a day, the condition is not much better ; the 

 sod, undisturbed from year to year, becomes poisoned as 

 the bare earth would, and the common result is a slow 

 poisoning and slow but sure deterioration of the poultry 

 stock, even when conditions are not bad enough to produce 

 malignant disease. 



