CARE OF POULTRY IN WINTER. 



The Farmers' Club of the American Institute appointed a Committee to 

 visit WARREN LELAND'S farm, and examine his mode of keeping poultry in 

 winter. The following is the Committee's report, made in February, 1871 : 



We spent a day at the farm of WARREN LELAND, twenty-five miles north 

 of Nw York City, at Rye Station, and have derived, from a careful survey 

 of his yards, ideas which we consider important. We find him carrying one 

 hundred and fifty turkeys, about three hundred hens, a large drove of ducks, 

 and several dozen of geese through the winter, without the loss of any of his 

 poultry by disease of any sort, and without the freezing of their feet or of 

 their eggs. We learn that he never has maladies among his poultry ; that he 

 will allow the greater part of his hens to sit in the spring, and each of them 

 will yield an average brood of ten chicks, so that he will raise about three 

 thousand chickens from his present flock, and his losses be very few. How 

 does he do it ? His hens, ducks and geese have the best winter quarters we 

 have ever seen provided for any of the feathered tribes. Their 



MAIN BARRACK, OR HENNERY, 



is a stone house, seventy-five feet long, and twenty feet wide, and faces south. 

 The openings on the north side are small, and filled with window glass, and 

 in some cases with double sash. Those on the south side are much larger, 

 consisting of double doors, which are opened on sunny days. In the middle 

 of the north side is a wide, old-fashioned fire-place, with crane and a big 

 camp kettle. Nearly every day in winter a fire is lit, and fed with chunks, 

 knots and old logs, that would otherwise be knocked about the wood-yard, 

 and left to rot in fence corners. The walls are of stone, and the floor of rock 

 or earth, so the fire can be left without the least danger. 



On cold days, and especially in cold rains, the hens gather before this fire 

 and warm themselves, and trim their feathers. The chimney can easily be 

 closed, or the logs rolled out into the middle of the building, and feathers or 

 sulphur used to make a 



FUMIGATION. 



This is done whenever hen lice appear; and the openings of the house can 

 be closed, so as to hold the fumigation till it penetrates to every crack. 

 Smoke he finds better than carbolic acid or kerosene, or whitewash, to drive 



