162 POULTRY BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT 



been said upon this subject. Progress has been made, 

 though sometimes it has been made by going backward; 

 and it would not be surprising if ten years from now 

 some of the things now advocated are thrown on the scrap 

 heap. 



The difficulties come mostly from failure to understand 

 the essential conditions of housing. There have been many 

 costly experiments in the poultry business; there will be 

 many more, no doubt, but few have been more costly than 

 the experiment in housing. Fifteen years ago a great 

 many poultry houses were built on the theory that warmth 

 was the first essential of winter egg production. Houses 

 were double-boarded and lined with sheeting paper. Even 

 brick or cement houses were sometimes built. Some were 

 built on the hot house plan with plenty of windows to 

 admit the sunshine. The fallacy of this theory has been 

 pretty well demonstrated and it is now fairly well under-- 

 stood that the first essential of winter egg production, as 

 well as summer egg production, is the health and vitality 

 of the fowls, not warm houses. Whatever kind of house 

 best meets the conditions of health and vigor is the one 

 that will give the most profitable egg production. 



The following quotations taken from an early edition 

 of Lewis "Wright's "Poultry Book," will be of interest 

 here. It describes conditions obtaining in 1813, a century 

 ago, and it points a lesson. In speaking of Scotch fowls 

 it is stated: "The hens are kept in as dry and warm a 

 place in the house as possible; in cottages they generally, 

 during the night, sit at no great distance from the fire- 

 place; the consequence is that the farmer whose poultry 

 are in the night time confined in places without a fire ob- 

 tain no eggs; the poor people have them in abundance. " 

 Warmth is not inimical to egg laying. It is the attempt 

 to make fowls warm without ventilation or artificial heat 



