8 THE PRACTICAL POULTRY KEEPER. 



cleanliness and ventilation, and there is some latitude accord- 

 ing to circumstances. The former must be attended to. In 

 the house it is easily secured by laying a board underneath 

 the perch, which can be scraped clean every morning in a 

 moment, and the air the fowls breathe thus kept perfectly 

 pure.' Or the droppings may be taken up daily with a small 

 hoe and a housemaid's common dustpan. After this a handful 

 of ashes or sand lightly sprinkled will make the house all it 

 should be. Another most excellent plan for preserving 

 cleanliness in the roosting-house is shown in Fig. 3.* A 

 broad shelf (a) is fixed at the back of the house, and the 

 perch placed four or five inches above it, a foot from the 

 wall. The nests are conveniently placed on the ground 

 underneath, and need no top, whilst they are perfectly 

 protected from defilement, and are also secluded, to the 

 delight of the hen. The shelf is scraped clean every morn- 

 ing with ease and comfort, from its convenient height, and 

 slightly sprinkled with earth or sand ; and the floor is 

 scarcely polluted at all. Such a broad shelf underneath the 

 perch has another recommendation, in 'the protection it 

 affords from upward draughts. It is embodied in the farm 

 poultry-house figured on page 103. 



Ventilation is often not provided for as it should be, and 

 the want of it is a fruitful source of failure and disease ; 

 though matters have much improved since this book was 

 first written. An ill-ventilated fowl-house must cause 

 sickly inmates. The great desideratum must, however, as 

 already observed, be secured without exposing the fowls 

 to draught between two points. But here we must dis- 

 tinguish. In the open air wind can be borne : it is definite 



* We found this plan in the Canada Farmer about 1867, and the 

 publicity given in these pages has made it very common all over the world. 

 Long experience has more than ever convinced us of its merits. 



