316 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May 15 



These strips of lath should be put on some- 

 thing like a little ladder that can be slipped 

 inside of the box, resting on blocks nailed 

 in at each corner. When people come to 

 see your chickens you can take them out 

 just after nightfall, raise up the cover, and 

 see the little chaps sitting on their roosts as 

 regular and handsome as peas in a pod. Of 

 course they still keep growing, and when 

 you find they are crowded nights, and want 

 to stay out in the yard instead of going 

 home, a still larger box should be fitted out 

 in just the same way. Of course, this box 

 will need a movable cover and some roosts a 

 little further apart. In carrying the chick- 

 ens along, from those one day old to hens 

 ready to lay, you will want about three 

 sizes of these simplicity poultry-houses. 

 When I left my Florida home we had four 

 incubator hatches in houses of this sort. 

 The oldest were hatched in December, then 

 January, February, and March. When I 

 turned them over to a neighbor we just lift- 

 ed up the boxes, chickens and all, after 

 dark, and set them into his wagon. One 

 hoise easily pulled the four coops, contain- 

 ing about 100 chickens, the largest of them 

 being fully half grown. I should have 

 mentioned in the proper place, that, where 

 yoii want to set a hen and protect her from 

 ijeing intruded on by other hens, you {can 

 make a little dooryard of one-inch x>oultry- 

 netting to fasten over the doorway of the 

 nest-box. This can be made of four lath 

 frames like the one shown under the nest- 

 box. Put in some wheat and corn, and a 

 can of water wired to the frame so it can 

 not be upset, and the hen will take care of 

 herself very well. This same doorway of 

 netting will keep ofT meddlesome cats, 

 where you do not want to have small chick- 

 ens run outside until they are a little older. 

 The two pictures, 3 and 4, show a hen that 

 hatched out a brood of ducks with the same 

 arrangement. 



Now, the great feature of my invention in 

 the above is the extreme cheapness with 

 which you can furnish convenient brooder 

 or colony houses for a great number of 

 chicks. If you look into the poultry-keep- 

 ers' catalogs you will find that they want 

 three or four dollars or more for an arrange- 

 ment that offers no more advantages than 

 the one I have described. You can get 

 boxes for a few cents at almost any country 

 store, especially if you engage them ahead, 

 and a few minutes' work with a bundle of 

 lath and some one-inch netting will com- 

 plete the outfit. 



By the way, I think I had better add 

 right here, that, unless your boxes are very 

 strong, you had better have corner posts, 

 right where the door is hinged. Let this run 

 up into the corner of the box where it can 

 be nailed securely, then put in a little piece 

 of lath between the corner stake and the 

 outer board, and nail the whole securely 

 with clinch nails. By using a large-sized 

 box you can keep half a dozen laying hens 

 on a small piece of ground, and yet your 

 poultry-house all complete should not cost 



you more than a dollar. If you can buy 

 good- sized boxes you might fit out a very 

 good-looking poultry-house for half a dozen 

 laying hens at considerably less than one 

 dollar; and a complete Philo coop costs 

 from twenty to twenty-five dollars. I do 

 not mean to find any fault with his prices, 

 and it may be well enough for you to have 

 one of his finished houses on hand; but as 

 your flock increases, and you begin to need 

 more room, such a colony coop as I have 

 mapped out will be a great convenience in- 

 deed. When I went back to my place last 

 fall I found that my brother, J. H. Root, 

 had made use of several coops like the above 

 in order to furnish accommodations for the 

 rapidly growing stock; and the credit of the 

 idea belongs largely to him. 



In describing the above I failed to men- 

 tion that, with the larger sizes of houses or 

 boxes for half-grown chickens, by having 

 the roofs, roosts and bottoms so they will 

 all three be removable (when it becomes 

 necessary to move this poultry-house to 

 some other location), you can just stand 

 inside of the house, grasping the sides, and 

 carry it where you choose, very easily, with- 

 out needing a horse nor even an assistant 

 to take hold of one end. This arrangement 

 makes it an easy matter for a man (or 

 woman too, for that matter) to care for the 

 cliickens, even to the extent of moving the 

 houses, without calling for outside hel]). 

 This idea is not original with myself, I 

 found it either in one of the poultry-jour- 

 nals or agricultural papers; but I can not 

 recall where, just now, so as to give proper 

 credit. 



"handsome is that handsome does." 



When I first got back to Florida my But- 

 tercup rooster had improved in looks so 

 much that I, in a piece of pleasantry, said I 

 valued him at $25.00. And, by the way, a 

 couple of roosters from the same hatch that 

 were left here in Ohio did not anywhere ap- 

 proach him in size and beauty — that is, in 

 my estimation — indicating, at least so it 

 seemed to me, that poultry wintered in 

 Florida, or, perhaps we should say, Butter- 

 cup Leghorns and breeds from a southern 

 climate, develop ever so much better in the 

 South than they do here in the cold North. 

 This may be in this case, however, owing to 

 the fact that my original Buttercups were 

 hatched some time in July or August. 

 Well, after my Buttercup rooster had been 

 admired by multitudes of people, a gentle- 

 man who was pretty well posted on scoring 

 fowls declared that said rooster did not come 

 up to the "standard" at all. One of my 

 young Buttercups that I had offered for a 

 dollar he said was well worth ten or fifteen 

 dollars; and this only indicates what I have 

 told you before, that I am not at all versed 

 in scoring fowls. But even if this is true I 

 think I will transfer my $25.00 valuation to 

 that Indian Runner duck that laid over 100 

 eggs without a miss. When you come to 

 talk about beauty I have several times re- 

 marked to visitors, when my flock of four 



