112 POULTRY CULTURE 



from cold, it was common to use double boards with paper between 

 and weatherproof paper over the outer boards. Sometimes the out- 

 side was shingled over a paper sheathing. Many houses were built 

 with dead-air spaces throughout the walls, made by putting one 

 layer of boards and one of paper on each side of the studding. 

 Occasionally houses were lathed and plastered inside. The limit 

 was probably reached by a poultryman in an eastern state who made 

 his walls with three thicknesses of boards, three of paper, and two 

 dead-air spaces. In harmony with such construction were the 

 tight-fitting doors and windows used, both doors and windows 

 often being double. 



Ventilation in tight houses. Theoretically, ventilation was fur- 

 nished either by ventilators alone or by ventilators supplemented, 

 during fine weather or through the warmer hours of the day, by 

 careful adjustment of doors and windows ; but many houses were 

 built without ventilators, on the theory that the building contained 

 air enough to supply the fowls for several days, if doors and win- 

 dows were closed as long as that. That the ventilators usually did 

 not ventilate was shown by the fact that the houses, when closed, 

 became damp and moisture condensed on the wall just as often 

 when an approved method of ventilating through ventilators was 

 used as when no ventilators were provided. 



In the light of recent experiences with cold houses it seems 

 probable that the failures of most of the old methods of ventilation 

 were due to the small sizes of ventilators used. The ineffectiveness 

 of these was often aggravated by obstructions in the ventilator de- 

 signed to prevent a too rapid movement of air. In warm houses 

 the problem of securing sufficient ventilation while retaining the 

 heat is a serious one, especially when moisture collects on interior 

 walls and the litter on the floors becomes damp and the air inside 

 the house moist and foul. The most satisfactory solutions of the 

 problem were the straw loft and the open-front scratching-shed 

 house, the first designed to overcome by absorption the dampness 

 in the closed house, the other providing abundance of fresh air 

 in the daytime. 



Beginning of the fresh-air movement. The scratching-shed 

 house was a marked step in the direction of right principles 

 of poultry-house construction, and toward the open, thoroughly 



