396 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



also that the worse conditions became in tight liouses, the 

 more afraid were the owners to let the air into them. 



Various ways of preventing dampness in a tight house 

 have been devised. Thick walls, double or triple, with 

 air spaces or linings between, will not frost inside in cold 

 weather as the single walls do. Some poultry men make a 

 loft of the space under the roof al)ove the })lates, and fill 

 or partly fill it with hay or straw, which will absorb the 

 moisture and keep the room dry. 



Such devices, however, do not solve the problem of fresh 

 air. It is practically impossible to keep a poultry house shut 

 up so that the heat from the hens will keep it warm, and at 

 the same time have the air in it renewed as it should be. If 

 the building is large in proportion to the number of fowls 

 kept in it, the heat from them has no appreciable effect on 

 the temperature of it. If it is small enough to be kept warm 

 by as many fowls as its floor space will accommodate, the air 

 in it soon becomes vitiated. As I had occasion to look at 

 the subjects of warmth and ventilation in the light of the 

 experience of many different people, I began to think per- 

 haps the prevailing ideas on those matters were not correct,, 

 and to ask myself whether it were not possible to get better 

 conditions and satisfactory results in houses of a different 

 kind. 



To this question I found an answer that satisfied me in the 

 large numl)er of instanees I could collect from memory, 

 where as good results had been obtained in cold, poorly 

 l)uilt houses as the average results in warm houses, and in 

 the few instances where exceptionally good results had been 

 obtained under conditions that we had been accustomed to 

 regard as very bad. Such occurrences had, of course, been 

 considered in the forming of the general authoritative opinion 

 as to the retiuirements of winter poultry keei)i ng, Init were 

 usually considered as exce})tions that proved the rule, — a 

 very convenient wav of getting around facts that do not ac- 

 cord with theories. 



But, however convincing the evidence a man may gather 

 in this way may be to himself, it has not much weight Avith 

 others ; so, instead of ])ublisliing the results of my thoughts, 



