108 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



a walk around in the rear and beneath the roosting boards, 

 while the attendant reaches them by a drop door in front and 

 beneath the roosting boards. The nests consist of a wide 

 board, with upright front, back and separating partitions upon 

 it, but no cover ; thus making a row of nests which rests at the 

 ends on the two side shelves, and extends upward to within 

 about 1 inch of the dropping boards, but not touching it. By 

 this means there is no runway from the roosts for nits and 

 lice. To cleanse the nests, carry the nest board out of doors, 

 and, emptying the nests where the waste may be safely burned, 

 set the board on the ground and sprinkle — deluge — each 

 nest with whitewash. There being no covers, this is as easily 

 done as to an open box, and makes simple one of the disagree- 

 able tasks of poultry keeping, viz., that of cleansing the house 

 of lice. The dropping board and roosts, as shown in Fig. 6, 

 are easily cleaned and whitewashed. On the shelves, or side 

 boards, we keep our dry mash box or hopper. We have tried 

 nearly every style of hopper, patent or otherwise, with the 

 result that after some years of steady trial we consider a 

 common soap box, such as can be procured at any grocery 

 store, the best apparatus for feeding dry mash, regardless of 

 cost. Get a box with sides 8 inches high (the other dimensions 

 are not important), and fit a frame made of four short pieces 

 of lath nailed two across two, and just large enough to drop 

 freely into the box on top of the mash, to prevent the hens 

 scratching and nesting in it. We have such boxes that have 

 been in use every day for three years, have never been washed 

 or cleaned, and are as clean to-day as any tidy meal bin, 

 feathers being the only filth that ever gathers there, and these 

 are easily thrown out. For water tanks we have also tried 

 many varieties, only to prefer any tub, keg or pail that will 

 hold water, with a sharp, deep V-shaped space cut between 

 each two staves, so that it presents an opening all around for 

 fowls to reach through and drink ; but no hen will ever sit on 

 the side and foul the water, or even fly into it but once, if she 

 can help herself. To these two simple utensils should be 

 added on every poultry farm a feed or dry mash mixer, 

 similar to a revolving barrel churn, in which a quantity of 

 each of many kinds of grains or meals may be placed, and by 



