No. 4.] 



POULTRY KEEPING. 



109 



a few revolutions, without the dust or disagreeable labor so 

 common in this work, be quickly mixed into a homogeneous 

 mass. 



These simple contrivances are not necessarily a part of any 

 particular house, but the larger the plant and the greater 

 the number of hens, the more do they become a factor in 

 avoiding some of the otherwise difficult duties, which from 

 their disagi-eeable nature lead many men to slight their work 

 and so lead to failure. 



Before leaving the subject of houses, we would mention 

 briefly a house which in one sense may be related to them 

 all, and in another to none, viz., the Maine Experiment Sta- 



FiG. 7. — The Maine "handy house." 



tion's " handy house." Fig. 7 shows one of these houses 

 mounted on runners, ready to hitch to at any time. We have 

 several such houses, and by grouping them in a convenient 

 village in winter and scattering out at will in summer we find 

 them almost indispensable for fancy breeding pens, for hens 

 to sit in at hatching time, for hens with early chicks, for chicks 

 out on the range in summer, for young stock up to laying 

 time, for culls and butcher stock in autumn and winter, — in 

 short, for something all the time ; we would not be without 

 them. 



Our fifth " P " is the pasture. Let the farmer who wishes 

 to succeed with poultry, pasture his hens as much as he would 

 his cows, calves" or sheep. There is no stock on the farm that 

 needs good pasture more, or will thrive better in it, than the 



