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It is often said that roup and kindred diseases were rare in old times, 

 when most of the stock in the conntry was mongrel or old barnyard 

 stock, and when all the attention the average poultryman gave to selec- 

 tion for breeding was to swap roosters everj' year ; and manj- attribute 

 the trouble to in-breeding, and to a greater liability to disease in thor- 

 oughbred fowls. 1 think it is due more to other causes, and as much to 

 tight, badly-ventilated houses as to any other cause, or perhaps to all 

 other causes combined. Certain it is that in a great many instances in 

 the last few years opening up the poultry houses and giving the fowls 

 pure air in abundance by night as well as by day has l^een followed by 

 a marked improvement in the general health of the flock. 



My own experimenting with cold and open houses was undertaken to 

 show what was possible under conditions quite the opposite of those 

 generally recommended as necessary to good egg production and healthy 

 stock in winter. I was constantly receiving inquiries from poultrymen 

 having trouble with damp houses as to how to remedy that condition ; 

 and, as I visited poultry plants in winter, I almost always found the 

 houses damp, badly ventilated, and overheated about midday even of 

 quite cold days. 



I think that in most cases conditions need not have been bad had the 

 poultrymen used ordinary judgment in opening doors and windows. 

 The common practice was to keep houses closed in winter except on 

 very bright, warm days, and then open them either only for a little 

 while in the middle of the day, or open them toward midday and leave 

 them open until dark. Very often it would happen that houses were 

 kept closed tight all day on a bright day, when the sun shone warm 

 during the middle of the day and made the poultry house as warm as a 

 green-house. Frequently the poultryman kept doors and windows shut 

 nearly all the time, relying upon his ventilators to supply fresh air. 

 That the ventilation did not work as theoretically as it was supposed to 

 work was generally plain to any one who stepped into the house, — except 

 the owner. Where the intention was to ventilate by means of doors and 

 windows, opening the house up gradually in the morning and gradually 

 closing it in the afternoon, the system rarely operated as planned. Such 

 apian, if faithfully put in practice, works well except for long-continued 

 cold weather, when the short time the house may be opened is not long 

 enough to thoroughly air and dry it ; but I have seen very few plants on 

 which this plan of ventilation was operated as it should be. On most 

 plants it is attended to very irregularly, and often neglected for days 

 while the poultryman's time is taken up with matters which seem of 

 more pressing importance. Such a system of ventilating requires more 

 time and attention than many poultrymen are able to give it ; hence, is 

 not for them a satisfactory system. 



There was no guess-work or theory about my opinion that most poul- 

 try keepers would not give the ventilation of tight houses the attention 

 necessary to make them satisfactory Almost everywhere I went in 

 winter I saw it, and found also that the worse conditions became in 

 tight houses, the more afraid were the owners to let the air into them. 



Various ways of preventing dampness in a tight house have been 



