656 THE COMPLETE GRAZIER. BOOK vin. 



room may be built so that there is no communication, which is prefer- 

 able in hot weather. The latter apartment must be provided with a 

 copper or boiler to yield a supply of hot-water : and it will be advisable 

 to fix up hot-water pipes to maintain the temperature of the milk in 

 cold weather. The washing or scalding tubs may be either portable or 

 fixed ; if the latter, hot and cold water pipes should be connected with 

 them. Every means should be taken to have the wash-room well 

 ventilated, so as to carry off at once all vapours and bad smells, and 

 to prevent their obtaining access to the other apartments. The vessels 

 when cleaned should be placed outside, and to protect them a verandah 

 should be erected. If this be carried round the house, it will tend to 

 keep the interior temperature uniform. 



The other and remaining apartments of the homestead, which 

 may, like those of the dairy, be either isolated from, or form part 

 of, the main building, are two in number, the poultry-house and 

 pigeon-house. 



Of the poultry-house we have already, in the book on poultry, given 

 general details. To these we may add the following: All poultry- 

 houses, to be healthy and profitable, should not only be free from 

 damp, but sheltered in winter-time, and at the same time supplied with 

 fresh air in abundance. Some advocate a soft floor, so that the poultry 

 can peck at it and form dust-baths or holes in its surface, but all the 

 pecking should be done out of doors, and the dust-baths formed in the 

 small yard attached to the house. We consider cleanliness the first 

 point to be aimed at in the house, as the only way of keeping down the 

 vermin ; this can best be secured by having a floor capable of being 

 washed and quickly dried. Damp in a poultry-room is a prolific cause 

 of disease, and should be carefully guarded against in floor, walls, and 

 fittings. Warmth, in moderation, is also essential to poultry, and if the 

 house can be placed near the engine-room or other apartment where 

 there is a source of heat, so much the better for the house and the 

 poultry. Some poultry experts have even gone so far as to recommend 

 the special warming of poultry-houses ; but, although this is necessary 

 for young chickens hatched in incubators, it is not so for hens, which 

 are protected by nature against cold weather at least as well as any 

 other farm animal. As to the fittings, or the roosting-poles, much 

 again has been written, perhaps the simplest are the best, namely, 

 rough battens or branches of young trees split up the middle, and placed 

 like a sloping gallery, so that all the droppings shall fall to the floor 

 directly from the roosting-poles. Some prefer the surface of the floor to 

 be covered with sand or ashes if covered at all, the former is perhaps 

 the better material. In some cases the poultry-house is placed on the 

 second floor or granary floor ; in which case a part of the granary near 

 the end is partitioned off. There is no doubt that a house so situated 

 will be dry and warm, compared with one on the ground floor. Proper 

 ventilation should not be neglected. 



As to the " pigeo'n-house," this is usually a separate structure, well 

 known from its peculiar and anything but graceful architectural style, 



