I02 The Illustrated Book- of Poultry. 



farm has no oilier duty than to take care of my poultry. I frequently turn off three thousand 

 spiing chickens in a single season." 



The great difficulty in American poultry-keeping is the care of the stock in \\intcr, and the 

 Farmer's Club of the American Institute appointed a committee specially to visit j\Ir. Lcland's 

 farm, and ascertain his management during that season of the year. The committee reported in 

 February, 1871, as follows (we have condensed their remarks for the sake of brevity) : — 



" We spent a day at the farm of Warren Leland, and have derived, from a careful survey of 

 his yards, ideas which we consider important. We find him carrying 150 turkeys, about 300 

 hens, a large drove of ducks, and several dozen of geese through the winter, without the loss 

 of any of his poultry by disease of any sort, and without the freezing of their feet or of their 

 eggs. We learn that he never has maladies among his poultry ; that he will allow the greater 

 part of his hens to sit in the spring, and each of them will yield an average brood of ten chicks, so 

 that he will raise about 3,000 chickens from his present flock, and his losses be very few. How 

 does he do it .' 



" His hens, ducks, and geese have the best winter quarters we have ever seen provided for any of 

 the feathered tribes. Their main-barrack, or hennery, is a stone house, seventy-five feet long, and 

 twenty feet wide, and faces south. The openings on the north side are small, and filled with 

 window glass, and in some cases with double sash. Those on the south side are much larger, 

 consisting of double doors, which are opened on sunny days. In the middle of the north side is a 

 wide, old-fashioned fire-place, with crane, and a big camp-kettle. Nearly every day in the winter a 

 fire is lit, and fed with chunks, knots, and old logs, that would otherwise be knocked about the 

 wood-yard, and left to rot in fence corners. The walls are of stone, and the floor of rock or earth, 

 so the fire can be left without the least danger. 



" On cold days, and especially in cold rains, the hens gather before this fire and warm them- 

 selves, and trim their feathers. The chimney can easily be closed, or the logs rolled out into the 

 middle of the building, and feathers or sulphur used to make a fumigation. This is done whenever 

 hen-lice appear ; and the openings of the house can be closed, so as to hold the fumigation till it 

 penetrates to every crack. Smoke he finds better than carbolic acid, or kerosene, or whitewash, to 

 drive vermin. The roosts are oak slats, an inch thick by two and a half inches wide, fastened to 

 the rafters near the ridge. They are nailed at different heights, and at proper intervals. About 

 two feet below the perches is a scaffold of boards, that fit quite closely. This is from time to time 

 covered with plaster and ashes. About once a month the accumulations are shovelled down, aijtl 

 piled up for the corn-field. He calculates that fifty hens yield, in the course of a year, as much 

 compost as would be worth fifty dollars in bone-meal ; that is to say, if he threw away his hen 

 droppings and had to buy the same amount of fertilising salts in bone-dust, it would cost him fifty 

 dollars to replace fifty hens as producers of manure. I le has paid special attention to the comfort 

 of his hens on the perch. They sit on a slat two and a half inches wide. Their breast-feathers 

 come down and cover their feet, and protect them from freezing in the coldest nights. Of course, 

 there is no lack of dry ashes in the house, and he finds that after the fire goes out the hens use the 

 hearth as a place to nestle, and shake ashes through their feathers. They enjoy it, and it keeps 

 them sound and comfortable. 



" The offal of the farm, as entrails, feathers, heads, scraps from lard, and all the odds and ends 

 from the kitchen, are thrown into this house, and the hens pick it over, eating all they want. Then, 

 as .soon as spring opens, all this trash is shovelled and scraped out, composted, and taken to the 



