A COMMERCIAL POINT OF VIKW. 53 



floor is made of concrete, covered with gritty dust. Tliis 

 run can also with advantage be made a little larger, say 

 four feet long, eighteen inches wide, and two feet six 

 inches high. 



C is the open run ; the floor can be formed of concrete 

 or gravel, with an incline towards a gutter for quick 

 drainage. The sides and top can be made of galvanized 

 iron wire, and on the same plan as shown in the poultry 

 home (fig. 6). 



Artificial Vermin Nursery. 



This is a most useful department in a poultry breeding 

 establishment, as it will supply the poor prisoners with 

 those dainty little morsels which in their free state they 

 will never tire to look after. 



It is well known that from the chicken to the old hen 

 they prefer insects and worms to any grain — in fact, fowls 

 are omnivorous, but their carnivorous appetite predomi- 

 nates, and they would very soon become unfit for human 

 food were they indulged in their predilection ; only in a 

 free state they have to perform hard work in their search 

 of insects and worms, of which, after all, they find but a 

 scanty supply ; it would, therefore, not be advisable to 

 give fowls in a confined state too much of animal food, 

 but only in such quantities as will prove a stimulant with- 

 out injury to their health. 



The effect on a fowl fed too freely on animal food be- 

 comes soon perceptible ; she will pull out her feathers, and 

 even peck her flesh until the whole of her upper body is 

 one mass of raw flesh. 



