102 PROFITS IN POULTRY. 
peradventure, and utterly untainted with a suspicion of 
having been brooded or weathered. For this reason it 
is a most untidy thing to use natural nest-eggs. ‘he 
nest-egg, after a while, is almost surely gathered, and of 
course is not “right.” 
The trouble about fowl-houses, even with liberal yards, 
is that fowls do not do well constantly confined. The 
number of eggs falls off, and the fowls become subject 
to disease, and especially to vermin—lice. All poultry- 
houses are liable to become thus infested, and the only 
cure and preventive is dust, and dustiness. It is best to 
provide extensive dusting-boxes—not out-of-doors some- 
where, or under a cow-shed, where the fresh winds will 
carry off the stifling dust rendered disgusting by its 
“henny” smell; but in the house itself, so that the at- 
mosphere of the entire establishment will become thus 
dust-laden and oppressive. Dust will settle everywhere, 
and one entering will need a white coat as much as 
doesa miller. The hens will revel in the dust, however, 
and it will keep the lice down if not exterminate them. 
The hens not only enjoy it, but dust isa necessity and 
a luxury to them, just as a morning bath is to civilized 
man. The dusting-box is their toilet-table—in fact, 
bath-tub, wash-bowl and pitcher, sponge and brushes 
and soap, and it gives health and long life as surely as 
the free use of water does to human beings. 
As to feed—if fowls are confined they lose a great 
variety of food which must be, in some way, made up 
to them. When we depart from a close following after 
nature, we begin to complicate matters. Watch a hen 
as she trips picking about: now she takes a bit of grass 
or other greens; now she strips the seeds out of the 
seed-pod of some weed ; now she makes a vigorous dive 
after an insect, and so on all day she scratches and for- 
ages. So a variety is essential to the health of fowls in 
confinement, They need grain and soft food, chopped 
