O A POULTRY COMPENDIUM, 



followed." When beginners will select one breed and 

 stick to it until the difficulties of breeding it to a high 

 standard are overcome, until, we may say, the breed is 

 mastered, then it will be time to cease warning them 

 against too many breeds; but until that time comes, every 

 writer upon poultry, who does his full duty, will send 

 out this warning cry: "0«if breed, enough — more breeds, too 

 many; one breed, success — many breeds, failure." 



POULTRY-HOUSES AND YARDS. 



The purpose having been settled and the breed select- 

 ed, before purchasing the fowls it becomes necessary for 

 their would-be owner to provide a suitable place in which 

 to keep them. 



Select for the site of your poultry-house and yard a dry 

 soil. Dampness causes or intensifies that scourge of poul- 

 try, the roup; it renders cleanliness next to impossible, 

 and is indirectly the fruitful mother of a variety of dis- 

 eases. If the soil is not naturally dry, drain it, and 

 make it as dry as possible. Then do not commit the 

 too common error of setting your house so low that the 

 first rain will cause a miniature flood, and make the inside 

 of your fowl-house resemble a duck pond. Set your house 

 above the natural level of the soil and fill up to it, so 

 that the land will slope from it each way, and form a 

 good watershed. Dry earth used within the house, scat- 

 tered over the floors, helps to render the atmosphere dry, 

 besides being an admirable absorbent of those gases 

 which are a valuable component part of fertilizers, but 

 deadly to your stock. 



Secure sunlight. Let your fowl-house face the south, 



