440 POULTRY DEPARTMENT. 



closed, even in the heat of summer, preferring to ventilate from below 

 the fowl's resting place, and the}^ have continued free from disease. 



In building a hen-house, there is a tendency among amateurs to get 

 too many windows. Anything like an even temperature can not be 

 maintained when a large part of one side of the house is glass, unless by 

 means of shutters, curtains, or something of that kind. In the daytime 

 when the sun shines, you will have summer weather inside, but at night 

 the rapid radiation through the glass causes the temperature to rapidly 

 fall to a low point, thus exposing the fowls to great extremes in tem- 

 perature. 



Do not crowd too many fowls into a limited space. The usual rule is 

 to allow ten square feet of floor area for each hen, and I have no doubt 

 but what more money can be made per hen if they are given this amount 

 than if confined to closer quarters. I have, however, considered this 

 question from another standpoint, which is this. Manj^ of us can keep 

 more hens in summer than our house will accommodate in winter, were 

 we to allow the usual ten square feet of space to each hen, so unless we 

 feel like enlarging the house, we must keep less in summer than we wish 

 to, or put more in the house in the winter than the rule will allow. 



Now, I look at it in this wa}^, that it is the total profit at the end of 

 the year which we realize that we are looking after, so if I can make but 

 two dollars per hen by wintering one hundred, it is better than three 

 dollars per head for fifty. I thus prefer to lessen slightly the profit in 

 winter that they may be increased in summer when the hens can run at 

 large and pick up a considerable- part of their living. 



Hens, to do their best, must have the most liberal hand to feed them, 

 and their bill of fare should be almost as varied as that of human bipeds. 

 Perhaps the plan which I attempt to follow in tay own case may prove 

 of some interest to you. Every other morning tlie first thing I do after 

 I get up is to put a pail of small potatoes in the oven to bake, and by the 

 time we have our chores done and breakfast eaten they are ready to take 

 out and mash. I bake them for the simple reason that at this time in 

 the morning the oven is usually unoccupied, whereas the top of the 

 stove is being used in getting breakfast, so have no chance to boil them 

 without making a separate fire. After they are mashed I add some 

 water or skimmed milk, a small handful of salt, and every two or three 

 mornings a tea-spoonful of Condition Powders, tincture of iron, pow- 

 dered charcoal or half tea-spoonful of cayenne pepper. Kxperience 

 teaches me just how much water to put in, so that when the meal 



