CHAPTER V 
THE DOLLAR HEN FARM 
As has already been emphasized, the way to get money out 
of the chicken business is not to put so much in. 
Land, however, well suited to the purpose, should not be 
begrudged, for interest at six per cent. will afford a very con- 
siderable extra investment in land well suited to the business 
if it in any way cuts down the cost of operation. . 
The Plan of Housing. 
The houses are the next consideration. On most poultry 
farms they are the chief items of expense. I know of a poultry 
farm near New York City where the house cost $12.00 per 
hen. The owner built this farm with a view of making money. 
People also buy stock in Nevada gold mines with a view of 
making money. i know another poultry farm owned by a man 
named Tillinghast at Vernon, Connecticut, where the houses 
cost thirty cents per hen. Mr. Tillinghast gets more eggs 
per hen than the New York man. Incidentally, he is sending 
his son to Yale, and he has no other visible means of support 
except his chicken farm. 
For the region of light soils and the localities which I have 
recommended for poultry farming, the following style of poul- 
try house should be used: 
No floors, single boarded walls, a roof of matched cypress 
lumber or of cheap pine covered with tarred paper. This 
house is to have no windows and no door. The roosts are in 
the back end; the front end is open or partly open; feed hop- 
pers and nests are in the front end. The feed hoppers may be 
made in the walls, made loose to set in the house, or made to 
shed water and placed outside the house. All watering is to 
be done outside the houses; likewise any feeding beyond that 
done in hoppers. 
The exact style of the house I leave to the reader’s own 
plan. Were I recommending complex houses costing several 
dollars per hen, this certainly would be leaving the reader in 
the dark woods. With houses of the kind described it is hard 
to go far amiss. The simplest form is a double pitched roof, 
the ridge-pole standing about seven feet high, and the walls 
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