WHERE TO KEEP FOWLS 79 



one piece of stiff wire about three-sixteenths of an inch 

 in diameter and eighteen and one-half inches long, 

 bent as shown. A piece of board six inches wide and 

 just long enough to reach across the box inside is 

 nailed flatwise in front of the partition and one inch 

 below the top of the box, a space of one-quarter inch 

 being left between the edge of the board and the parti- 

 tion. The purpose of this board is only to support the 

 trip wire in place. The six-inch section of the trip 

 wire is placed across the board and the long part of 

 the wire slipped through the one-quarter-inch slot, and 

 passed down close to and in front of the center of the 

 seven and one-half-inch circular opening. Srqall wire 

 staples are driven nearly down over the six-inch sec- 

 tion of the trip wire into the board so as to hold it in 

 place and yet let it roll sidewise easily. 



When the door is set, a section of the wire comes 

 under a hardwood peg or tack in the lower edge of the 

 door frame. The hen passes in through the circular 

 opening, and in doing so presses the wire to one side, 

 letting the door down, which fastens itself by a wooden 

 latch or lever. The latch is five inches long, one inch 

 wide and one-half inch thick, and is fastened loosely 

 one inch from its center to the side of the box, so that 

 the outer end is just inside of the door when it is 

 closed. Pieces of old rubber belting or strips across 

 the lower corners are nailed at the outside entrance for 

 the door to strike against. 



A WELL-ARRANGED POULTRY FARM 



A fourteen-acre farm provides a little paradise of 

 fruit and poultry and incidentally a good living for 

 R. G. Buffington in southeastern Massachusetts. Five 

 hundred breeding fowls and about 1400 chickens are 

 kept, most of them in colonies of twenty or thirty. 

 Almost the entire farm is divided into runs varying 



