52 COMMON SENSE. 
calculated to hold from one hundred to three. hundred fowls, 
but no account of the success with which the birds had been 
kept. I was, therefore, compelled ‘to fall back on my own experi-. 
ence. 
Turning back to my earliest memories connected. with poultry, 
there was presented to me a most distinct mental picture of a 
rough poultry house in which over one hundred birds: found a 
nightly lodging, and in which they Jaid their eggs. . ‘They throve 
well; I never remember to have seen disease among them; eggs.. 
were abundant, and the labor of caring for them was not very 
great. During the day they wandered over a large area. of farm 
land, but always returned at night. 
Coming down to later years, I had in mind a former poultry 
yard of my own. We had a house which accommodated about 
fifty hens very nicely, but we raised about two hundred chickens 
from which we saved fifty pullets, and for these,- quarters had to be 
found elsewhere. We put up a cheap house of rough boards, bat- 
tened, and kept them in that. They laid well, maintained good: 
health and proved quite profitable. But the special Jesson which this 
later experience taught me was, that, although the two flocks wan- 
dered over the entire place (about 334 acres) and. mixed with- 
each other freely, they always returned to their own houses to roost 
and to lay, and no quarrels were ever occasioned by the two differ- 
ent sets coming in contact. 
T felt sure therefore that I could place as.many houses as I chose 
on the grounds with seventy-five birds to each house, and that so long 
as the general range was sufficiently extensive I would find no diffi- 
culty. I therefore fixed upon . seventy-five hens as the number 
which my houses ought.to accommodate, and resolved: to build 
one, intending to add house after house, until I had as many fowls 
as I wanted. 
And thus, after much thought, and no little actual. work in inves- 
tigating the subject, I came to the conclusion that in my peculiar 
circumstances, aiid with my tastes and training, poultry was. the 
only rural employment that offered a way out of the difficulties. 
that beset me. 
