IN ‘HE POULTRY YARD. 63 
a chance to get them in. Now, it is quite true that on. bright, 
sunshiny days such houses are very warm; indeed during bright 
sunshine the air in such a house will often rise to summer tempera- 
ture while the thermometer outside is nearly down to zero. ‘The 
glass acts as a “heat-trap”; the sun’s.rays pass freely through, and 
warm up everything on which they fall, but the heat from the 
interior does not pass out through the glass so readily, as its inten- 
sity is greatly lowered. ‘The consequence is that more heat passes 
in than can pass out, and the whole house be- 
comes warmed up. But, as soon as the sun’s 
rays are cut off by clouds or night, there is no 
more heat passing in, while the out-going heat is 
as muchas ever. ‘The house then becomes rapidly 
cold, and the fowls will be frost-bitten in such 
houses when they would have escaped if kept in an 
old lean-to or even in a large cask. Therefore, if 
we would keep our fowls warm during ‘cold winter 
nights, without too great an expenditure of fuel, we must shun 
glass and keep them in houses with thick walls and roof. ‘This 
does not seem to be understood by the designers of poultry houses, 
and even where a glass shed is merely attached to the house pro- 
per, they make the opening leading from one to the other so large 
that the two might as well be in one. 
The designer of the house we are ‘describing knew better. He 
made his house complete in itself and quite tight. Even the holes 
through which the fowls passed from the glass shed to the house 
were provided with doors, which could be shut from the outside by 
means of a cord. In cold weather, there is no danger of not 
enough ventilation. A keyhole, on a cold winter night will admit 
air enough to fully supply the wants of three men, and the cracks 
in the best made poultry house will always give air enough. As 
for the carrying off of foul exhalations from droppings, etc., the 
best plan is to neutralize all such by means of proper absorbents. 
Fully impressed with these facts, the designer made his house 
close and with walls prepared so as to be the best of non-conduc- 
tors. Of course the stone walls always maintained a moderate 
