80 COMMON SENSE 
saved. Others tried to get into the wrong nest—one already-oc- 
cupied by another hen; it was easy to notice this, pick up the 
wanderer and place her in the first compartment that came to 
hand. Others seemed reluctant to go on; these we caught, placed 
them in a box and shut them up. 
The success of this system was complete. The time required to 
attend to the hens was small; there was no danger of the hens 
going wrong when the attendant was absent; no danger of eggs 
getting chilled; no danger of hens remaining too long on the 
nest without being fed. It is evident that it made no difference 
whether each hen returned to her own compartment or not; .so 
long as each compartment had a hen, it was all that was wanted. 
It is true, that if the hens had had different periods to sit, it would 
have made some difference, but I saw that, in that case, I could 
readily classify them, say, into one, two and three week hens, and 
let each class out by itself. I was, therefore, perfectly satisfied with 
my system, and resolved to make preparations for carrying it out-on 
a larger scale. 
But when the chicks were hatched the work was only half 
done—perhaps not even that. ‘The next thing was the care of the 
young chickens. Of course I wanted a system which would work 
not only in fine summer weather, but during cold, damp days and 
with Jarge numbers of chickens—not less than two hundred and 
fifty broods. Long before the chicks were due, therefore, I set to 
work to devise a system which would meet my needs, and as usual 
I turned to the books to see what others had done. I found 
plenty of coops for single hens and their broods; indeed, the in- 
ventive genius of poultry keepers seemed to have expended its 
whole energies in this department. ‘The number of such coops that 
I found figured was simply astonishing, but as I had enough of my 
own, many of which had never been figured anywhere, I did not 
want them. I was surprised, however, to see that while nesting 
boxes and other arrangements for haéching chickens in large nun- 
bers received a great deal of attention, very little information was 
given in regard to their after-treatment in large numbers. I almest 
came to the conclusion that most of the “ practical” men.had..got 
