IN THE. POULTRY YARD. 83 
they had before them all the time. I never saw chickens thrive 
better than ours did under this treatment. 
For feeding I bought a lot of chipped saucers at the crockery 
store for a cent apiece. ‘These chipped pieces are unsaleable, and 
quantities are thrown away by every large importing house. By 
offering to take a@// they had fora month I got them at a very 
cheap rate. a 
I made but two of these coops before trying them, and by the, 
time I had fairly tested the system the other broods were so far ad- 
vanced that they did not need them. I kept them in the common 
tent coops and similar contrivances, fed them well, and they throve 
apace. My motto was that every chicken I could raise brought 
me nearer to the fulfilment of my ambition—the possession of 1,000 
laying hens. The twenty-eight broods averaged nine chickens 
each when they were one week old. I divided them into broods 
of about fourteen each, and the ease with which this could be done 
in my new coops, showed me that the advantages more than _ bal- 
anced the cost. 
