IN THE POULTRY YARD. 147 
bones, their latent powers were being developed. How long they 
could stand this, however, was a question. 
Real cold weather did not set in until after the middle of De- 
cember, and then it was ushered in with a rather heavy fall of snow. 
This prevented all access to green stuff growing in the fields, and 
confined the hens to their houses and sheds. And here the glass 
roofs came into play with striking effect. While all was cold, wet 
and dreary outsile, these glass covered sheds were dry and warm.| 
We made a stout snow plow, and with Madge’s aid we opened up 
paths all round the place, so that Margaret could reach’ every 
house without any trouble. 
As there was but little outside work for the man now, we kept 
the boiler going all the time, and we ground up bones quite liber- 
ally. As the birds were somewhat crowded, we picked out a few 
that we thought the poorest, and fattened them up, and got rid of 
them. We also got rid of the last of the cockerels, except the 
very young ones, and in this way we made more room for the 
rest. But in spite of all our efforts and extra feed, the egg crop 
diminished; the cold snap produced a remarkably sudden and 
great change in the birds, and our receipts frequently fell from 
thirty to Jess than ten dozen. But, as the number of eggs produced 
grew less, the price increased; forty, fifty and at last sixty cents was 
reached. 
Thus far our fowls kept ‘in good health, but then, as we well 
knew, the worst was to come. It was the cold of February and 
March that I dreaded worst. 
In the large houses the hens kept very comfortable. But in the 
breeding pens the birds began to suffer with the cold of January. 
‘The snow left us about the 8th of January, and we had some very, 
fine weather about that time. In a few days, however, it grew 
cold again, and was much more severe that it had previously been. 
The birds in the breeding pens, having no glass sheds, were com- 
pelled to go out in the open air whenever they left their coops, 
and. the -combs and wattles of the hens got frozen, so that laying 
entirely ceased. And as I was very anxious to get eggs from these 
coops, so as to be able to raise some very early pullets, that would 
