SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
51 
POULTRY HOUSES, HEHS’ NESTS, &C , &C. 
Messrs. Editors — However excellent the plan of a 
“Poultry House” recommended by yourselves in the August 
number of the Cultivator, the expense of such a building 
is greater than most of your readers are likely to incur. I 
therefore take the liberty of suggesting the following, 
which is probably as cheap as any plan on which a con- 
venient poultry house can be built: 
Let the diagram represent the ground floor of a building 
20 by 30 feet, with walls 9 feet to plates. The frame, 
common 3 by 4 inch scantling, with the lower ends stand- 
ing on brick, rock, or in the absence of either, on small 
pieces of heart plank. The boarding to consist of one 
plank 12 inches wide at the base, the balance 1 by 3 inch 
slats nailed on horizontally. If the situation is subject to 
depredations by minks or pole-cats, the spaces between 
the slats should not exceed 1 1-4 inches : but if not so ex- 
posed, the cracks had b^est be 2 inches wide. Let 1 be 
front door ; 2, partition door, and 3 and 4 small passways 
for poultry, to be closed at night by slides. A, front room 
8 by 20 feet, for hens with young chicks to roost before 
weaning their broods. B, Nest room 20 by 22 feet, with 
a floor over head, with sleepers 6 feet above ground. 5, 
six partitions 6 feet high. Room A being open over head 
to roof. 3, winding stairway for ascent of poultry to 
roost. The roosts 1 by 3 inch slats with one or two up- 
right supports of the same material, to give them the ne 
cessary strength; the roosts not to be more than 12 or 15 
inches above upper floor. The object of the floor over B 
is to catch the droppings of the poultry, so as to keep the 
nest room at all times clean ; it being much cheaper to 
put a floor than to build a separate room for roosting. For 
stairway take thick plank, say 2 1-4 by 12 inches wide, 
and at intervals of 3 inches cut in with a saw 1-4 inch deep 
and chip out from above. Poultry will go up and down 
such a gangway much more readily than if the upper sur- 
face were smooth or narrow. Nail some slats obliquely 
to the inside of studs and it will brace ih#* building just as 
well as if let in with mortice and tenons. The whole to 
be under a good roof 
By making the hens with young chicks roost in the 
front room they will not only be protected from bad 
weather, but when the young broods are weaned they 
will be already trained to go into the house at night ; 
where seeing the older ones going up to roost, and the 
gangv/ay being of easy ascent, there will be no difficulty 
in learning them to follow. 
If a separate room be desired for setting, run another 
partition across B, so as to cut off 8 feet at the back end, 
leaving said partition open from ground up to about 18 
inches and place the nest boxes so as to close up said 
opening. When a hen wishes to set, slip the next box 
with the hen in it, gently through the opening into the set- 
ting room and put another laying nest in its place so as 
to close up the opening. 
Where a separate room i.s used for setting, it will be 
necessary to have an opening from the same into a separ- 
ate yard (according to your plan in the Cultivator) so as 
to prevent the hen from returning through the front into 
the laying room, or she will be apt to abandon her own 
nest and take possession of some other in the laying room. 
If a hen be left shut up and not allowed to go out to feed 
she is apt to take to eating her eggs. 
To make the best nest boxes will require plank of two 
widths — the pieces for front and back being 10 or 12 inches 
wide and 12 inches long. The front sawed from upper 
corners about halfway down and a little to each side of 
the centre so as to leave room for the hen to step, when 
getting in and out. 
long. By sawing obliquely as from 1 to 2 you have the 
sides — the two longest edges being turned in front when 
put together. This will give a nest box 12 by 13 inches 
in the clear, 12 inches high at the back and 18 in front. 
Fourteen inches of the wide plank will make the floor 
and 18 inches the top — in all 5 feet 2 inches in length of 
wide plank and 2 feet of 12 inch plank ; being a cost of 
less than 10 cents to the nest box, besides your labor in 
putting it together. Tattler. 
Sleepy Hollow, Aug., 1854. 
CURE FOR RHEUMATISM, 4C. 
Messrs. Editors; — In the November number of the 
Cultivator of 1854, you were pleased to insert an article 
over the signature of A. T. L , (it should have been A. T. J., 
and Cadaretta P. 0.,) which I was induced to write, not 
as an aspirant for fame, but to the end that public senti- 
ment in relation to a topic fraught with so much interest, 
should not be misled; nor that erroneous theories (the 
butterflies of the day) ever should supplant true ones. In 
said article, the 22d line from the top, for “reputation” 
read refutation. It was foreign from my intention to ac- 
cuse W. P. W. of struggling for renown — though his arti- 
cle was replete v/ith everything necessary to betray a high 
state of mental culture. I call not in question the motives 
of its author. Pie doubtless is honest and candid, as we 
all should be. But his theory was wrong, and hence the 
erroneous deductions therefrom. My present purpose, 
however, is not to try to vindicate my position, nor fire an 
additional pop-gun at his. Public opinion, the great Sul- 
tan of the land, will seive, filter and digest the diversified 
productions of the day, and drive every vestige of error 
from the domain of science. But to my purpose. 
In the close of my article referred to, I gave the public 
what I conceived to be a sovereign remedy for Sciatic and 
Rheumatic pains, and remarked thar I would correspond 
with any wishing to try the remedy privately. This 
pledge, if I redeem, will prove an arduous task. For I 
have received letters of enquiry from divers parts of the 
States; and I should like to answer them by the whole- 
sale, through the medium of your journal, if you can 
sympathize with one who has inadvertently got into such 
a dilemma. They all wish a more miuute description of 
the vine, with further directions, whether or not it will 
cure cases of long standing, and whether it has invariably 
to be applied to the feet, no matter what part of the sys- 
tem is attacked, &c. &c. These and various other inqui- 
