one and one-fourth inches thick and two inches wide is placed on edge in front of the nest boxes and a short distance from same, to enable the fowls to reach the nest boxes without jumping directly into the boxes. The outside of the building is covered with dark green oil stain.

Business Poultry Plant-The houses built by an extensive poultryman, G. H. Pollard of Bristol county, Massachusetts, are simple, substantial and practical, and as cheap as a very good house can be made.

Probably nothing better for the cost can be found. The photograph, Figure 50, gives a general idea of the

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FIG 50:

BUSINESS POULTRY HOUSE

outside appearance. The inside is very simple, consisting of the roosting place and a scratching shed. The most striking feature of the inside arrangement is the roost, which is built with special attention to securing warmth at night. It is Mr Pollard's idea that if a laying hen is kept warm nights, she will not mind. cold winter weather, but will keep right on laying, hence he does not pay much attention to glass windows or any other means of producing warmth by day, but the scratching shed is left open in pleasant weather and protected only by a cloth curtain on stormy days. In some of the sidehill houses the roosting house is entirely shut off at night and is banked on one side

with earth and protected on the other sides by cement walls faced with roofing paper, as is the inside roof also. There is only one small window in front. This roosting place makes a very tight and warm arrangement in winter and when the hens leave it they are encouraged to keep themselves warm by scratching for grain thrown among the litter in the outside pen. Apart from the roosting pen, the house is built as cheaply as possible, banked in the rear nearly up to the roof and covered on the outside with roofing paper coated with tar, which is considered the cheapest and most satisfactory roofing material. Mr Pollard supplies details as follows:

The largest house is ninety-six by thirteen and one-half feet and is divided into six pens thirteen and one-half by sixteen feet, which are subdivided into a roosting pen six by thirteen and one-half feet and an open-front scratching shed ten by thirteen and onehalf feet. The house is very plainly built and is entirely devoid of fancy features in fixtures. The frame is of two by four spruce, on sills of three by four, set on chestnut posts. It is eight feet high in front, using sixteen-foot boards, hemlock, planed on one side and cut in two. The back is five feet four inches, using six-foot boards cut in three pieces to save waste and boarded up and down. The roof is covered with threeply building felt, tarred, and the front, back and sides of the roosting pens are covered with two-ply felt. The cracks in the back of the scratching pens are battened to stop the drafts, and the front is covered with wire netting. A sash of four to six eight by twelve lights gives the roosting pen light.

The perch platform is at the back, and twenty inches from the floor, which is of gravel filled in some six inches higher than the outside level. There are

no other Iurnishings, save a few nests made of soap or spice boxes, which cost three cents each.

In the scratching sheds are small boxes of oyster shell and the water dishes. The floor is covered with meadow hay or straw and the hens scratch in this for the hard grain. The soft food is fed in troughs and is made up of variations of bran, meal, linseed meal and beef scrap.

A house of this kind may be built by anyone a little handy with tools, and covers all the necessary features for the comfort and care of the hens. The doors open from the scratching sheds to the roosting rooms, and from one roosting room to the other. There is a scratching shed on each end of house and the roosting rooms adjoin each other, thus taking them away from the outside ends and gaining all the warmth possible from position. Of course this house could be extended to any length desired. The runs are on the back side of the house, as in winter the scratching shed furnishes open-air exercise, and in summer they get some shelter from the hot sun and warm south winds by living on the back side of the house.

Another advantage gained comes from the possibility of walking along in front of the building and throwing the whole grains through the netting into the scratching sheds without the trouble of opening and shutting gates or doors. In this way a house of two hundred feet could be fed a dry feed in five to twenty minutes and the work well done.

A Model Poultry House-The building, shown in Figures 51 to 54 inclusive, is set on posts three feet above the ground, so the chickens can congregate underneath the main floor, giving to each section a ground floor twelve by sixteen feet. This double house is intended for fifty chickens, twenty-five in each section. The nests and feed boxes are accessible

from the hallway, and the droppings from the perches are easily removed at the rear of the building. The cost of this building, finished in a workmanlike manner, is less than fifty dollars, including the purchase of the materials required. The bill of materials for a poultry house twelve by sixteen feet is as follows:

The house built had partly second-hand material and so cost not more than twenty-five dollars. The front elevation (Figure 51) shows the house with the yard on each side, while the ground plan (Figure 52) shows the general interior arrangement.

A Practical Poultry Home-The building shown in the illustration (Figure 55) is on one of the farms owned by Mr I. S. Long of Lebanon county, Pennsylvania. The first two houses are twelve by fourteen feet, one of which is used for laying hens. In the middle is a feed box where the hens are fed. The other house is a roosting place and is cleaned every three or four days. After cleaning, the roosts are sprinkled with lime or coal ashes. The long, low shed is sixtysix feet long by twelve feet wide. During winter, the floor is covered deep with straw and chaff. Grain is thrown on this, and the hens are compelled to work to get out their feed.