feet long, and 6 inches wide, with slides for ventilating the closet when necessary. There is a door in every partition, placed 5 inches out from the edge of the roost platform. They are 3 feet wide and 7 feet high; they are divided in the middle, lengthwise, and each half is hung with double acting spring hinges, allowing them to swing open both ways, and close.

Ten nests are placed against the partition in each end of the room, in two tiers. They are of ordinary form, each nesting space being one foot wide, one foot high and 2 feet long, with the entrances near the partition, away from the light, and with hinged covers in front for the removal of the eggs. Each section of 5. nests can be taken out, without disturbing anything else, and cleaned and returned. In constructing the house it was designed to use these nests only the present year. The framework where they rest was arranged for the use of trap nests, the intention now being to install them at the end of the present year, in October.

Troughs are used for feeding the mixtures of dry meals, shell, bone, grit and charcoal. The bottoms are made of boards 7 inches wide; the ends being of the same width and 18 inches high. The back is of boards and the cover is of the same material and slopes forward sufficiently so the birds cannot stay on it. A strip 5 inches wide is nailed along the front edge of the bottom to make the side of the trough. Pieces of lath are nailed upright on the front, 2 inches apart, between which the hens reach through for the feed. A thin strip 2 inches wide is fastened to the front of the trough at. an angle of about 45 degrees to catch the fine meal that the birds pull out and would otherwise waste. They clear it up from this little catchall and so waste is mostly prevented.

Two lines of 4 by 4 inch spruce are arranged as an elevated track above the doors. The track extends the entire length of the building and being faced with narrow steel bands on top, a suspended car is readily pushed along, even when heavily loaded. The platform of the car is 2 by 8 feet in size and is elevated a foot above the floor. All food and water are carried through the building on this car. The 10 iron baskets, into which the roost platforms are cleaned every morning,, are put on the car and collections made as the car passes through the pens to the far end of the building, 400 feet away, where the roost

Figure 13. Interior of one section of curtain front house.

cleanings are dumped into the manure slied. As the car is pushed along, the guard at the front end comes in contact with the doors and pushes them open and they remain so until the car has passed through, when the spring hinges force them to close again. This car is a great labor saver as it does away with nearly all lugging by the workmen. It has enabled one man to. take good care of the 2,000 hens from November to March, except on Saturdays, when the litter has been removed and renewed by other men.

At one end of the building there is a temporary food and water house for dish washing and scalding and where the car remains when not being used.

There is a walk outside of the building extending along its entire front. It is 4 feet wide and is made of 2 inch plank; it is elevated 2 feet above the floor of the building, which allows the doors, through which the birds pass to the front yards, to be opened and closed without interference. The door which opens out of each room through the curtain section, is above the outside walk and necessitates stepping up or down when passing through, which is not a very serious objection, as the door is used but little in the daily work, but mostly in cleaning out and renewing the floor litter. A guard of wire poultry netting, a foot wide along the outside of the walk, prevents the birds from flying from the yards up to the walk. The advantages of the elevated walk, over one on a level with the sill of the building is that it is unobstructed by gates, which would be necessary were the low walk used, to prevent the birds from passing from one yard to another.

The yards conform in width to the 20 foot sections of the house and are 100 feet deep. The fence is 5 feet high and is made from 2 strips of 2 inch mesh No. 19 poultry netting. By using 2 strips of 30 inch width, instead of one strip of double that width, 2 strong lines of wire are brought in the middie and the liability of bagging is much lessened, while the cost is not increased.

To give free passage for teams, to near the door of the building, openings 12 feet wide are left in the yard fences. They are 15 feet away from the front of the building, so that the road may not be obstructed by the snow which is liable to accumulate near the building. The frame fence sections, which fill in the openings during the summer, are quickly taken out and replaced

on cleaning days, and the delivery of bedding and worn litter back and forth, from wagon to buildings, is very directly made.

Yards, similar to those in front, will be constructed in the rear of the building and by alternating their use it is hoped to keep them clean, and more or less covered with green plants.

Packing and Shipping House.

A house 20 by 24 feet in size was made, in which to handle and pack the eggs for market. Its walls are packed with planer shavings, to prevent too great changes in temperature during extreme weather. It is well heated and lighted. The eggs are expressed to market when not more than one day old. The express company takes the shipments at the house daily and returns the emptys.

Residence of Foreman.

A neat four-room cottage house, finished and painted, was built for the foreman and his family. It has long distance telephone connections and in this way the foreman is within reach of the owner at all times.

Every building on the plant is new, having been constructed for the special purpose of poultry business. The equipment is also entirely new and uniform, only one kind and size of incubators, and one kind of indoor brooder being used, which relieves the operators of the annoyances which arise from the use of different kinds of machines.

INVESTIGATION RELATING TO BREEDING TO INCREASE EGG PRODUCTION IN HENS.

In 1898 the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station designed and constructed fifty trap nests and put them in use by the pullets kept that year. From time to time, the work has been extended until now 200 trap nests are in use by a thousand hens.

By the trap nest it is possible to know the exact daily work which every hen is doing. At the end of the year those that had laid 160 eggs, or over, were selected and saved for breeders. They were bred to males whose mothers had laid 200, or more, good eggs per year. No female has been used in the breeding pens, for six years, whose mother did not lay at least 160 eggs in her pullet year. No males have been used as breeders unless their mothers laid above 200 eggs per year. The breeding pens