Now is the time to wage war on vermin, while the bright days last; turn the hens out and have a good housecleaning. Use plenty of hot limewash to which kerosene and crude carbolic acid have been added. If you have two houses, crowd all the birds into one for a few days, and when the empty house has been thoroughly cleaned, commence to catch the birds at night, and powder thoroughly. Use Dalmatian or the home made powder in an ordinary tin flour-dredger, and after shaking a good supply into the feathers, use your hands to rub it well into the fluffy parts near the skin. It is well to repeat the dose about three days after. In thus doing house and birds at the same time, you may be reasonably sure of having exterminated the pests for a few months, at least. Remember to rake up all the falling leaves, to be used for scratching material. A bagful scattered on the floor of the chicken-house once or twice a week will increase the egg-yield and keep the birds healthy during enforced confinement. Before I forget it, let me remind you not to feed new corn to the fowls. Every year, about this season, I get quantities of letters telling of good, fat hens, the picture of health, which have been found dead. Acute indigestion, brought on by eating unseasoned corn, is the cause. So be careful. If your last year’s supply has run out, it is better to buy a few bags than lose hens on whom you depend for winter eggs. Store all the cabbage or other green vegetables you can before it is too late. Look the house over and stop up all cracks and crevices. A draft from a small hole may give one bird a cold which may develop into roup and infect the whole flock, though an open-front house with only muslin screens may be healthy. About open-front houses, I don’t believe in them for laying stock. If I were going to carry a lot of young birds or hens which will not lay until April, I might adopt the open-front house as a matter of economy, but not otherwise. I can’t see what is gained by them--that is, in cold latitudes. In the South they are probably all right. We all know that the great percentage of food supplied during cold weather goes to keep up bodily warmth, and that if we expect eggs in zero weather we must supply the hens with sufficient provisions to nourish the body, generate heat and allow a surplus to be converted into eggs. By providing tight, warm sleeping-quarters, we save some of the food which would be used for warmth in a cold house. Plenty of fresh air I do believe in, but everything likes to be warm during the still, dark hours.