The poultry house should be whitewashed about every six weeks in hot weather, and as late and early in the fall and spring as the weather will permit. Scatter dry earth or sand on the platform; clean and renew every day. Once a week paint the corners of nests, roosts and any other fixtures or roughly spliced joints in the building with kerosene oil and crude carbolic acid, mixed in the proportion of one pint of oil to half an ounce of carbolic. Leaves or whatever scratching material may be used on the floor should be raked out once a week in hot weather. All cleanings should be put into a heap under shelter, or into barrels, for poultry droppings are invaluable fertilizer for the vegetable garden. Dry, cold weather doesn’t hurt the hens at all, but after winter rains or heavy snow they should be confined to the house, and unless the weather is exceptionally inclement, all the windows thrown open between 9 A.M. and 2:30 P.M. Very stormy days we keep them open only while the hens are busy scratching for the noon supply of corn. It is the industrious, busy hen that produces the most eggs, so the first consideration is to keep the flock busy. We promote exercise by having the small yards at the back of the houses repeatedly dug up during the spring and summer. In the autumn the dry, falling leaves are collected, and used on the floors of the houses during bad weather. Fresh, cold water is kept constantly before them in stone vessels in summer, and in a padded-box arrangement in winter. Boxes of clean, dry soil are placed in sunny spots in the house, to encourage the birds to take the dust baths in which they delight. Hens, having no teeth with which to chew their food, are dependent on grit to perform the office of mastication after the food has passed into the bird’s gizzard, where a sort of grinding process takes place, which reduces hard corn to a digestible compound. Being near a stone crusher, we buy the fine gravel by the load. Those not so fortunately situated will find a specially prepared mixture at any poultry-supply store, or the small flock can be supplied by smashing broken crockery and glass into pieces about the size of hemp seed. Oyster shell is a very poor substitute for grit, its value being the lime it supplies for the formation of shell.