If it is very early in the spring, and the ground is damp, it is best to put the hen and her brood in some building. During the most of the season the best thing is an outdoor coop. The first consideration in making a chicken-coop is to see that it is rain-proof and rat-tight. The next thing to look for is that the coop is not air-tight. Let the front be of rat-tight netting or heavy screen. The same general plan may be used for small coops for hens, or for larger coops to be used as colony-houses for growing chickens. The essentials are: A movable floor raided on cleats, a sliding front covered with rat-tight netting, and a hood over the front to keep the rain from beating in. If used late in the fall or early in the spring a piece of cloth should be tacked on the sliding front. The chicken-coops should not be bunched up, but scattered out over as much ground as is convenient. Neither should they remain long in one spot, but should be shifted a few feet each day. At first water should be provided at each coop, but as the chickens grow older they may be required to come to a few central water pans. As before suggested, rearing chicks with hens is the only suitable method for general farm practice. The brooder on the farm is an expensive nuisance. For brooder raised chicks it is necessary to provide means for the little chick to exercise. But in the season when the great majority of farm chicks are raised they may be placed out of doors from the start and the trouble will now be to keep them from getting too much exercise, i.e.: to keep the hens from chasing around with them especially in the wet grass. This is properly prevented by keeping the brood coops in plowed ground, and keeping the hens confined by a slatted door, until the chicks are strong enough to follow her readily. The chick should not be fed until 48 to 72 hours old. It may then be started on the same kind of food as is to form its diet in after life. The hard boiled egg and bread and milk diets are wholly unnecessary and are only a waste of time. I recommend the same system of chick feeding for the general farm as is used on commercial plants, and I especially insist that it will pay the farmer to provide meat food of some sort for his growing chicks. The amount eaten will not be large, nor need the farmer fear that supplying the chicks with meat food will prevent their consuming all the bugs and worms that come their way. Besides comfortable quarters, the chick to thrive, must have: Exercise, water, grit, a variety of grain food, green or succulent food, and meat food. Water should be provided in shallow dishes. This can best be arranged by having a dish with an inverted can or bottle which allows only a little water to stand in the drinking basin. Chicks running at large on gravelly ground need no provision for grit. Chicks on board floors or clay soils must be provided with either coarse sand or chick grit, such as is sold for the purpose.