Newspaper Page Text
THE SOUTHERN WORLD, MABCII 1, 1882.
7
m iMtlMi I*OUI.TRY HOTSE-S.
It is n fact that though n poultry keeper
may sec plan after plan of a poultry house,
and perhaps admire thesame, still, when he
builds a fowl house of his own, he generally
follows liis own ideas us to what lie needs.
If lie only does this, letting no old, accepted
notions of what should be done, prevent him
from doing what his own common sense tells
him is necessary, he will usually succeed in
putting up a polutry house of the right sort
for ids flock of fowls. We copy the follow
ing suggestions from the l’et Stock, Pigeon
and Poultry Bulletin, a most admirable
Monthly devoted specially to the Poultry in
terest, published at G2 Courtland St.,
New York city, to the editor of
which the Soutiikun Wobld isgreat-
ly indebted for the use of the accom
panying illustrations:
“In building a poultry house
there should be taken Into consid
eration, first, tbe climate. It w.ould
be folly to put up a light, airy, cool
house in Canada, where warmth in
winter must be had, or to erect a
frost proof building where frost
never comes.
“Second, the size of the flock
should never exceed the accommo
dations of the house, and the lat
ter should be, in all respects, as
near what the fancier really needs ns
circumstances will admit.
Among our illustrations of poul
try houses this month will be found
designs suited to various tastes and
requirements. Figure one shows
an octagon poultry house, a neat
nml pretty building for fine birds. The
diameter of such a one would be twenty-four
feet, height at eaves five teet, nine inches;
from rise of roof to base of cupoln, three feet;
height of cupola to its eaves, two feel; rise of
cupola roof, two nml a half feet, making en
tire height of building, from floor of peak,
thirteen and u half feet.
“The sides arc of worked pine boards, bat
tened; ventilators nre put in the cupola in
the shape of blinds that may be opened or
shut ns desired. The house contains seven
apartments or pens, besides the main passage
way, and room in the centre reached by the
main door, and the interior arrangements
may bo built to suit the fancy of the proprie
tor.
“Figure 2 shows a larger house on a more
extensive plan. It is adopted to the needs
of large poultry raisers, and serves os amain
building to which additions may be made
at pleasure. It is twenty feet wide and
sixty-eight feet long; centre portion twenty
feet square and two stories high; wings each
twenty-four feet long by twenty feet wide.
A passage way fourfeet wide runs the entire
length of the house, and on each side are the
pens for the fowls. An ollice limy be laid
out in the main building, which contains
four square rooms, leaving three for ‘sitters,’
grain room, and room for storage. The a-
partments up stairs may be put to various
uses, and the whole building affords ample
room for 200 laying hens.
“Figures 3 and 4 show us a warm, cozy
winter poultry house for cold latitudes,
where combs freeze and “blizzards" make
frequent visits, The sketches sliow us a
house which lias all the warmth of a cellar
without the latter’s dampness. The walls,
five feet high from floor to frame of roof, are
of rough hewn stone, set in mortar; the
north anil cast walls nre banked up with
of your own flock of fowls in building a
poultry house to shelter them from the cold
of winter and heat of Burning"’
Curiosities of the Telegraph.
The humming noise produced by the vi
bration of telegraph wires in the wind often
deceives the animals, and cause them to at
tack the poles from which the wires are sus
pended. In the Norwegian section of the
Paris Electrical Exhibition, says Cauell’t
Magazine, there was an interesting speci
men of the depredations sometimes made
bynnimals on telegraph lines. A stout tel
egraph pole of pine wood is shown, having
Trees anil Italn.
The countries of Sardinia and Sicily, once
tho granaries of Italy, have suffered the
penalty of their thoughtlessness in exter-
milisting their forests. Two thousand years
ago these lands were celebrated for their
wonderful productivenes, and were said to
be the most beautiful in the world. In 1800
Humbolt visited Venezuela, and was in
formed by the natives living in Araguay
that they had noticed, with great astonish
ment, that a lake which lay in the middle
of the valley, had decreased in volume
every year; the cause clearly traced to the
falling of a great number of trees which
Fig. 1.
a hole bored through and through it, large
enough to admit the list of a man. This
was pecked out by the black and green wood
peckers of Norway. These birds will some
times peck through a thick pole in a single
night, anil the explanation of their attack
is that they are deluded by the humming of
the pole, caused by the vibration of the
wire, in the belief that insects are lurking
in the interior. In the same way, the Nor
wegian bear is found to attack the poles, ap
grew on the surrounding mountains. In
Hungary periodical droughts are universally
attributed to the annihilation of the forests.
In Cairo, Lower Egypt, a great many years
ago, rain fell but seldom—only once in three
or four years—but since the time of Moham
med Ali, thirty or more millions of trees
have been set or planted, and the result is
now that the country has from thirty to
forty rainy days in every year. When New
England and the heavily timbered States of
parently under the impression that a swarm
of bees have made their honeyed nest with
in. This explanation is ull the more credi
ble when we recall the experiments made by
Mr. Boys on spiders with a tuning-fork. Mr.
Boys found that the spiders mistook the
sounding-fork for the buzzing of flies and
other insects on which they prey. Still an
other instance of the witchery of the tele
graph exists in Norway, since in the moun
tain districts there it has driven away the
tlie Union were first settled, the rain-fall
was greatly in excess of what it is since so
much of the land has been cleared up.
Interesting to Oyster Eaters.
A matter of importance to oyster eaters
has been disclosed by Mr. C. A. Cameron.
He lately examined some oysters taken
from the beds on the northern shore of the
Bay of Dublin, where the water is very
much polluted at present with excremen-
ent in sewage. Water taken from the bay
at low tide was found to be highly charged
with sewage. It is not unfairly considered,
therefore, that the illness which so many
persons have experienced after eating oys
ters believed to have been stale, was really
due to the sewage in the juice of these
shellfish. ^
A well has been discovered in Minnesota
which is a sort of natural ice-cooler even in
the hot mid-summer months. The shaft is
about twenty feet deep, and is not n very
great distance from other wells,'the waters
of which are of the ordinary temperature.
The people in the neighborhood of Browns
ville, where the ice well is situ
ated, liavo u theory that there is a
large cave connected with it, and
some time ago excavated a shaft
near it for the purp osc of ascer
taining if such was the case, but no
evidence of a cave was discovered.
After reaching the depth of one
hundred feet without result, drift
ing was abandoned. Before the
shaft was made it is claimed that
the well filled with ice to within
six feet of tlie top. A thermom
eter marked 30degrcss Fahrenheit.
About six feet back from the mouth
of the tunnel, the floor and sides
nre in many places covered with
ice. A strong current of air con
stantly flows from the excavation
that is very perceptible one hun
dred feet distant. Even when the
thermometer at the surfaee is 95
degrees, the atmosphere at the bot
tom of tho well is below the freez
ing point. This is, however, not the only
instance of the perpetual formation of ice
below the surface of the earth with the ther
mometer among the nineties above. Near
Wilkes barre, Pa., there is a small cave in the
mountains into which water trickles from a
stream above, and icicles are formed along
the ledges of the rocks below, even in tlie
dog days.
The Inventor of the Wheelbarrow.
It takes a great man to do a little thing
sometimes.
Who do you think invented that very
simple thing called a wheelbarrow ? Why,
no less a man than Leonardo da Vinci.
And who was he?
He was a musician, poet, painter, archi
tect, sculptor, physiologist, engineer, natural
historian, botanist, and inventor, all in one.
He wasn’t a “jack at all trades and master
of none," either. He was a real master of
many arts, and a practical worker, besides.
When did he live?
Somewhere about the time that Columbus
discovered America.
And where was he born ?
In the beautiful city of Florence, in Italy.
"Perhaps some of you may feel a little bet
ter acquainted with him when I tell you
that it was Leonardo da Vinci who painted
one of the grandest pictures in tho world—
“The Last Supper"—a picture that has been
copied many times, and engraved in several
styles, so that almost every one has an idea
of the arrangement and position at the table
of the figures of our Lord and his disciples;
though I am told that without seeing tbe
painting itself no one can form a notion of
how grand and beautiful it is.
And only to think of the thousands of
poor, hard-working Americans who really.
wolves, either because of the humming noise
made by the poles, or the ensnaringappear-
ance of the wires, for it is well known that
wolves are scared by strings suspended on
poles.
The minute, the hour, the day, the week,
the month, the year, all come to an end at
once os we pass from the old to the new
year. It suggests to us very strangely the
lesson of passing time, and teaches us to
pray that we may be able to number our
days and apply our hearts to wisdom.
earth to tlie caves, and the south and east
have lnrge windows in them, for tho early
sun in winter must be caught and made the
most of while it shines. Ventilators are
swung on hingesut each end of the building,
and may be thrown open at will or closed
tight. The projecting roof guards against
storms beating in through the ventilators,
and such a house is not only warm in winter
but cool in summer.
“As we said in tlie outset of this article,
always consider not other people’s wants in
other localities, but look to the requirements
titious and other offensive substances. The
oysters whlchjMr. Cameron tested were taken
from a place where the tide covered them to
a height of ten feet, and which was nearly
dry at low water; From the brine of most
of the oysters no offensive odor was emitted
but that of a large proportion gave forth a
distinctly fetid smell, and in a few cases
the brine gave unmistakable evidence to
( the nostrils of sewage contamination. The
microscope revealed in the fetid liquor of
the oysters whole swarms of micrococci and
other low organisms like those usually pres
own, in their wheelbarrow, an original
“ work " of Leonardo da Vinci!—[8t. Nicho
las.
Tns largest and clearest print can never
assist our sight as long as a covering remains
before our eyes. The best commentary can
not enlighten the mind until the veil is
taken away from the heart O how needful
then is the prayer, Unveil—open thou mine
eyes, that I may behold the wondrous things
that are In thy law: 'Let the veil be taken
away from the law that I may understand
it, and from my heart that I may sec it"