300 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



CHICKENS IN THE PLUM ORCHARD. 



MARTIN PENNING, SLEEPY EYE. 



1. Plum Orchard of Martin Penning. 

 N. B. This cut and the one on the opposite page oin together making one picture. 



As the reader will notice, the building on the east side of the 

 barn, attached to the barn, is my chicken house, 34x16 feet in di- 

 mensions. East of the chicken house, about two rods, begins my 

 plum orchard. The gates you see along the fence are for driving 

 through the orchard for manuring. The chickens have their home 

 in the orchard. I scatter their feed in the orchard when not in the 

 way for cultivating. The chickens are cultivating the ground more 

 or less every day. It gives me great pleasure when I cultivate the 

 orchard to have such a large company of chickens following after 

 me. Each one wants to catch the worm or bug that I turn up. 



The chickens eat or destroy lots of insects during the summer, 

 but one thing they can not do is to eat the borers and curculio. I 

 have to fight them myself. 



I don't mean to say that it is absolutely necessary for raising 

 plums to have the chickens in the plum orchard, but I do know that 

 they do lots of good. I mulch or manure the orchard every fall, 

 and by the next fall the chickens have worked and scratched it over 

 and over so there is nothing to be seen of the manure or straw. This 

 provides humus for the ground, and this is what a plum orchard is 

 wanting. 



I would advise a man planting a plum orchard for commercial 

 purposes not to plant the trees too close — sixteen by twenty feet is 

 about the right distance. We have to have room for driving through 

 the orchard for manuring. Pollination will be as effective as in 

 close planting, and not as much rotting among some varieties of 

 plums. 



