THE STOUTENBERS'S 3-STORY CHICKEN APARTMENT BUILDING. SIX PENS 

 24 (eet square hold 900 hent. Thera't a itraw loft on top and feed rooms at end. 



Cliff-Dwell- 

 ing Biddies 



Chickens and Good Farm 

 Management Pay Out on 

 This Clay County Farm 



K 



gg T^ UT - kut-ku - dawkut. Yoohoo, 

 Sarah Red Comb," called 

 Clarissa Leghorn from the 

 third floor. 



"Tu-kaw, Clarissa," replied Sarah, 

 "And how are you this morning?" 



"Fine. But I'm needing a little extra 

 mash," cackled Clarissa. "Could you 

 spare it?" 



"How about the wheat you promised 

 me, Clarissa," kudawked Sarah. 



"Oh my dear," clucked Clarissa, "I'd 

 forgotten all about it. I'll send it right 

 down. But be sure and send me up the 

 mash. I'm expecting company." 



"Kudaw-kudaw-kudaw," cackled the 

 first floor residents. "Listen to that one 

 on the top floor. Company! Kudaw- 

 kudaw! Cluck! Cluck! Tukaw-tukaw." 



"Listen girls," clucked Susie on the 

 first floor. "What I could tell if I had 

 a mind to. About the way she flirts 

 with that young Danny in the next yard. 

 Cluck-cluck." 



"She borrows to feed him, the young 

 upstart," cackled another. 



"She never pays anything back," 

 kudawked another. 



"Tukaw-tukaw-kudawkut," screamed 

 the first floor. 



"Yoo-hoo, Danny," cried the third floor, 

 "When you coming over?" 



"Cockadoodledoo," crowed Danny from 

 the next pen. "Hey there Clarissa, 

 what's on the menu this morning?" 



"Oh Danny," clucked Clarissa, "I've 

 got some nice cracked com, meal, mash, 

 and some of those green things you 

 like." 



"I'll be right over." crowed Danny. 

 "Cockadoodle doo, watch me fly this 

 fence." 



"Tukaw-tukaw-kudawkut-cluck-cluck," 

 shrieked the first, second, and third 

 floors in L. E. Stoutenberg's chicken 

 apartment, down in Clay county. 



"Of all the nerve," kudawked Sarah 

 Red Comb. "Borrowing from me to make 

 a hit with that young Danny." 



Perhaps a little far fetched and all 

 that, but every morning at the Stouten- 

 berg farm, you can hear more than a 

 thousand hens all going at once in their 

 handsome three etory chicken house. 

 The story- of how Gene Stoutenberg got 

 into the chicken business and converted 

 worn out land into a productive farm 

 reads like an Alger book. 



He was born near Princeton in Bureau 

 county and his family moved to Vermi- 

 lion county when he was about six 

 years old. Skipping all the intervening 

 time, we find that Gene came from 

 Normal, McLean county, in 1898 to 

 Sandoval and on to the present farm 

 a year later. In all the farm totaled 

 160 acres. It was in such bad shape that 

 Mr. Stoutenberg says, "We would have 

 moved off if we could but we couldn't." 

 In order to get anything to grow, all 

 the land had to be limed. A carload 

 of phosphate has been put on too. The 

 soil is gray silt loam with a tight clay 

 subsoil about 18 to 24 inches down. The 

 result of the liming and phosphating 

 has been pretty interesting. When oth- 

 ers, with better land to start with, but 

 with no lime and clover, were getting 

 wheat crops of 18 to 20 bushels to the 

 acre or less, Stoutenberg got yields up 

 to 40 and 50 bushels to the acre. 



DANNY — Just one of ttie boys out for a 

 stroll: 



During the drouth of 1881-82, South- 

 em Illinois had a good com crop. Farm- 

 ers in Central Illinois came down to buy 

 com. That, according to Stoutenberg, is 

 the way the lower end of the state got 

 the name "Egypt." It so closely paral- 

 leled the old Bible story. 



In 1904, Gene and Mrs. Stoutenberg 

 built a house. It is a fine, comfortable 

 place and stands as a momument to a 

 family who wouldn't let poor soil lick 

 them. It is modem in every respect. 

 Electric power from the nearby high 



MERLE STOUTENBERG 

 "He runs the show now." 



L. E. "GENE" AND MRS. STOUTENBERG 

 "He got the mumps vacationing in Wyoming. 



AUGUST. 1936 



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