691 



FOULTMY DEPARTMENT 



GROWING YOUR OWN CHICKF.X FEED INSTEAD 

 OF BUYING IT, ETC. 



I remember once hearing- a small boy say 

 to a merchant, while standing in his store 

 and looking- at the fine array of goods, 

 something like this: 



*• Mr. Brown, if you did not have to pay 

 anything for your goods, wouldn't it be fun 

 to keep store f "' 



Well, I have been many times thinking 

 what fun it would be to keep chickens if 

 we did not have to buy food for them ; and 

 while ofl' on the island of Osprey, I had o 

 neighbor who had a small flock of chickens 

 which they did not feed a thing. The poul- 

 try had the run of the whole island, and my 

 neighbor got quite a few egg's. Of course 

 he did not have very many chickens — per- 

 haps fifteen or twenty. 



Well, since wheat has been away up out 

 of sight 1 have been wondering if I could 

 not grow feterita and other things so as to 

 avoid buying expensive grain down in my 

 Florida home. Of course we do grow our 

 own chicken feed here in Ohio — that is, we 

 grow both corn and wheat to sell. I might 

 ship some down to our Florida home every 

 fall; but the transportation would make it 

 cost more than to buy it there at the great 

 warehouses. Well, now, here is a clipping 

 from the Florida Grower that hits the very 

 point we are discussing. 



Dade City, Fla., July 25, 1915. — In reading the 

 letters published in the Grower I see numerous in- 

 quiries as to what can be grown here in South Flor- 

 ida for chicken feed. Now, I am in the poultry 

 business, and finding my profits badly cut by the 

 greatly increased cost of western grain since the 

 beginning of the European war, I determined this 

 spring to raise all the feed I could myself. I have 

 a farm of thirty-two aci-es, and "board my chickens 

 at home " as far as possible. 



I planted cassava, corn, Egj'ptian wheat, chufas, 

 chicken corn, Spanish peanuts, cowpeas, feterita, 

 millet, and sunflowers. Also have collards growiiv^ 

 on low ground for greens. At the present I have 

 ripe cowpeas, sunflowers, chicken corn, and Egyp- 

 tian wheat in abundance for my poultry, and conse- 

 quently have been able to cut off store feed entirely, 

 which in these days of soaring prices is truly an 

 extremely pleasant thing to do. I expect to feed 

 wholly on liome-grown stuff till frost comes. After 

 that I will have some feed and some I shall have to 

 buy. I believe the various new sorghum family 

 grains are likely to prove a wonderful help to south- 

 ern poultrymon; for although they seem so perfectly 

 adapted to the arid section, gi-owing and producing 

 crops with almost no rain at all, yet they seem to 

 take just as kindly to our numerous and generous 

 summer showers. My feterita, planted, May 28, is 

 now, .July 20, about seven feet high, and heading out 

 finely. It is an entirely new crop to me; but I am 

 told that western people who have tried it thoroughly 

 consider it a good suljstitute for wheat. One nice 

 thing about it is its remarkably rapid growth. 



Egyptian wheat planted at the same time as the 



feterita is not heading yet, but I have some planted 

 earlier with ripe heads a foot or more in length. It 

 looks very nice indeed, and the chickens eat it 

 greedily. .Another thing I am trj'ing this summer is 

 Sudan grass. It is designed for forage rather than 

 for grain. I am much pleased with it also, and, as 

 I said before, it certainly looks as if these new sor- 

 ghums would prove a boon to the South. — C. H. T. 



Please notice his feterita has grown seven 

 feet high, and was heading out after it had 

 been planted only 53 days. As Dade City 

 is a little further north than Bradentown, 

 and away from the water, they usually have 

 frost more or less. In our Bradentown gar- 

 den we usually have no frost so as to inter- 

 fere with feterita or anything else. But it 

 makes a very slow growth during the cold- 

 er months. 



Without question it is po.ssible to grow 

 your own chicken feed as I have suggested 

 above; but if you have to hire help to grow 

 your stuff it may transpire that it will be 

 cheaper to buy corn and wheat shipped in 

 than to grow some substitute as suggested. 

 Each person will have to figure this out for 

 himself. If you like the fun of growing 

 stuff as well as keeping chickens, and have 

 notliing else to do, very likely you can so 

 manage as to pay out no money for j'our 

 cJiickens; and so all you get for your eggs 

 and fowls will be your pay for your labor. 



I suggest the above is a good scheme for 

 an old man like myself. Grow your crop 

 with your hand culti\'ator, such as we have 

 been talking about; and it is a comparative- 

 ly easy matter to do this in our friable 

 Florida soil. 



A good friend, after writing me a long 

 letter, suggests that perhaps T had better 

 have a chunk of that " maple sugar " before 

 i attempt to read it all and give him' an 

 answer; and you may need some of that 

 same maple sugar to go along with that 

 cultivator in growing the feterita to feed 

 the chickens. 



FETERITA IN VERMONT. 



AVill you please send me a few feterita seed to 

 experiment with ? We are so far north that I think 

 if it will ripen in 60 days we need it much. Some 

 years in 90 days corn will ripen. A grain that will 

 stand dry weather and make good is what we want 

 here. Walter P. Whipple. 



Newport Center, Vt., July 29. 



My good friend, unless you have sixty 

 days of ivarm dry weather I hardly think 

 you will get any feterita to mature. While 

 it grows tremendously during the hottest 

 part of the season, it makes a very slow 

 growth when we have cold weather, espe- 

 cially if there are cold rains such as we had 

 last winter in Florida. You can, however, 

 grow green feed safely before frost. 



