LOCATION. 15 



case with quadrupeds. The scrapings from the roosts 

 might be carried to another farm, it is true, but the 

 nearer they are applied, the less labor ; and the drop- 

 pings where the fowls range, and at every coop of small 

 chickens, etc., are too valuable to be lost, and cannot be 

 gathered up save by the roots of plants on the spot. In 

 order to distract attention from the main business as 

 little as possible, crops of the simplest management 

 should be mostly grown, and only those that can be con- 

 sumed by the establishment grass, clover, alfalfa, cab- 

 bages, lettuce, onions, potatoes, beets and other roots, 

 large quantities of oat or rye straw, and the balance, 

 grains of various sorts, corn especially being always in 

 order. The principle of division of labor, carried out to 

 full extent, would forbid our raising crops at all, were 

 we able to gather all the manure and sell it for what it 

 is really worth. But, as we have seen, much will be 

 wasted unless there is tillage, and there is no price estab- 

 lished for such manure ; and if there were it is, under 

 our system, all immediately mixed with earth, making 

 it unfit for sale. 



The quality of the soil may be poor, or worn-out at 

 the start, thus securing cheapness ; but it should be of 

 a sort to which it would pay to apply valuable manure. 

 For the sake of the health of the birds, choose a warm, 

 dry soil. Land which dries quickly after rains is the 

 kind ; and another test is, whether it is ready for the 

 plow early in spring. If it will produce peas or water- 

 melons earlier than common, we are not far wrong. It 

 should not be clayey or gravelly, but a sandy loam. 

 Gravel for a subsoil, low enough down never to be 

 reached by the plow, would be excellent, making a nat- 

 ural underdrainage ; but gravel at the surface troubles 

 the fowls in their rolling and dusting. A supply of 

 hard gravel for the use of the birds should be screened 

 to a proper size at some other place, and hauled to the 



