GROWING FEED FOR POULTRY 



109 



planting to furnish all the vegetable feed the birds re- 

 quire, and a considerable amount of vegetables for the 

 family table. It is simply a matter of intensive cultivation 

 and good management. 



In growing a variety of vegetables for poultry or 

 for the family and the poultry, the aim should be to ad- 

 just everything to the principal crop or crops grown. For 

 instance, if it is desired to have a supply of cabbage or 

 mangels for the fowls for winter, as well as green feed 

 of some kind through the summer, the winter supply 

 should be considered the main thing and all plantings 

 made accordingly. Cabbages for winter are usually set 

 in July in the northern states, so a good crop of rape, 

 chard, or lettuce may be taken from the same land before 

 the cabbages are set out. Turnips are less desirable for 

 poultry than the other vegetables mentioned because, as 

 commonly grown, they often have a bitter flavor which 

 is communicated to the eggs of fowls that eat them, and 

 tven when free from this, turnips that are only very 

 slightly decayed and are eaten read- 

 ily by poultry, may have a rank odor 

 and give a disagreeable taste to the 

 flesh or eggs of birds eating them. 

 With these risks in the use of raw 

 turnips it remains true that a crop 

 can be started and matured later in 

 the season than any other vegetable 

 that will make winter feed, and that 

 with care in feeding and by cooking 

 them if that is found necessary tur- 

 nips may be freely fed to poultry. 

 The writer has known of their be- 

 ing fed as freely as mangels to large 

 stocks of laying hens without affect- 

 ing the flavor of the eggs. 



In considering vegetable crops for 

 poultry it should be observed that 

 cabbages and the root crops occupy 

 slightly different positions in the 

 diet. Cabbage is both a green and 

 a succulent feed. Except for the 

 "bleached inner leaves of the matured 



head, and for other parts after long storage, cabbages 

 supply considerable of the material that gives color to 

 egg yolks. Mangels apparently supply none of this. 

 Yellow turnips may supply it, but observations on their 

 use do not afford results warranting the statement that 

 they materially affect yolk color. Cabbage as fed in 

 winter does not give rich color to yolks but does relieve 

 the extreme paleness that occurs when the diet contains 

 little yellow corn, green-cured clover or alfalfa, or green 

 sprouted oats. Hence a supply of cabbage may be con- 



nary testing may be of some service, the difficulty is of 

 such a nature that only results at actual time of planting 

 prove the quality of the seed as used. 



The difficulty of getting good stands of mangels haa 

 long been commonly explained on the theory that the 

 seeds generally were low in vitality. On this supposi- 

 tion the best time to sow mangel seed is after settled 

 warm weather comes. Authorities taking this view have 

 been accustomed to recommend rather late sowing. The 

 best crops of mangels the writer has seen in late years 

 have been from early sowings. The poultrymen most 

 regularly successful with them say that the best practice 

 is to sow mangels as early as the ground can be properly 

 worked; that if the seed is good it will germinate then as 

 well as at any time, the crop will start well ahead of 

 the weeds, will have a long growing season, and produce 

 enormously; that if the seed is not good, another supply 

 can be secured and the crop resown as soon as that fact 

 is ascertained; that by this course there is an oppor- 



KEEP SOMETHING GROWING IN THE POULTRY RUNS 

 WHENEVER POSSIBLE 



Growing crops in the runs use up fertility that otherwise would be wasted, 

 supply some green feed for the fowls, and afford grateful shade. Illustration 

 shows oats growing in runs at Maryland Experiment Station. 



tunity to replant several times if necessary before the 

 time mostly recommended for this vegetable, and that 

 the earlier a stand is established, the heavier will be 

 the yield. 



Poor germination seems to affect the larger varieties 

 of beets most. For that reason, people who have had 

 much trouble in getting good stands of the largest varie- 

 ties often become discouraged and put in the smaller 

 kinds of stock beets. That this is really their advan- 

 tage may be doubted, for the roots of the "mammoth" 



sidered as in part substituting for other common green varieties grow so much larger than the others that often 



feeds, and at the same time supplying succulence, while 

 the root crops supply only succulence and such nutriment 

 as is contained in their solids. 



Growing Mangels 



The greatest obstacle to the growing of mangels is 

 the uncertainty of germination of the seed, and the con- 

 sequent difficulty of getting a good stand started early 

 in the season. Unsatisfactory results from mangel seed 

 are said by some seedsmen to be due to exposure of the 

 seeds in storage or in stock to conditions under which 

 the germs start and then die. It is said that a degree of 

 moisture not detrimental to other seeds will often pro- 

 duce this result. The only way of determining the germi- 

 nating quality of the seeds is by testing. While prelimi- 



what looks like a very poor stand of the big ones yields 

 much more than a good stand of the smaller varieties, on 

 a like area of the same land. 



Mangels can be grown well on any friable soil that 

 keeps Reasonably moist through the season. The land 

 should be ploughed deep, worked thoroughly fine, and 

 put in the best possible physical condition before sowing 

 the seed. Some of the most regularly successful grow- 

 ers of mangels say their practice is to harrow and smooth 

 the land until it is as good as they would want it for 

 ordinary garden, and then go over it several times more. 

 They say that such extra work greatly benefits the plants 

 at the start, and its influence continues through the whole 

 growing season. With thorough cultivation, both before 



