A pumping plant is better for the poultry garden for then you can 

 turn on the water any time it is needed. Here in California water for 

 irrigation is absolutely necessary. 



Plow the sediment loam deep, and have seed bed in fine condition. 

 Set out the early kale and cabbage in March or April. For kale, put 

 in hills three feet each way. Cabbage can be set two feet each way. 

 Use Jersey kale or thousand-headed kale. A good giant cabbage is 

 the Autumn King. 



Mangels can be transplanted from beds if allowed to get larger 

 than the finger before transplanting. They need to be well watered 

 until started. The most commgn way is to drill in rows about two feet 

 apart and thin down to six or eight inches between each plant. 



If the soil is rich and well watered, these will grow so fast that 

 they cannot be cultivated except when the leaves are picked off. We 

 make it a rule to run through with the one-horse cultivator as fast as 

 a crop of leaves is stripped off, and follow with the hoe. This makes a 

 complete cultivation every three or four weeks, and it is irrigated just 

 before each cultivation. 



It is well to irrigate kale and beets in trenches or furrows, as the 

 tops grow so rank that it is impossible to get through the patches. 

 We pick the tops from the mangels every three or four weeks, just the 

 same as kale; also the under leaves of the cabbage are stripped off, 

 leaving the heads quite bare. 



I use a tremendous amount of poultry manure on my kale, mangels, 

 and cabbage. This forces a quick, tender growth when well watered. 

 Kale that is not well watered grows blue and tough, and is too bitter 

 for the hens. I pile on poultry manure from two to six inches deep 

 between the rows, and then turn on the water, and the growth is so 

 luxuriant that the sun hardly ever strikes the ground. 



Every three or four weeks during the summer season we have a 

 heavy crop of crisp, succulent, tender tops that are sweet and nourish- 

 ing, and are eaten with a relish by the hens. 



During the summer months we feed kale, mangel tops, and alfalfa. 

 For winter greens we have the roots of the mangels, cabbage, and green 

 barley. Kale runs also well through the winter, but does not grow 

 much after the frosty nights. 



Barley is cultivated into our alfalfa patch in September, so that we 

 cut barley all winter where we cut alfalfa all summer. Thus we get 

 twelve cuttings per year from the same ground. We pile on the 

 poultry manure after each cutting of alfalfa during the summer and 

 flood it well. This makes a quick, tender growth that is very sweet 

 and relished by the fowls. It is astonishing what tonnage is produced 

 in this way. Water, soil and plenty of manure will produce as high as 

 three hundred tons per acre in mangels and kale. 



The secret in winter greens is to have the tonnage already grown 

 when the frosty nights come. 



The climate is such at my place at Palo Alto that we have our 

 beets and cabbage grow in the ground all winter and pull them as 

 we need them. 



If you were on my ranch at one o'clock on any day, you could see 

 the red combs of six thousand hens sticking their heads through the 

 opening to the long troughs on the outside of the pens and eating 



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