Keeping hens for fertilizer! That's a new business. Who ever 

 heard of keeping hens for fertilizer? Why not? Every Italian gardener 

 knows that you cannot grow a garden without fertilizer. It is the one 

 essential along with soil and water and sunshine that makes success. 



If you can produce your own fertilizer right at home, you are 

 assured of a good garden. With a good garden you can live well and 

 cheaply. If you can produce a by-product along with this fertilizer in 

 the way of eggs, you have that much gilt. What a wonderful routine! 

 Green feeds fed to hens produce fertilizer with which to grow more 

 green feeds, and the good hens deposit golden nuggets as recompense 

 for your trouble of growing these green feeds and seeing that they get 

 all they can eat. Also these hens delight in making eggs out of waste 

 table scraps, peelings and leaves from lettuce, etc. Of course, to furnish 

 them all of the elements from which to make eggs in large quantities, 

 requires by-products from the grain mills to be fed along with the 

 green feeds. It is best to feed these grains and mill feeds in hoppers so 

 that they cannot waste them and can always have what they want and 

 in a clean manner. It is best to keep feed by your laying hen at all 

 times, and she will never over-eat. To produce her best she must 

 have a large variety of succulent, tender greens in the way of cabbage, 

 kale, mangel-wurzel beets, alfalfa, and green barley. 



With poultry manure as fertilizer, it is astonishing how many tons 

 of green feed can be produced from a small plot. I have produced as 

 high as 300 tons per acre on my poultry ranch at Palo Alto, California. 



How many hens can you keep on your back lot and raise all the 

 greens they will consume? With the highest cultivation of the soil, 

 you may be able to grow green feed for as high as two thousand to the 

 acre, but to play safe we put the figure at one thousand, which is a 

 perfectly safe estimate. With my system of eight foot square pens for 

 twenty-five hens each, with no yards, very little room is needed for a 

 large flock. Enough room should be left on each back lot for the cus- 

 tomary fresh vegetables for the table, from which much green can be 

 had for the hens also. 



Also some trees can be grown on trellises, as in the old country, and 

 a few varieties of berries. With poultry fertilizer and water you can 

 produce quantities of the most delicious fruits and berries in a very 

 small space. There is no normal person but what takes a delight in 

 creating plants from the soil, and much joy as well as profit can be had. 



With expensive city water for- irrigation, it will require more 

 cultivation of the soil to conserve the moisture. The poultry manure 

 will also tend to hold moisture when used for any length of time. 

 With the hens producing a steady supply of fertilizer, the garden can 

 grow richer and richer. Less than a quarter of an acre will produce 

 greens for 250 hens. Never put in more hens than you can raise green 

 feed for. It is the green feed that takes all the profit. 



There is no keener pleasure than that of growing vegetables in rich, 

 loose, well-watered soil. Then the table that can be supplied from a 

 well-managed garden makes life worth living. The average back lot, 

 if it is accessible to sunlight, can grow enough vegetables for a family, 

 and have room enough for poultry houses for more hens than they can 

 use the eggs from; thus being able to help with the grocery bill. 



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