33 



In the localities in this State where soft roasters are grown ex- 

 tensively for the Boston market, intensive methods are necessarily 

 pursued ; but the strictest care is taken to prevent poisoning of 

 the ground over which the chickens run each year. After a crop 

 of chickens is all sold, — the last of them generally going to 

 market in July, — the fences are all removed and the whole plot 

 of ground occupied by the yards is plowed deep and sowed to 

 winter rye. Thus the ground is thoroughly cleansed each year, 

 and at the same time the work of purifying it is paid for by the 

 crop of green rye, which furnishes green food to the next crop of 

 chickens. 



So far we have not considered the manure from the young stock 

 grown for laying and breeding purposes. A considerable part of 

 this, deposited in coops, brooders and brooder runs, must be han- 

 dled like that of the general stock collected from the houses or de- 

 posited in the yards. But, to secure the best possible development 

 of the growing chicks, they must be given good, clean range from 

 the weaning age until maturity. It is possible to give them such 

 range on ground that is not productive. They will do well on 

 light sandy or gravelly soil that is washed clean of their droppings 

 by every heavy rain. They will do well on a field so full of 

 boulders that it can neither be tilled nor mowed. But the loss of 

 manure under such conditions is considerable, and it is an absolute 

 loss. Besides, while chicks do well on such land as has been de- 

 scribed, they do as well or better on good grass land ; and, as 

 chickens grown for stock or laying purposes are rarely large 

 enough to be distributed over a range in roosting coops until about 

 haying time, it is possible to use the same land to grow a crop of 

 grass, and after that as a range for chicks, and thus utilize on 

 this land every bit of the manure they make during the season, it 

 being spread thinly and quite evenly on the land as the chickens 

 range over it. Running chickens on this land prevents cutting a 

 second crop of grass the same season ; but as cows and chickens 

 combine nicely, and as, if the chickens are as well spread out as 

 they should be, they do not spoil the grass for pasture for the 

 cows, to use the mowing land for pasture for cows and chickens 

 after the first crop is off pays better than to attempt to secure a 

 second cutting. Such, at any rate, is the testimony of many who 

 have tried both ways. 



There are many farms where a few acres of mowing land heav- 

 ily manured with hen manure give a very abundant crop of hay 

 each year ; but I want to mention one in particular, where, largely 

 through the use of hen manure (though it is a combined dairy and 

 poultry farm), applied both by the fowls themselves and in bulk 



