34 



by the farmers, the cut of grass has been enormously increased in 

 a few years. When the present owner took this farm, of about 

 100 acres, some seven years ago, it would not cut one ton of hay. 

 It had been a very much neglected if not literally an abandoned 

 farm. Last year it cut forty tons of hay, and within a year or 

 two, as additional portions of it are brought into a high state of 

 productiveness, the farm will cut a hundred tons of hay per annum. 



Combination almost Inevitable. 



But grass, though a profitable crop, and made more profitable 

 through the agency of the hens, is not a crop that can be used to 

 any great extent as poultry food. Some clover rowen, cut in good 

 season and nicely cured, the hens can use to good advantage ; but 

 it is hardly worth while to attempt to use for poultry food any but 

 clover or alfalfa hay, and a small piece of ground will furnish 

 enough of either of these for quite a large stock of poultry. So it 

 becomes a question, to be decided by each farmer according to his 

 circumstances, whether it will be more profitable for him to have 

 as much as possible of the farm in grass, sell hay and buy grain, 

 or to endeavor to grow as much as possible of the grain needed. 

 Or, to put the question the opposite way and from a farmer's rather 

 than from a poultry keeper's standpoint : supposing a farm a con- 

 siderable part of which is suitable for grain growing, will it pay 

 better to sell the grain, or to feed it to stock on the farm? 



I think that it is to-day a commonly accepted principle in farm- 

 ing, that, to maintain or increase the crop-producing capacity of a 

 farm, as much as possible of the produce must be fed on the farm, 

 the nutritious portions converted into produce of small bulk and 

 easily handled, and the residue returned as manure to feed the 

 land. Assuming that a certain farm is to be conducted on this 

 principle, the next question to be decided is : what kind or kinds 

 of live stock shall be used in converting the bulky produce of the 

 land into more condensed forms, of greater value and more easily 

 handled ? 



There have been many farmers in this section who, when they 

 became interested in poultry, and found it, perhaps, more profitable 

 than anything else they had tried on their farms, gave all their 

 attention to the poultry, to the neglect, if not to the entire abandon- 

 ment, of every other branch of farm work. So far as my observa- 

 tion goes, such men have generally found it necessary to retrace 

 their steps, and gradually get back to a combination in which some 

 other branches of farm work were quite equally important with poul- 

 try. The reasons which bring them back to more diversified farm- 

 ing have already been stated. They are the same as those which 



