35 



that it is much easier to handle poultry on new land, and that every 

 part of the land to which the poultry has access is benefited. 



Many cultivated crops are better for having poultry in them at least 

 a part of the season. After corn is about a foot high a few fowls or 

 chickens can keep quite a plot of corn free from weeds and injurious 

 insects. Even when the corn plot is quite heavily stocked with 

 poultry they are not likely to do serious injury until the corn is ripen- 

 ing and bent ears and parted husks tempt them to help themselves. 

 It might be debatable then whether there was any real loss in letting 

 the birds help themselves to what corn they wanted. The answer 

 depends on what point of view is taken. It must be remembered that 

 the poultry have done a good deal for the corn, and that if they did not 

 eat it other grain must be given them. Asparagus is a crop in which 

 chickens can run from the time cutting ceases until winter. They will 

 keep the asparagus clean and give it a liberal fertilizing. Raspberries 

 and blackberries poultry may be kept in except when the fruit is ripen- 

 ing. If not too many are put in they will do no more harm in the spring 

 than to break down a part of the growing plants. As there is usually 

 a superabundance of these, what destruction they cause in this way is 

 often beneficial. 



On grass land where but one crop of hay is cut each year poultry 

 may be kept on the land from the time the hay is taken off. Some of 

 the best mowings I have seen in this State are those that are cut but 

 once a year and poultry kept on them with the second growth so strong 

 it really seemed a waste not to cut it. Of course too much poultry on 

 grass land will ruin it. There is a medium where the land and poultry 

 alike profit. An orchard furnishes an ideal place for poultry. It 

 gives shade as well as a grass run, and the birds destroy many insects. 

 Whether in field, orchard or garden the fowl that has an opportunity 

 to do something for itself is saving labor for its owner, saving on the 

 feed bill, and under proper restrictions is actually doing work which 

 otherwise he would have to hire done. It is also keeping in good 

 physical condition, and thus saving anxiety and extra care that go 

 with unthrifty stock, to say nothing of the losses steadily occurring 

 among such stock. 



In the feeding of poultry on the farm many economies are possible. 

 There is usually more or less vegetable matter that unless fed to hogs 

 or hens goes to waste. When apples are falling from the trees the 

 unmarketable stuff may be fed very freely to poultry. They will eat 

 large quantities of apples, and seem to thrive better on them than on 

 any other fruit or vegetable. Nothing else seems to go as far in saving 

 on grain feed. 



Fowls may be fed all the overripe tomatoes and cucumbers they will 

 eat. The lettuce that runs to seed and the split heads of cabbage 

 ought to be given them more regularly than is usually the case. Too 

 often these things go to waste while poultry goes hungry for green food, 

 because it is nobody's business in particular to give it to them. 



Hopper feeding, of which so much is said now-a-days, is an advan- 

 tage or not according to circumstances. Where fowls have oppor- 

 tunity to exercise and get considerable variety of other food feeding 

 grain in hoppers in which a supply for several days or a week is put 

 saves a great deal of labor. Under opposite conditions the apparent 

 saving in work of giving feed may be more than offset by the work and 

 worry brought about by hopper feeding under wrong conditions. It 

 is not possible to make the same plan or method work equally well for 

 all persons under all circumstances; nor is it possible for any one else 

 to decide for a poultry keeper what is best policy for him. All points 



