FIRST LESSONS IN POULTRY KEEPING. 131 



would emphasize the importance, which as a plant grows old becomes necessity, of making 

 It easy as well as possible to keep yards thoroughly clean. It isn't much of a job to spade 

 over a large area on paper; but it takes time and lots of muscle to do the actual work on a 

 comparatively small plant. Even when yards are so arranged that the greater part can be 

 ploughed, there must be a strip along each side of every fence that has to be worked over with 

 spade or fork, a tedious job. 



This difficulty of giving the soil of the yards proper attention is one of the strong argu- 

 ments against the continuous house plan as an all year round plan. Some poultrymen, notably 

 those growing winter chickens, and some of the large duck growers, use stake and wire netting 

 fences for the outdoor runs connected with their brooder houses, and after the young stock is 

 out of the brooders, take up all fences, plough the ground, and sow to some crop, usually 

 winter rye. This annual renovation and disinfection of the yards has been an important factor 

 in their continued success with intensive methods. It is more easily adapted to brooder house 

 yards than to yards in which laying stock are kept, but unless a poultryman is very much 

 crowded for room, or has a very large ^stock, it should be possible to get the laying hens out of 

 their permanent or winter quarters for at least a few months in the summer and early fall, and 

 so make an opportunity for a thorough cleaning up and purifying. If the house is so situated 

 that yards can be made both front and back, and used alternately, the problem becomes easy. 

 Temporary fences may be used. Yards in front of the houses may be used for a year or two, 

 then all fences removed to the rear of the house, and the ground in front kept in cultivation or 

 grass for a year or two. The character and extent of the land, and the requirements of the 

 situation, have to be considered in determining just how to work the rotation, and how to 

 arrange the chickens and the crops. On some soils a rapid alternation would be better; on 

 others, yards might run for a series of years without any pressing demand for change. This 

 Is especially true of some of our porous, sandy sites in New England. Indeed I have seen 

 some places here where if the land was not overstocked with fowls so that it would get too 

 foul between rains, poultry could be kept on it indefinitely without any other purification of 

 the soil than is brought about by natural agencies. This condition, however, would not obtain 

 If yards were small, and the washing of the soil interfered with by post and boards of perma- 

 nent fences, beside which the droppings would lodge instead of being carried away. 



It is to be observed, further, of Such a location, that the fertilizing elements which, retained 

 In a soil unused, poison it for the fowls running on it, being either washed away or dissolved 

 and leached through the light surface soil, are wasted and lost, while with an alternation of 

 yards on richer, heavier soil the fertilizer can be made to contribute something to the income. 



I know a very few plants on good land where stock has been kept low enough, and grass 

 yards in such good condition that the bad results of permanent fencing have not developed, but 

 most poultrymen who yard their fowls need to change the runs often, or else give as careful 

 attention to the cleanliness of the yards as of the houses. 



The Usual Permanent Fence. 



The prevailing style of permanent fence for small to moderate sized yards is a fence six feet 

 high, the first two feet of boards, the remainder of wire netting. Posts are usually set eight 

 feet apart. With the wire no top rail is required. The netting is made fast to the posts and 

 to the upper edge of the board part of the fence with staples. For such fencing the common 

 two inch mesh poultry wire netting is used. 



Fences on this general plan are sometimes made with lath in place of wire, but that atyleis 

 not as good or as satisfactory. I used lath fences for the yards of a plant I built fifteen years 

 ago, but after a few years experience with them, resolved never to do it again. My object in 

 using lath was to have the shade which it would give the fowls in summer. It was all right for 

 that, but it also made too much shade in the yards in winter. It would have been better to put 

 for shade in each yard some sort of shelter that could be removed when not wanted. The 

 great objection to a lath fence is that the wind soon works the laths loose, and in a compara- 

 tively short time they get to the stage where not even frequent circuits of the fences driving in 

 the nails will keep them in good condition. By all means avoid the lath fence. Use wire, and 



