140 POULTRY BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT 



be kept at lowest cost. A combination of poultry with 

 fruit growing may be successfully followed. Apart from 

 the return in eggs and chickens the farm is benefited by 

 the flock of poultry in the destruction of weed seeds and 

 insects and in the manure furnished. The chickens often 

 rid the fields of grasshoppers and other injurious insects. 

 The manure from 50 fowls will maintain the fertility of 

 an acre of land for the growth of crops. Poultry-keeping 

 fits in well with a system of crop rotation. 



There is undoubtedly an advantage also to the poultry 

 themselves, under conditions obtaining in mixed husbandry. 

 The large range is conducive to health and vigor in the 

 fowls. There is no overcrowding of the land and the 

 danger of soil contamination is largely eliminated. On the 

 general farm the best conditions are available for the health 

 and vigor of the stock and for low cost of production. 

 Looking at it from the standpoint of the state or community, 

 the development of this type of poultry farming offers the 

 surest and quickest means of bringing production of eggs 

 and poultry up to the demands of the consumer. 



Examples. Examples of profitable poultry farming 

 under mixed husbandry conditions may be found in any 

 county, but general farms on which poultry-keeping is 

 conducted on rather a large scale or as the main feature 

 of the farm, are not numerous. Little Compton, E. I., and 

 Petaluma, Cal., are two districts referred to more generally 

 than others where extensive specialized poultry farming 

 prevails. The Petaluma district is largely given over to 

 extensive poultry farming and examples of the same type 

 of poultry farming may be found in Little Compton, but 

 the latter could hardly be characterized as a district of 

 exclusive or special poultry farmers. 



A great many, if not the majority of the farms in this 

 district, come more or less under the designation of mixed 



