CHAPTER IV. 



Location of Poultry Houses 



AND for the poultry house site should be con- 

 veniently located and well drained. While fowls 

 will thrive and do well on almost any kind of land 

 that is not too heavy and wet, and while poor light 

 land that is not available for cropping will serve, 

 it does not follow that poor land is best or that it 

 is particularly desirable and economical to use for poultry runs. 



Land that will grow small fruits, orchard trees, and take a good 

 grass sod is best and will yield the best returns. Good corn land 

 is excellent, and a not too heavy loam that will grow garden truck 

 can be made use of to good advantage. The advantage of such 

 locations for profitable poultry keeping is considerable. You can 

 alternate crops and poultry, make j'our land pay you a profit on 

 both crops, and, what is equally important, cropping the land part 

 of each season, or every other season, will keep the soil sweet and 

 prevent diseases which result from, poisoned ground. 



Do not think that because sandy and gravelly soil can be used 

 for poultry that you should seek to provide it. Sun-baked, bare 

 runs are not desirable and are only to be considered when no other 

 location is available. I have in mind a Springfield, Mass., poultry- 

 keeper who several years ago called on me to tell him what was 

 wrong with his breeding stock. He had located his poultry 

 house, an expensive one, on a very desirable southerly slope with 

 a fine stretch of well sodded grass land in front, where the yards 

 were to be located. He had read somewhere, or someone had told 

 him, that fowls do well on sand and gravel, and had conceived 

 the notion that the fine black soil, well turfed with grass and 

 clover, in front of his house, was not the right thing. So, he had 

 the sod removed and then filled in the yards at least a foot deep 

 with gravel and sand. He could not understand why his fowls 

 failed to do well and I had some difficulty in convincing him that 

 he had spoiled his runs to the detriment of the fowls, and that the 

 original grass land was almost ideal as a poultry run before he 

 tampered with it. 



Low, heavy clay soil ; that floods with water in heavy rains and 

 in spring and fall, and that bakes dry and cracks in liot, dry 



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