208 POXJLTEY CULTURE 



when market demands are best. The picking comes at a time 

 when you are not so busy with your poxiltry. 



In the rotation of crops those grains most needed to feed the 

 birds can be used, such as corn, wheat, and oats. Each field 

 being cultivated every other year gives the trees sufficient 

 cultivation. Sheaf wheat and oats can, to a certain extent, be 

 fed, as there is needed in the houses scratch material in which 

 to throw the grain ration. 



THE FARM FLOCK 



The most successful and profitable way to handle the farm 

 flock is to have the poultry house portable. (See Fig. 88.) 

 The timbers supporting the building should be about 4 inches 

 thick and 6 or 8 inches broad and dressed like a sled 

 runner so that horses can be hitched to it and move it from 

 place to place. 



Corn fields, cotton fields, beet fields, cane fields, and or- 

 chards make excellent locations for the poultry. They also 

 do well in fields of rape, vetch, cowpeas, and soy beans. 



The breeding stock may be allowed to run in a field in one 

 part of the farm and the youngsters in another field. The 

 sitting and brooding coops or the movable colony brooder 

 houses may be located in the cornfield or orchard and the 

 chickens allowed the run of the clean grass, orchard nm or 

 ploughed field from the time they are baby chicks. 



By this method a greater percentage will be raised. Two 

 crops will be yielded by the same ground, that is, a crop of 

 chickens and a crop of corn or fruit. The orchard furnishes 

 the needed shade and the same may be said of the corn. 



It has been found that hens running in cultivated fields do 

 not interfere with certain crops as corn or cotton, and that one 

 hundred hens through the day will in the course of a year void 

 approximately three-fourths to one ton of valuable fertilizer. 

 The bugs, insects, and worms they consume furnish them ani- 

 mal food, the crop is protected. 



The New York Experiment Station estimates that each 

 one hundred hens will directly benefit the ground on which 

 they run at least $15.00 a year. 



