210 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[June, 
some to send by rail. Butcher’s waste, pro¬ 
cured fresh, being almost absolutely necessary, 
is an important consideration in favor of prox¬ 
imity to a city. When it is seen that high 
prices for eggs depends on their being produced 
near by and delivered fresh, and that the labor 
is no greater to raise them close by the market, 
than at a distance at lower rates, with an ad¬ 
ditional deduction for transportation and break¬ 
age, we believe it must be admitted that the 
best place is, on the whole, near an eastern 
city. The site should not be far from a rail¬ 
road freight depot or wharf. The amount of 
Western grain needed is large. Hauling this 
many miles by team is too costly. Enriching 
ground at the east by feeding out grain from 
the prairies, is an indirect way of importing 
their rich mold. Therefore, we take care that 
this importation is judiciously contrived. A 
mill near, for grinding, is desirable. A tract of 
arable land may be found (though rarely), sur¬ 
rounded on all sides by either w r oods, swamps, 
or rocky pastures, so that there need be no 
danger of the fowls straying into tilled fields of 
adjoining proprietors. In case such a farm 
could be procured, the great expense of a fowl- 
proof fence all around it would be saved. If 
the tract is unfortunately bounded by cultivated 
lands, then it must be so large and of such cheap 
quality, that a border, 20 or 30 rods wide, may 
be afforded to be kept in permanent pasture. 
The land should be upon a slope, for there 
must be a quick surface drainage after heavy 
rains; but the pitch should not be so steep as 
to prevent easy wagoning. A southward in¬ 
clination gives a proper sunny exposure; and 
if there is a belt of woods on the north to break 
the winds, so much the better. If near swamps, 
sea-marshes, or damp river valleys, the site 
should be so elevated as to be out of the reach 
of the worst raw chilling fogs. We have enu¬ 
merated all the above qualifications as neces¬ 
sary to a site for an egg farm. Their combina¬ 
tion with certain essentials of soil which we 
are about to state, make the matter of selection 
one of considerable difficulty. Many more im¬ 
portant points are to be attended to than in 
choosing a place for ordinary farming or gar¬ 
dening. 
The soil should be adapted to cultivation. 
Those who advocate a waste tract make a great 
mistake, in our opinion. Every rood should be 
capable of cultivation, and rocky or bushy land 
avoided. Shade to be artificially provided at a 
small cost in a manner to be hereafter described. 
It is necessary to raise crops in order to get the 
full advantage of the manure. It exceeds in 
value that made by any other domestic animal, 
because from rich food more thoroughly di¬ 
gested than is the case with quadrupeds. The 
scrapings from the roosts might be carried to 
another farm, it is true, but the nearer they are 
applied the less labor; and the droppings where 
fowls range, and at every coop of small chick¬ 
ens, etc., are too valuable to be lost, and cannot 
be gathered up save by the roots of plants on 
the spot. In order to distract attention from 
the main business as little as possible, crops of 
the simplest management should be mostly 
grown, and only those that can be consumed 
by the establishment; grass, cabbages, lettuce, 
onions, potatoes, beets, and other roots, large 
quantities of oat or rye straw, and the balance, 
grains of various sorts, corn especially being 
always in order. The principle of division of 
labor, carried out to full extent, would forbid 
our raising crops at all, were we able to gather 
all the manure and sell it for what it is really 
worth. But, as we have seen, much would be 
wasted unless there is tillage, and there is no 
price established for such manure; and if there 
were, it is under our system all immediately 
mixed with earth, so that the amount could 
only be guessed at. The quality of the soil 
may be poor, or worn out at the start, thus se¬ 
curing cheapness; but it should be of a sort 
that it would pay to apply valuable manure to. 
For the sake of the health of the birds, choose 
a warm, dry soil. Land, quickly dry after 
rains, is the kind ; and another test is, whether 
it is ready for the plow early in spring. If it 
will produce peas or watermelons earlier than 
common, we are not far wrong. It should not 
be clayey or gravelly, but a sandy loam. Gravel 
for a subsoil, low enough down to never be 
reached by the plow, would be excellent, mak¬ 
ing a natural underdrainage; but gravel at the 
surface troubles the fowls in their rolling and 
dusting. A supply of white gravel for the use 
of the birds should be screened to a proper size 
at some other place, and hauled to the spot, 
and put in boxes for the use of the birds. Tiie 
soil should answer for dry earth for the roosts 
and for dust-baths, the loam being of a sort 
easily reduced to an impalpable powder. This 
is important, because we depend upon pulver¬ 
ized dry earth all through the business, to se¬ 
cure the cleanliness and health of the birds 
with the least possible labor. A great deal is 
said in poultry books and papers about the im¬ 
portance of cleaning the roosts frequently. We 
do not clean ours oftener than once in three or 
four months. The labor of going the rounds 
daily in a large establishment, thoroughly scrap¬ 
ing floors, and removing manure, would be 
enormous. We set all our fowl-houses on a 
ridge of earth thrown up, by plowing several 
times toward the center, and surround with a 
shallow ditch for surface drainage after heavy 
rains. Thus we secure dryness, wet being the 
foe that must be kept from the fowls at every 
stage. Then in winter a bed of dry earth, six 
inches deep, is put inside the houses instead of 
a floor, and a couple of inches added monthly 
if needed. The birds may be depended upon 
to cover their own droppings, not only daily 
but hourly, when not at roost, a thick cloud of 
dust being raised every little while. The houses 
will always be freer from taint than if floors 
were used without dry earth, and scrubbed with 
soap and sand three times a day. 
As it is impossible to raise any crop on vines, 
stalks, or trees above ground or below it, that 
hens will not damage, crops are put on one- 
half of the ground each year, and the fowls on 
the other half. Movable fowl-houses are used 
exclusively, with the exception of some large 
ones for liatcliing-rooms. By building small, 
light, and low, with strong sills made on pur¬ 
pose for runners, the houses may be moved 
every spring by an ordinary team, to the sec¬ 
tion tilled the previous summer. The distance 
traveled in transferring 100 fowl-houses, from 
one 60-acre lot to another, is one-third of a mile 
for each building, and back with no load. The 
amount of labor is much less than would be in¬ 
volved in hauling the manure, mixed with dry 
earth, from the buildings. The moving is ac¬ 
complished systematically; the fowls belonging 
to a building being all moved in one flock in a 
large box made on purpose, in which they are 
quietly entrapped -when attempting to leave 
their house in the morning by placing it adjoin¬ 
ing, after which the box is darkened and drawn 
upon runners, on which it stands, to the new 
station. On arriving they are immediately al¬ 
lowed to escape into a spare house, shaped and 
colored like the one they left, placed before¬ 
hand, when they are ready to commence their 
day as usual, the whole operation of removal 
occupying only a few minutes. Besides this 
yearly moving each building is moved every 
few days during spring, summer, and fall, its 
length only. Thus a fresh spot is secured, and 
to prevent all taint and uncleanliness, aS well as 
to keep the manure safe for next year’s crops,’ 
an implement like a harrow, with teeth like a 
horse-hoe, is drawn over the spot where it 
stood. The buildings are all moved in regular 
order in the same direction, so as to keep the 
same distances apart; then back again over 
another strip of ground, so as to fertilize the 
whole lot in the course of the season. The fre¬ 
quent turning of the soil not only keeps it 
sweet, but provides wdiat fowls are so fond of— 
a place to scratch for insects, and roll and dust 
themselves in dry weather. The crop of weeds 
that will constantly appear in summer must be 
as constantly turned under; and whatever ad¬ 
vantage there may be in green crops for manure 
will be secured; thus the enriching and pulver¬ 
izing of the ground will fit it for large crops. 
It need not lie altogether fallow either, for a 
few small spots may be sown thickly with let¬ 
tuce, cabbages, or other plants that fowls will 
eat, and protected until partly grown, by mov¬ 
able lath-fences or wire-netting, after which they 
may be allowed to help themselves. Oats may 
be sown in strips also; and whether the fowls 
scratch up and eat the seed in spring, or forage 
upon the ripened grain, no matter. It is only 
necessary to compare the amount of labor 
spent in spading the ground in yards, to keep it 
fresh, with this way of using team and plow, to 
see the superiority of the latter method. 
——--»-«•- 
Ogden Farm Papers.—No. 18. 
Up to this time (April 25th), we have had 
such weather as I have never known before; 
the winter ended, virtually, on the 22nd of Feb¬ 
ruary; the frost was all out of the ground on 
the 15th of March ; and from that time to this 
there has been little interruption to out-door 
work. My small grain and grass are all in 
(20 acres), potatoes are planted, and the land is 
plowed for root crops and for corn. In fact, 
the work has gone on so smoothly, that I fairly 
forgot the reason for it, until a few daj^s ago, as 
I walked across a neighbor’s field (a part of the 
same slope). Then the “squash” of the sod 
brought back the old times when we first took 
hold, and before the land was drained, and 
when it was sure to be the middle of June be¬ 
fore we could depend with any certainty on 
getting the land in fit condition for corn plant¬ 
ing. Half a day’s rain w'ould soak us full, and 
it would take four or five days of diying weath¬ 
er to make the ground fit for teams. By that 
time probably another rain would set vis back 
again. This year we commenced plowing the 
first week in April, and could have commenced 
the last week in March; and although we have 
had several heavy rains since then, which set 
the drains flowing to their full capacity, the 
land would get in good condition within twenty- 
four hours after the rain stopped, and I am 
satisfied that we have been able to work four 
times as many hours as we could have done 
were the land not drained. The value of being 
able to work twenty days in April instead of 
five days, no farmer who knows the importance 
of taking his “stitch in time,” need be told. We 
shall feel (he benefit of the early start through¬ 
out the whole season. With ordinary weather 
from now until the end of June, wo shall get at 
