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SHALL IT BE HENS OR SHEEP? 
Part I. 
I am considering the advisability of en¬ 
gaging in the poultry business; that is, for 
eggs and possibly broilers, or in the sheep 
business for early lambs. To make a suc¬ 
cess of the poultry business requires eternal 
vigilance and constant application, and one 
must have poultry and eggs out of season ; 
that is, when prices are high. To have 
them when everybody else has them would 
mean failure. For years I have read and 
studied poultry papers, and I believe I 
would be equal to the occasion. Which 
would you think the more profitable, the 
poultry and egg or lamb business? Which 
do you think would be easiest for success? 
1 have not studied the sheep business quite 
so well as the poultry business. Is Wash¬ 
ington, D. C., a high-priced market for 
either? Is the Washington market a higher 
priced market than Baltimore? I believe I 
would like the sheep business better than 
the poultry, but I know more about poul¬ 
try, though I have never been in cither. 
Maryland. J. b. 
Suppose you had lived both in Bos¬ 
ton and in Buffalo for a number of 
years and knew conditions pretty well. 
Then suppose a stranger, living in some 
country neighborhood, wrote you ask¬ 
ing advice. Suppose he said, “I am 
thinking of moving to the city, either 
Boston or Buffalo. I have read a great 
deal of the advantages of Boston; in 
fact, have been interested in the city all 
my life and know more about it. But 
I also know something of Buffalo; not 
as much, perhaps, but still I think I 
would like it better. In which city 
would I find it more profitable to live 
in? Which one do you think it would 
be easiest for me to get a business 
start in?” What would your answer 
be? Of course, you would tell him all 
you could—what business chances were, 
the cost of living as you found it, the 
kind of schools for his children, taxes, 
etc. But, after all, it would be from 
your own viewpoint of people and 
things. After all, you would only be 
giving him a clear idea of a small cor¬ 
ner in each city. You could only say, 
“I have told you what I have seen and 
lived. Whether you look at things in 
the same way or would fall in with the 
same class of people and business in¬ 
terests, I cannot tell. Take my ad¬ 
vice for what it is worth; try living a 
year or two in Boston, but don’t invest 
too deep until you have a chance to 
know the people and find how it suits.” 
Will he follow it? Goodness knows! 
More than likely he will jump for Buf¬ 
falo, sink all his capital on sight, and 
be tied there for life whether he likes 
it or not. 
Just so, when a city business man 
writes that he has read of poultry all 
bis life, that he knows more about them 
than any other kind of live stock, that 
he realizes that the hen business re¬ 
quires “eternal vigilance and constant 
application” and an “ability to produce 
eggs and poultry out of season.” Right, 
my friend; go in for hens. But wait a 
minute. He has read about sheep, too— 
early lambs, particularly. Not quite as 
much as he has read about hens, but 
still enough to know what he is talk¬ 
ing about. In fact, he thinks he would 
rather like the sheep business better. 
Well, why not? But here come two 
more questions, “Which do you think 
the more profitable? Which the easiest 
for success?” And as to his qualifica¬ 
tions, he has studied up about both, 
but has never engaged as a practical 
business in either. We shall suppose 
that he has enough capital to invest in 
a small farm or poultry plant. As to 
his markets, he has the choice of either 
Baltimore or Washington, both fair for 
southern cities, although I find Wash¬ 
ington as a rule higher and comparing 
more favorably with northern markets. 
Last Winter eggs went as high as 45 
cents wholesale and early lambs prop¬ 
erly fattened and sizable brought 
around $8 at two months. On the 
eastern shore, early lambs are shipped 
to Philadelphia and New York at a con¬ 
siderable advance. 
To begin with, I wouldn't go too 
heavily into either sheep or hens until 
I had some practical experience in 
raising them in season as well as “out 
of season.” Neither would I count on 
a living profit from them for at least 
two years; I find it pays better to go 
very slowly than to risk debt or get in 
so deep that there is no way to get 
out without a mortgage on your back. 
Whether you go in for a small place 
with hens or for a larger farm with 
sheep and crops, you have a lot to 
learn, and your experience is going to 
be expensive. Therefore the more 
capital you can hold in reserve until 
you know how to place it to the best 
advantage, the safer for you and your 
family. A good living—“eatings,” J 
mean—clothes enough to cover you, 
and plenty of health and fresh air for 
yourself and the kiddies is all you 
have a right to expect. The road to 
profits and a bank account through 
either hens or sheep is a slow but, I 
think, a sure one. 
Hens in themselves are more difficult 
to raise and handle right for out of 
season eggs, but the Winter lamb busi¬ 
ness is nearly as exacting, and to keep 
sheep you must have a knowledge of 
handling crops as well. There is only 
moderate profit with hens when you buy 
your feed, and with sheep I think there 
is none. You must be placed to grow 
your own roughage. I would not try 
to think of handling both Winter lay¬ 
ers and Winter lambs the first or even 
the second year. At any rate I would 
start with only a small place to care 
for; of course buy, if you can, where 
more land can be gotten should you 
need it. With a limited capital, hens 
are your best chance for early returns, 
and a start toward a steady income. 
And I would not think of trying to do 
much else until I had them well started 
and paying. They most certainly do re¬ 
quire “eternal vigilance and constant 
application” and that is where in start¬ 
ing out I fell down. I knew too much 
about hens, or thought I did, and gave 
them a bad overdose of “absent treat¬ 
ment.” In trying to handle the crops 
on a 70-acre farm, learning to care for 
a garden, putting in improvements, set¬ 
ting out orchards, starting a flock of 
sheep, etc., I lost sight of my hens and 
my main income. And it has been a 
slow “come back.” T would not try to 
hatch more than 400 chicks the first 
year. Big hatches are a delusion and a 
snare. Aim to raise 80 per cent of 
them and you will be coming strong 
for a beginner. You have no idea of 
the constant care and fussing they re¬ 
quire. They must have just the right 
feed to keep them growing, plenty of 
exercise, the cleanest of coops. They 
must be protected from rain and from 
sun and from disease, and you must be 
at least half woman to know when to 
do the right thing. Learn the chicken 
language as fast as you can; rather 
than go by thermometer and book rules. 
Patience is no name for it! Go to bed 
some mild March evening, with every¬ 
thing “all sky;” wake up at 2 a. m. 
and hear a nor’wester howling through 
the trees. Hustle out to your brooders 
in pajamas, slippers and overcoat. Look 
at the thermometer—75° and going 
down! Stand on your head in the 60- 
mile gale, monkeying with a burner 
that won’t heat up. Temperature go¬ 
ing steadily down, chickens crying, 
fingers blue. Get a wheelbarrow; move 
the heavy brooder behind another shel¬ 
ter. Temperature still going down. 
Change again. Ditto. Ditto again. 
Drop it at last into an empty cold frame, 
safe and snug at last. Crawl back to 
bed at 4.15 and get u.» at 4.45. How 
do you like it? Or go off to a picnic 
in July and have a tearing thunder¬ 
storm come up. Hustle your best girl 
home in an open buggy—drenched! 
Paddle around in a flooded chicken 
yard, picking up the dead and dying 
and resurrect 300 of them in a nine by 
10 kitchen. Would you like it? If you 
are the right kind, you would! Yes, I 
know, if I had followed what the books 
say, nothing like that would ever hap¬ 
pen. But remember, this is when you 
are learning. And I reckon T have my 
pay; those March pullets are laying, 
and last night I seduced 100 of those 
Fourth of July survivors out of the 
apple trees and colony coops and got 
them under permanent cover, ready for 
Winter and eggs. And by “constant 
application” I think they will surely be 
worth while. reuben brigham. 
Maryland. 
(To be continued.) 
When To Cut Alfalfa. 
At the farmers’ institute at Blairstown, 
N. J., Dr. John C. Sharpe made a fine 
address on Alfalfa growing. Among other 
things he spoke of the proper time to cut 
the crop. He said he could not tell from 
the road, or side of field, but he had to go 
in the field, get down on his hands ana 
knees, put on his glasses, examine the plant 
and look for the young shoots or plants 
that start from the old plant at the bot¬ 
tom, near the ground, and if they were 
started nicely, it was time to cut. ilc cuts 
it near the top of young plants, and he 
says he would cut it then, rain or shine. 
Last year he cut his one-eighth acre field 
in the rain, and put it in his silo, and this 
one cutting of eight acres fed 40 big Hol¬ 
stein cows two meals a day for 70 days, 
if I were a dairy farmer or had even one 
cow I think I would have some Alfalfa, 
if only one acre. But as I am only trying 
to grow fruit trees I have my hands pretty 
nearly full. _ d. d. w. 
Crop for Swamp Land. 
I have a swamp of about 10 acres grown 
up in rushes. This is land that has been 
filled in from the wash from the surround¬ 
ing hills; has an open ditch running 
through the center large enough to tile to 
and part of the land already tiled. I shall 
finish tiling soon. What crop could I 
plant next Spring, and what kind of fer¬ 
tilizer should I use? I was thinking to 
break land this Winter and plant to corn 
next Spring. a. j. o. 
Jackson, O. 
Such soil is usually sour. It is rich in 
nitrogen and deficient in potash and phos¬ 
phoric acid. Generally corn is the best 
crop to start on such soil. Use a mixture 
of three parts fine bone or basic slag to one 
part sulphate of potash. The Slag is an 
excellent fertilizer for such soil on ac¬ 
count of the lime which it contains. Such 
swamp lands when fully drained and sweet¬ 
ened make good soil for grass. 
Depth of Boots.—D. W. Frear of the 
Colorado Agricultural College makes some 
statements about the depth to which roots 
go in the soil: 
“Corn roots have been found to penetrate 
four feet deep and to fully occupy the soil 
to that depth. On drier and deeper soils 
they went as deep as eight feet. Boots of 
small grains, such as wheat, oats and bar¬ 
ley penetrated the soil from four to eight 
feet and even 10 feet in depth. Perennial 
grasses have been found to go to a depth 
of four feet the first year and 5% feet the 
next year, and they probably go consider¬ 
ably deeper during succeeding years. Other 
crops have gone to the following depths: 
Potatoes, three feet; sugar beets, four feet; 
Alfalfa, 150-50 feet. The buffalo berry pene¬ 
trated the soil to the doptli of 50 feet in 
Nebraska. In California: grapevines went 
down 22 feet; figwort, more than 10 feet; 
goose-foot, 11 feet, and hop plant, eight to 
10 feet.” 
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