It* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
967 
Five Minutes for Refreshments. Fig. 399 
Intercropping Vegetables ivith Fruit. Fig. 400 
Talks About the Chicken Business 
I am a person with years of experience as a geneixxl 
farmer, and have handled poultry in a small way. I 
am thinking of putting about $5,000 into a poultry 
farm, and come to you for some advice. I wish a fair 
statement as to the profits and losses of the business. 
I met a poultryman in New Jersey who started in for 
himself 10 years ago with a capital of $200. He 
now has a home and business worth $8,000 or $10,000. 
Poultrymen talk of making $2 to $4 profit per bird per 
year. This is big money for farming. Is it a precarious 
business, in which some make much money and some 
lose much? If profits are large in some cases the risks 
are usually great. Just what are the risks? Do you 
think w r e are soon going to have overproduction of 
poultry products? Are Chinese eggs likely to swamp 
the American market? As to location, is the sand and 
pine region of Ocean County, N. J., any better adapted 
to growing poultry than regions of heavier soils? _ If 
not, why are so many poultrymen located in that region, 
which iooks so barren? Are there sections of New 
Jersey, New York and Southwestern 
Connecticut where poultrymen are just 
as successful as in Ocean County? 
L. T. A. 
A DVISING a man whom one does 
not know about investing $5,000 
in a new business is a rather ticklish 
matter. Keeping poultry on a large 
scale is quite a different matter from 
keeping the usual farmer’s flock. 
The first thing I would advise is to 
spend some time and money in visiting 
some large poultry plants that have 
been running successfully for a number 
of years. Better yet, spend a month 
working on one. 
A profit of $2 to $4 per bird has been 
possible in the last few years because 
of the extra high prices of eggs. Dur¬ 
ing the flush times succeeding the Civil 
War the highest price I obtained for 
eggs was 00 cents per dozen. They 
have been a dollar a dozen and more 
up here in the Connecticut hills, that 
price being paid to the farmer at his 
door by egg collectors. I do not know 
what the consumer had to pay. But 
with fair success, and in ordinary 
times, a profit of from $1.50 to $2 per 
bird can reasonably be expected, if he 
has a good laying strain of birds. 
This is a matter of the very first 
importance. I know of a man who 
started in the poultry •business. Tie 
wanted the best stock that could he 
obtained, so he bought of "whose stock 
won first premiums at all the poultry 
shows. At the end of the year they 
had scarcely laid eggs enough to pay 
for the feed. The breed was White 
Leghorns. But near him was an old 
farmer whose White Leghorns had 
made a fat profit. They had high tails 
and other bad things from the show 
standpoint, but they were good layei’s. 
This man hatched all his chicks the 
next year from that old farmer’s eggs, 
and then he made a fair profit, and 
kept on in the poultry business. 
Not so much depends on the breed; 
there ai*e good layers in nearly all the 
breeds. But one’s market must be con¬ 
sidered. If white eggs command a pre¬ 
mium in that market, then a breed 
laying white eggs is to be preferred. 
Answering another question, I would 
say yes, it is a “precarious business”— 
for the man who does not understand it. 
About the greatest risk is disease. 
If roup gets into the flock, good-by to 
profit. The experienced poultryman 
notices the first case, and removes it; 
the amateur does not see it until half 
the flock are affected. A glance at the 
droppings will often reveal things that 
a look at the birds does not show. 
The kind of henhouse used will contribute its part 
toward success or failure, though some men seem to 
be able to keep fowls successfully in any kind of a 
house. Houses holding 1,500 birds in one flock have 
been successfully used, but with smaller units there 
is much less risk from disease. I could write for an 
hour and touch only a small part of the little things 
that conti'ibute to success in the poultry business. 
No, I do not think we are soon going to have over¬ 
production of poultry products. 
Chinese eggs (in my judgment) will never cut 
much figure in the American market. Their use will 
be mainly in cake-making in bakeries, as our infer¬ 
tile eggs from incubators are now used. 
A sandy location is not unfavoi-able, principally 
•because it is drier. A wet, swampy or moist location 
is unfavorable. 
I have never been to Vineland, N. J., but I think 
that is in the sandy section of New Jersey, and also 
that it is the greatest poultry section in the State. 
Southwestern Connecticut has many farms well 
adapted to poultry keeping. Up here, in Northern 
Connecticut, on the very top of a hill, 800 feet above 
sea level, there are two successful poultry farms, 
keeping over a thousand birds each, and a half mile 
away, on lower gi'ound, two other poultry farms, the 
only breed kept being White Leghorns. The extra 
cold Winter of a year ago touched 20 degx*ees below' 
zero. It was hard on Leghorns, and did decrease 
the egg production temporarily, but they quickly 
resumed when the cold spell passed. 
Farther down the hill, toward the railroad station, 
a New York man started a poultx*y plant. He went 
necessary because of potato scab. Would Sweet clover 
sown the first week in August on plowed sod ground 
make sufficient growth by the middle of the following 
May to make it worth While to plow under for potatoes? 
IIow much lime should be used to get a good catch? 
How would it be to sow Sweet clover in with Winter 
rye as a nurse crop? What iv,tes of seeding would you 
recommend with Sweet clover alone, or with rye and 
Sweet clover? What do you consider the value of a 
fair crop of Sweet clover per acre as compax'ed with 
barnyard manure? g. C. 
Cortland Co.. N. Y. 
M OST certainly you can keep up the fertility of 
your soil (without the use of manure) by 
using green crops and chemicals. No one can tell 
positively yet how much gi'owth the Hubam clover 
will make when seeded as late as August. This 
clover has not been known long enough to enable us 
to work out all its possibilities. We seeded some on 
July 11. and shall continue to seed up 
to the middle of August to learn how 
much growth it will make. For late 
seeding we advise the use of rye with 
it—aboxxt three pecks of rye and 10 lbs. 
of Hubam to the aci*e. We should ex¬ 
pect the Hubam, seeded eai*ly in 
August, to make about 2 ft. of growth 
before Winter, while the rye will live 
over and make a full growth in Spring. 
This should mean the equivalent of 
eight to 10 tons of manure. It is not 
yet surely known whether the Hubam, 
late planted, will live thi-ougli the Win¬ 
ter. If it will, we shall have in this 
combination of i\ve and Hubam a won¬ 
derful cover crop to hold the land 
through the Winter. We wish there 
could be thousands of experiments 
with Hubam this Fall. 
to the city with his family for the Winter, leaving 
the poultry in charge of a 16-year-old farmpr boy. 
That boy sold over $1,000 worth of eggs in six weeks 
from 000 hens. 
In conclusion, I can give no better advice than to 
start small and grow up to the $5,000 plant. The 
“man with $200” had to, and it was to his benefit. 
GEORGE A. COSGROVE. 
Hubam Clover For Late Manurial Crop 
I have read with peculiar interest of the value of 
Sweet clover, variety ITubam, for a manurial crop, and 
wonder if I could possibly work it into my system of 
farming. Mine is a dairy farm, but do not want to 
keep stock if I can keep up the fertility of the soil any 
other way. Soil is stony loam, and needs lime to grow 
Red clover, but as my specialty is growing certified seed 
potatoes I do not care to use any more lime than is 
Cleaning Out A Well 
An old dug well on my farm was 
sealed by the authorities as a typhoid 
carrier. Would another well (dug) 
necessarily be a typhoid carrier, provided 
it was properly and regularly cleaned 
(which the first one was not by previous 
owners) ? Driven wells cost $5 per foot, 
and the uncertainty of how far I would 
have to go prevents me from having one 
driven. Is the water from a driven well 
any less liable to contamination from 
underdrainage than a dug well? Would 
not a dug well, propei-ly taken care of, be 
just as safe? H. R. w. 
New York. 
T HJE danger from underdrainage is 
the same in the case of both dug 
and driven wells—they both draw their 
supply from the same source. A di’iven 
well, however, is not so much exposed 
to surface water contamination or to 
the washing of dirt into it through a 
leaking well platform as is a dug one, 
and is to be pi - eferi’ed on this account. 
A dug well should have the upper few 
feet of the cui'bing, or lining, laid in 
watertight cement and canned well 
above the surface of the ground. The 
ground level should then be made to 
slope away in all dii’ections from the 
well, thus preventing surface water 
from entei’ing the well mouth. In ad¬ 
dition, a watertight well platform 
should be provided. A concrete slab 
makes a good one. A leaky plank plat¬ 
form permits the dirt carried to it by 
the feet of men and animals to be 
washed into the Avell by the waste and 
drip from the pump and by heavy rains. 
If the well ixpon your farm contains 
typhoid organisms, it is because it is 
being contaminated by human dis- 
charges from some soui’ce. This source 
should be found and removed. If that 
is impossible, the use of the well should 
be discontinued, but a new one should 
not be dug where it will be subject to the same con¬ 
tamination. If the old well is believed to be dan¬ 
gerously near a privy vault or cesspool, a new one 
may be dug at a safe distance from such possible 
source of contamination. Just what this distance 
is in any given case is rnoi’e or less a matter of 
guesswork, since the coui*se of undergx’ound waters 
i.s seldom definitely known. As the dii'ection of the 
undeiground currents is, in general, the same as 
that of the surface water, a well should, if possible, 
be located upon higher ground, or above, any pos¬ 
sible sources of contamination, and should be as far 
away from danger as possible. Several hundred 
feet from a cesspool or privy vault receiving human 
discharges is not too far. 
The mere cleaning of a well would not remove 
typhoid organisms if these were reaching it from 
