Chapter VIII. 
COMBINATION EGG-FARMING. COMBINING EGGS AND POULTRY. EGGS AND 
FRUIT GROWING. EGGS AND BEEKEEPING. PROFITABLE 
COMBINATION CROPS. 
t o I A\ 1NG the incubator and brooder 
-G, I equipment for hatching the chickens 
^ I to reproduce his laying stock, what 
1 more natural than that the poultry- 
man should start the incubators in season to 
get off a couple of hatches before he intends 
to hatch the chicks for layers. With the 
American varieties April is the best month 
for hatching for the pullets, hence the first 
hatch of the future layers will be set about 
March 10th, to be off by April 1st, thus bringing 
the second hatch within the desirable month. 
This would mean the setting of the incubators 
for the two hatches of broiler chicks about 
January loth and February 12th, which will 
get them well out of the way of the April chicks 
hatched for layers. Broilers bring the highest 
prices in April, and the chicks hatched from 
the first setting of the incubators will be ten 
weeks old April 17th or 18th, in season for the 
high April prices, and the broilers of the second 
hatch will be marketed before the middle of 
May; the income from the broiler chicks will 
come just in time to meet the expense of 
feeding and raising the breeding stock. 
A succession crop and a decidedly profitable 
one is two or three hatches after the incubators 
have hatched the chickens for the laying¬ 
breeding stock, the cockerels of these last of 
May and June hatches being caponized and 
grown to capons for the next February and 
March markets. A poultry dealer in South 
Jersey told us in February, 1902, that he had 
just bought 200 capons of a farmer-neighbor, 
which averaged to weigh ten pounds apiece and 
fetched twenty-three cents a pound; these were 
June hatched chickens, caponized, and had 
grown by the following February to be worth 
$2.30 each, the farmer receiving $460.00 for 
the two hundred of them. 
Fruit growing makes an excellent combina¬ 
tion with poultry raising, and the fruit branch 
of the work may be either tree or brush fruits, 
or both. Poultry in the apple or pear orchard 
is of the greatest advantage to the trees, the 
birds keeping worms and insects in subjection 
and rollicking in the freshly ploughed or culti¬ 
vated earth. It will be found, too, that the 
soil in the orchard will need less frequent 
ploughing (or cultivating), as the birds keep 
the grass and weeds in subjection and will like¬ 
wise scratch up and stir the soil. The great 
benefit of the poultry droppings to the trees 
is not so well known as it ought to be. Poultry 
growers who have apple trees in their hen 
yards have told us that the fruit was doubled 
in quantity, improved in quality, and that trees 
which formerly bore but every other year now 
produce full crops annually; the abundant 
fruiting being due to the increased fertility of 
the soil by the poultry droppings. The shade 
of the trees is of decided benefit to the fowls, 
and they can, in an orchard, find either shade 
or sunshine at will. When possible it is well 
to locate the poultry house or houses in the 
orchard, and if it seems best to have yards for a 
part or all of the flocks a part or all of the time, 
temporary or permanent fences can be erected. 
Where permanent houses and yards are con¬ 
structed one can get quick returns from Japan 
plum or peach trees set in the yards, but in the 
case of plums it is necessary to look out to thin 
the fruit, sometimes as much as half, to prevent 
the trees overbearing themselves and becoming 
too exhausted to recover. 
Bee keeping makes another most excellent 
combination with poultry growing, the com¬ 
paratively little time required for the care of 
the bees not only not conflicting with the poul¬ 
try work but being a change of thought and 
work, hence a recreation. The poultrvman’s 
busiest season is the spring of the year, when 
the incubating of the eggs and care of the 
growing chicks takes all of his time, and rot 
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