St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-03-26
LET THEM RUN OUT.
On the Farm the Poultry Should
Be Allowed to Run at Large.

Fancy poultry houses, with their Sc
curely fenced yards may be all light for
he fancier or the village poultry
keeper where liberty to the fowls means
annoyance to neighbors. But on the
farm they are largely out of place. The
more sensible practice is shown in the
following from the Country Gentle
men: ''Who could live for number of
years in the country without hearing
this refrain from the farmers calendar?
April-'We're sowing OatS--shut up the
hensn And so on through the long
summer months. Their natural pro-
pensity to scratch for living makes the
hens seem to do great deal of damage.
During last spring we either had to stop
and build poultry-yard fence OF let out
the fowls. In this locality farm
near neighbors give men s1.75 per day
in his quarries. So, in self-defense, we
let forty fowls run the farm for us all
summer. Unwilling to trust them in
the garden, we made one at a distance
from the house. The fowls watered
themselves at the spring and fed them
selves from the field, with the exception
OF quart of grain each night. They
went to the field as soon as the drill,
and scratched away as if determined
not to leave one Oat. Then followed
the pillow to the corn lot and ran opposi-
ton to the harrow in pulverizing the
soil. After planting they stayed there
most of the time, but the corn came up
remarkably well, the acre near the
barns best of all.
NO FIELD WITHIN RANGE
escaped their notice. They gathered
10 fol f,,,s Of EIn al ,0I, md
and picked up all the Red Astrachans
picked the cherries from small trees,
and preserved the.currantS and red raSp-
berries. The expense of keeping was
slight. All that they really destroyed
was some fruit. Profit came when
the labor item was left out.
The past season has been a
sober one to many farmers here. A Sc
riOus drought checked everything but
weeds, and almost every crop we have
has been a costly one. Looking forward
to the new year, it seems that we must
increase Our income by increasing pro-
ductiveness or reducing expenses. On
a small scale | have done both in my
poultry yard by giving the hens their
liberty. How did they lay! Such
commotion and rivalry among the hens!
Oucn rejoicing by Jn6 spanish tenOrS!
They began to lay early in the season,
and continued steadily until the fall
fashions came, and they ordered new
suits. When the berry crop was a
partial failure, and the prices were
down, it was a little solid comfort
to have so satisfactory an income
from the fowls. To those who have
fancy poultry houses, well fenced yards
and plenty of money this summer free
dom may seem a venture, but to the
many who have little time and money
to spend it will be satisfactory to know
that the ordinary farm crop is improved,
rather than harmed, by the depreda-
tons of the fowls. Strictly fresh eggs
are easily sold for more than market
prices; a few plump fowls can be
dressed and sent to market at any time
at a fair price, and chickens are always
in demand. Let us fence in our gar
dens or find new places for them, and
when the warm spring weather comes
and you start whistling for the field
call back your orders with the new re-
frain, Let out the henSp"