Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-04-07
FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.
I -
Some ADJu4 CTS TO THE PouL-
TRY BUSINESS. =.
Bookkeeping and Fruit GrowIng--Grow-
Ing Onions The Draft Horse
Sheep shearings and
Household Helps.
Adlunots to the Poultry business.

Poultry is 20 speciality that must de-
mand u great deal of our time, but it
Is possible to conduct along with it
in n highly successful manner some
adjuncts TO the business that will be
profitable. For instance, we must
have range for our birds. They
cannot be cooped up in one place, and
in many places land is almost too
valuable to devote much of it simply
to a playground for the chickens.
The question is, how can we reap
some other profit from this land while
1T is acting as range for the locks.
do not think that this is very diff
cult of solution when we remember
how well fowls do in an orchard. A
small orchard pays for itself and
leaves Il fair margin of profit, and il
makes an excellent range for chickens
My advice is to set out young
trees, plum, pear, peach or some
other small fruit trees. Give them a
good start in the chicken range, and
all the care which we administer TO
them will be to the fowls. For in
stance, the trees will do we'll to have
the soil stirred around their bases
and between the rows In the summer,
and this is just what poultry range
requires. The birds need the fresh
soil turned up for them occasionally.
Fruit trees in a poultry range are
very rarely injured by grubs and in
sects, for the simple reason that the
fowls eat them up IA fast as they APP
pear. The birds help the trees and
keep them clean from all insects.
The trees benefit the poultry by pro-
vidipg nice, shady range for them
in the middle Of summer. When the
fruits begin TO grow many rotten and
wOrmy ones fall Off, and the worms
that are in them grow and multiply
on the ground. But the poultry are
on hand TO eat them up, and also TO
peck at the fruits that have fallen,
which is good for them.
If one has time and inclination
there is another farm industry that
could be introduced in the poultry
range, says the American Cultivator.
That is Bookkeeping. If the hives
are set just Inside Of the range
fence, so that the inqusitive fowls
cannot approach too close TO the en-
trance of the hives, no trouble will
follow. The bees will not disturb
the chickens, and the latter cannot
approach TO their home. Three feet
outside of the poultry range would
answer. The bees will then have the
orchard of fruit blossoms to gather
their honey from, and they will yield
q fair profit also to the owner. Bees
need very little care in the summer.
and keeping them would not add
much extra labor. Neither would
the fruit orchard except during the
picking time.
II all our time is not required for
the poultry, why should we not set
out a young orchard right away. We
have the land and everything needful,
but the young trees. These can be
purchased at any nursery mans at
small price. Every year that they
grow the land will be made so much
more valuable. Then later. or posi-
bly, by another year. We will want to
start a bee colony. II the first expert
ment succeeds the bees will be sure
TO come. This is not having too many
irons in the fire, for each one is partly
dependent upoh the other, and actual
wastes are saved by the three.