The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-11-21
PLAYING THE COMBINATION OF WORKING IN THE CITY AND
 FARMING AS A SIDE LINE
By JOHN c. MOSES


 soon had the hens laying and some sit ting, and eventually had the place dotted with young chicks, coming broilers and fryers. We now were sure of having a little something to eat that was raised on the farm"
 Some Fruit Trees
 It was now August. and with the first cold breath of faH we commenced to feel like putting out some fruit trees, grapes and berries. We were soon over run with nursery agents. who offered all kinds of inducements to throw in" ex- tras We didn't particularly notice the prices. WI at we wanted was fruit trees and grapes. We selected about 125 as sorted fruit trees, 250 best varieties of grapes and some berries. What did it figure up? ' forget exactly, but the agent said that was all right just sign here" We did. Eventually this signature became cue. So we had it extended lit- tle and oy making several payments we finally received our signatures back m good shape. But we mad fine lot of fruit trees grapes and berries, no mat ter what they cost
 We had all this nice fruit out and growing well. but the fence. as I said be- fore, was Il ''patched-up' rail fence of several years standing. One of our neighbCps lad a half-starved mule named "Jonas,F Now this was some mule. He could take his head and lay the two top raits off that aforesaid fence better than the average hunter when he sees his dog on point in the field. Jonas made numerous visits to that young orchard, but finally he died. Peace to his ashes!
 We'll we tigured out one day that it would take about S60 worth of fencing to put real fence around the place. We did little extra saving and bought the wire. All we needed then was about 3S0 good posts and have them put in. We found an old darky that believed in go- ing to work ct 10 o'clock and stopping off at o'clock. so we hired him to cut the posts snd put them in. Now, we were green on the post proposition and as consearence this nigger named Ben Body, run in'' lot of post oak sap- piings on us, as they were easier to cut than to split up mature trees. Any way we got the pests in. The firm we got the wire fencing from loaned us a stretcher. and we soon had the fence up And l must say we did a good job on it. for the wire is still stretched after standing about six years. But those sap bling posts left us this year and we had them rcplae ee with good ones.
 Getting a Horse
 The rlace was now surrounded with fence all around, and we could go dDedO ana ffiaRe all the eXtef0di tf1fUF0Ve- ments we desired. But we got tired hiring broken-down stock to do our hauling for ttie chickens, geese. dogs and ''us' had to eat), so we determined to get peal horse. We found a trader who wanted scme dogs, our geese, a few" chickens and yes. he would take note for the balance. The trade was on. That night tied hebind a hired one-horse wagon pulled by a stubborn mule, came our own h,,1c Tie, rla NI,a. .l4axY needed feed. too. so this only tackled about 8 more every week on our run ming experses." But we had "a horse Old Charley (for he was now 16 summers old) proved to be rather slow, but he was there on the pull and in the field. And as we went out with the intention of farming this was the horse we want ed When hit by an automobile, or a whip, all that Charley did was to kick. He had no feeling. Charley took to his new barn with pride So we were all proud.
 Winter wearied along, and by spring we were doing nicely We now had about 100 young hens and outlets and were get ting eggs. too. believe me, for we were pouring good part of my salary down their throats. The good wife now decided we were too far advanced in the poultry business to have just common chickens We sold enough eggs to buy an incubator We played wise and bought second- hand ore of best make rom a party that never had any luck. We then bought eno1gh Ferris White Leghorn eggs to fill it-70. The first hatch was a success. Out of the 70 eggs we got 61 chicks and raised 54 of them. Out of the 51 chicks we got 37 outlets. By the next fall we had a nice start in White Leg horns. We had sold off most of the com mon chickens by now and bought another incubator of larger capacity. We had also bought mere eggs and by early fall had the hill dot'ec with White Leghorns of all ages. This commenced to look like a. chicken farm' sure enough. Of course the more chickens you have the more houses 1t takes to care for them, the more runs, and last but not least, more feed. This chicken feed bill has been a nightmare to many poor city fellow who has tried the business. But we went out to stay So we put up more houses and bought more feed and more cross fencng.' But when we got up every morning, the good wife would say, on going out among. several hundred srow-white birds, Aren't they beauu- ful?' Of course I thought so, so there stood two souls with but single thought making success of farming as a side line, while father kept everything going with his salary.
 Everything Going Fine
 We were now in our second year, and