The chicks are summered in the corn field and the hens in the wheat or rye.  Whether the latter will head up will depend upon the number of the flock.  It will be best to work the houses across to the far side and let that portion near the middle fence head up.  As the old grain gets too tough for green food strips of ground should be broken up and sown in oats.  The grain that matures will not be cut, but the hens will be allowed to thresh it out.  The straw may be cut with mower or scythe for use as nesting material.

Sometime in June or early in July a little rape vetch or cow-peas is drilled in between the rows of corn as on the far side from the chicken coops.  During July or about the first of August, after all cockerels have been sold, the gates are opened and the pullets are allowed to associate with the hens.  After this acquaintance ripens into friendship the hen houses are worked back into the pullet lots.  Surplus hens are sold off or new houses inserted as the case may be until there is room for the pullets in the houses.  Each coop is worked up alongside a house and after most of the pullets have taken to the houses the coops are removed.  The vacant lot is now broken up and sown in a mixture of fall green crops.

The flock is kept in the corn field until the corn is ripe.  The Kaffir corn and sunflowers are knocked down where they stand and are threshed by the hens.  As soon as the corn crop is ripe the houses are run back and the corn cut up or husked and the wheat planted in the corn field.

The next year the lots are transposed, the young stock being grown in the lot that had the hens the previous year.

If the ground is inclined to be at all damp when the fields are broken up the plowing is done in narrow lands so as to form a succession of ridges, on which are placed the coops or houses.  The directions of these ridges will be determined by the lay of the land—­the object being neither to dam up water or to encourage washing.  The location of the ridges are alternated by seasons, so that the droppings from the houses are well distributed throughout the soil.

This system with the particular crops found that do best in the locality, give us an ideal method of poultry husbandry.  We have kept hens and young stock supplied with green food the year round; we have utilized every particle of manure without one bit of labor.  We have a rotation of crops.  We have the benefits to the ground of several green crops turned under.  We have raised one grain crop per year on most of the ground.  We have no labor in feeding and watering except the keeping of the grain, beef and grit hoppers filled, and the water system in order.

The number of fowls that may be kept per acre will be determined by the richness of the soil.  The chief object of the entire scheme is to provide abundant green pasture at all times and to allow the production of a reasonable amount of grain.  With one hundred hens per acre on the entire tract, and with houses containing eighty hens each, it will be necessary to set the houses ninety-five feet apart.  This will give the flock a tract of 95 by 330 feet in which to pasture.