Project Mulberry by Linda Sue Park

the poop and you get lots of nice healthy maggots."
    "
Eww.
" We said that all together, and Patrick added, "Yuck," and made a face as well.
    "Well, wouldn't you know it—chickens
love
maggots!" Mr. Maxwell said. "So the chickens eat up the maggots, and they also scratch—they scratch at the cowpats and spread them around, and they scratch at the soil, which keeps it nice and loose and aerates it. There they are, tilling the soil and spreading the fertilizer and keeping down the pest population and saving me money on chicken feed!"
    "Cool," Patrick said. I thought so, too.
    "Then we move the chicken coop to another field and let the sheep in here—that's the stage we're at right now." Mr. Maxwell waved his arm at the sheep. "Now, because of all that cow manure, there are
lots
of weeds in the field. Cows won't eat weeds, but sheep will, so I don't have to use chemicals to keep the weeds down. Better for the soil, and better for the animals, too."
    I watched the sheep nearest to us. Sure enough, one of them was working on a patch of what looked like thistles—purple flowers with prickly leaves. The sheep didn't seem to be bothered by the prickles.
    "Then we move the cows back in here, and the whole thing starts over again. The field's been occupied the whole time, but it's not worn out and used up—it's ready for the next round."
    He squatted down by the fence. "Get down low, everyone," he said. "Have a look at the grass." He reached between the fence rails and raked through the grass with his fingers.
    We all got down on our knees and looked closely at the grass.
    It was green. It had blades. There were patches of clover.
    In other words, it was just grass.
    Mr. Maxwell was watching us. He grinned when he saw our faces. "Just grass, right?" he said.
    "Okay," Patrick said, "so what's so special about it?"
    "It's
healthy!
" Mr. Maxwell boomed out. "It's green and thick and growing like mad, and the soil underneath is full of nitrates and other good stuff. If you were a cow, that grass would look like an ice-cream sundae!"
    All of a sudden I felt like I was seeing the grass the way a cow would. It really did look quite delicious—deep and rich and juicy green, full of sweet-smelling clover.
    "When you come right down to it, I'm a grass farmer," Mr. Maxwell said. "A grass and soil farmer. That's my main job—making sure the soil stays fertile so the grass grows well. The animals do everything else, and if we all do our jobs, the system sustains itself—it keeps going and going."
    "What other kind of farming is there?" Patrick asked. "Is there such a thing as non-sustainable farming?"
    "Well, they don't call it that, of course," Mr. Maxwell answered. "They call it 'commercial' farming. Ever been to a chicken farm?"
    We all shook our heads.
    "But you've heard of battery chickens, haven't you?"
    "I have," said Hannah, one of the girls in the group. "I saw a program on TV once. There were, like, hundreds of chickens in one building, and they never got to go anywhere, and they had to just sit there crowded into these little boxes and lay eggs all day long."
    "That's right," Mr. Maxwell said. "And because the chickens are so crowded together, they start to fight. To keep them from hurting each other, the farmer has to snip off the ends of their beaks and the tips of their claws. Battery chickens are also more prone to disease, so the farmer has to put a lot of drugs in their feed to keep them healthy—chemicals that end up in their eggs."
    Yuck. I liked eggs. I'd never thought about what went into them before.
    "Chickens raised on battery farms are miserable creatures, in my opinion," Mr. Maxwell said. "Not like my chickens. My chickens get to run around and eat grass and worms and go into their coop whenever they feel like it. I like having happy chickens."
    I'd never heard Mr. Maxwell talk this much before. I could tell he was really into this farming stuff.
    On the way back to the barn, Patrick