“Dad.”
“No.”
Daniel returned to his plate.
Toby waited.
Then tried again.
“They’d scratch through the leaf litter.”
“I know what chickens do.”
“They might eat some of the larvae.”
“Might.”
“And fallen fruit.”
“Might.”
“They’d manure the rows.”
Daniel put down his fork.
“You know what else they might do?”
Toby stayed quiet.
“Scratch roots.”
“Destroy cover.”
“Get killed.”
“Bring predators.”
“Create more work.”
“And we don’t have money to create more work.”
Toby looked down.
Daniel’s voice softened.
“I’m not saying you’re stupid.”
“I know.”
“I’m saying this isn’t the year for a science project.”
Toby nearly let the subject die.
Then remembered Harland’s sentence.
If this year goes bad, I may be finished.
“What if we don’t do the whole orchard?”
Daniel leaned back.
Toby continued.
“One section.”
“Small.”
“I leave another section alone.”
“Same kind of trees.”
“Same damage last year.”
“We compare.”
Daniel stared.
“I keep records.”
“I do the work.”
“If it starts hurting the ground, I stop.”
“If it costs too much, I stop.”
“If it doesn’t change anything, I stop.”
Daniel asked:
“And where are you getting chickens?”
Toby had already thought about that too.
A commercial egg operation eighteen miles away was replacing an older flock.
Most of the hens were beyond peak production.
Toby had heard about them through a man at the feed store.
“They’re getting rid of two hundred.”
Daniel laughed once.
Not cruelly.
“Toby, there’s a reason they’re getting rid of them.”
“I know.”
“They don’t lay well.”
“They still lay some.”
“They eat whether they lay or not.”
“I know.”
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face.
“You’ve been thinking about this longer than I realized.”
“Three weeks.”
That made Daniel pause.
“What has Harland said?”
“I didn’t ask him.”
“Why?”
“Because he’d say no.”
Daniel almost smiled.
“Maybe because he knows more than you.”
“He does.”
Toby answered immediately.
“That doesn’t mean he knows what happens if we test it.”
That sentence stayed in the room.
Daniel looked toward the dark kitchen window.
Then back at his son.
“Four rows.”
Toby blinked.
“What?”
“You get four rows.”
“Two with chickens.”
“Two control.”
“You keep them out of the rest.”
“You record everything.”
“Every bird.”
“Every bag of feed.”
“Every hour you spend.”
“Any damage.”
“Any losses.”
“And if I decide it’s hurting the orchard, it ends.”
Toby nodded so quickly Daniel had to hold up a hand.
“I’m not saying it’s a good idea.”
“I know.”
“I’m giving you permission to find out if it’s a bad one.”
For Toby, that was enough.
The two hundred hens arrived five days later.
Nobody would have mistaken them for valuable livestock.