434 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



markets, Sir! Do you see any good poultry? If you do, 

 you will find such prices, that none but the wealthy can 

 afford to buy; for of all this great show, not a single 

 owner is engaged in the business of raising poultry to 

 supply the market. And the reason is very plain — it 

 wont pay. Poultry can only be raised in a small way, as 

 I raise it upon my farm, where the cost is not felt. When 

 kept up and fed, every hen costs a dollar a year ; and the 

 eggs will just about pay for the trouble of taking care 

 of them and not much more. So you see, just as soon as 

 these humbug speculating prices go down, down goes the 

 hen business about Boston, in spite of all this crowing 

 and cackling of a parcel of old cocks and young biddies." 



I was gratified to find that the long rough-looking 

 homespun check woolen frock, which had perhaps de- 

 ceived the rooster man into the idea that the owner was a 

 flat, was not a cloak to hide a mutitude of faults, but that 

 it covered a form possessed of sound judgment and good 

 sense; such as are often met with in similar working 

 garbs in New England. 



I find I cannot get through this great show in one let- 

 ter, so good night. Solon Robinson. 



Boston, November ISth, 1850. 



Hen Show and Hen Fever. 



[New York American Agriculturist, 10:56-58; Feb., 1851] 



[November 14, 1850] 



In my letter of last evening, I promised you some fur- 

 ther account of the crowing match now holding in the 

 great Boston henroost, where I have spent the day; and 

 now, after retiring to my own room, I will give you my 

 reflections upon it. No opportunity was ever before af- 

 forded in America, for so extensive an examination and 

 comparison of varieties, as are here exhibited. The num- 

 ber, as I stated last evening, is variously estimated from 

 6,000 to 16,000. The secretary informs me that three 

 fifths of the whole are those overgrown, overpuffed ani- 



