Il8 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 



mow and among the fodder, where their eggs could be more 

 easily found than in the woods. Here was another reason for 

 encouraging intimacy. Nests were made for them; at first, 

 as nearly as might be, after their own models. Then shelters 

 were erected over their roosts; then pens were built to keep 

 them from their enemies. So, by some such easy stages, 

 poultry husbandry probably began. 



The most valuable fowls are those that furnish eggs as well 

 as meat. Eggs are pure food, containing no refuse. Among 

 animal foods they are nature's choicest product. They are 

 edible without cooking and are at their best when most 

 simply prepared for the table. All the world eats eggs ; and 

 in any land to which one may travel, whatever its culinary 

 offerings, one may eat eggs, and live. 



Among domesticated fowls, chickens hold first place. The 

 obvious practical reasons for this are the excellent quality of 

 their flesh, the rapidity of their growth, their productivity of 

 eggs, and their hardiness and ready adaptability to the 

 artificial conditions under which we keep them. The less 

 obvious, but none the less real reason, is that we like chick- 

 ens for their interesting ways. They are eminently social 

 creatures, endowed with a wonderful variety of voice and signs 

 for social converse. Their beauty strongly appeals to us. 

 We are interested in the arrogant complacency of the cock, in 

 his cheerful pugnacity, his lusty crowing, his watchfulness 

 over his flock, his warning call when a hawk appears in the sky, 

 and his great gallantry toward the hens. How ostenta- 

 tiously he calls them when he finds a choice morsel of food 

 (tho he may absent-mindedly swallow it himself). We like 

 the hen for her gentle demeanor, her cheerful, tho unmelo- 

 dious song; her diligence and capability in all her daily 

 tasks ; her fine maternal instincts and self-sacrificing devotion 

 to her brood. The chicks also appeal to us by their downy 

 plumpness of form, their cheerful sociability and their soft 



