WHAT SHALL WE ASK OF THE HEN? 107 



no hesitation about this venture, for I did not 

 intend to ask more of my hens than a well- 

 disposed hen ought to be willing to grant. 



I do not ask a hen to lay a double-yolk every 

 day in the year. That is too much to expect of 

 a creature in whom the mother instinct is promi- 

 nent, and who wishes also to have a new dress for 

 herself at least once in that time. I do not wish 

 a hen to work overtime for me. If she will fur- 

 nish me with eight dozen of her finished product 

 per annum, I will do the rest. Whatever she 

 does more than that shall redound to her credit. 

 Two-hundred-eggs-a-year hens are scarcer than 

 hens with teeth, and I was not looking for the 

 unusual. A hen can easily lay one hundred eggs 

 in three hundred and sixty-five days, and yet find 

 time for domestic and social affairs. She can 

 feel that she is not a subject for charity, while 

 at the same time she retains her self-respect as a 

 hen of leisure. 



I have the highest regard for this domestic 

 fowl, and I would not for a great deal impose a 

 too arduous task upon her. I feel like encour- 

 aging her in her peculiar industry, for which she 

 is so eminently fitted, but not like forcing her 

 into strenuous efforts that would rob her of 

 vivacity and dull her social and domestic im- 

 pulses. No ; if the hen will politely present me 

 with one hundred eggs a year, I will thank her 

 and ask no more. Some one will say : " How 

 can you make hens pay if they don't lay more 



