28 FLIGHT FROM THE CITY 



ing; it need never be bloody; and by fattening the 

 capons for six or eight months, we had eight- and 

 nine-pound capons to eat a luxury which we had 

 never enjoyed at home in the city. Indeed, when I 

 came across Philadelphia capons on restaurant menus, 

 I hadn't the least notion what a capon really was; 

 vaguely I thought them some particularly choice 

 breed of chicken. 



The annual food contribution of our poultry-yard, 

 after it was once established, usually averages twenty 

 or twenty-five capons, an equal number of old hens, 

 and all the eggs we can eat. There is always a surplus 

 of eggs in the spring. Sometimes we sell them or turn 

 them in to our grocer, but usually we prefer to put 

 them down and preserve them in water glass, which 

 keeps them fit for cooking purposes for the fall and 

 winter when the production of fresh eggs falls short 

 of our needs. However, if the chicken-house is of 

 warm construction and especially if it is electrically 

 lighted in the winter so as to give the hens a full day 

 at the feed-boxes, a plentiful supply of fresh eggs can 

 be secured the year round. 



A small flock of chickens, kept up each year by 

 raising about seventy-five chicks, is all that the av- 

 erage family needs. The dividends per dollar of in- 

 vestment are really enormous, even if all the feed for 

 them has to be purchased. Owing to the fact that land 

 in our section is not adapted to grain farming and the 

 fact that we have had to clear every bit of land for 

 garden purposes, we have purchased nearly all of our 



