CHAPTER VI 



THE REMEDY AND THE DISEASE 



LEARNED how to caponize fowls, 

 at least in theory, and when I sent for 

 a price-list of caponizing instruments, 

 I was deluged for weeks with pam- 

 phlets and appeals, and men with beards and 

 without neckties called and tried to sell me ex- 

 pensive sets of instruments. 



I read a particularly fine and smoothly written 

 article claiming that, if the moulting period 

 could be brought on in June by any method of 

 feeding, fall and winter eggs would be plentiful, 

 and that a fortune awaited a successful solution 

 of this vexed problem. Indeed, I had been so 

 interested in this matter that I hazarded another 

 twenty-five cents as an investment in one ad- 

 vertiser who claimed to possess the secret, and 

 to be willing to impart it at that reasonable figure 

 to all comers. I was not particularly disappointed 

 when I received the following instructions : "Pick 

 the fowls thoroughly without killing, about the 

 20th of May in each year, then let their feathers 

 grow." 



