46 FARMING IT 



I had purchased two game-hens to make con- 

 finement less irksome to my gamecock, and sent 

 for a new Hamburg cock; the hens were laying 

 well, and I began to lay plans for spring planting. 



Although spring was far away, catalogues were 

 to be had for the asking ; and daily, in high rubber 

 boots, I walked over my land, making plans to 

 have a vegetable garden here, some pear trees 

 here, a pie-plant patch here, a row of sunflowers 

 by the fence, and a grape arbor by the side of the 

 barn. 



I desired to add a Jersey cow to my personal 

 possessions, but could not quite see my way clear 

 to spare the time necessary to milk and care for 

 her without neglecting the duties of my profes- 

 sion. 



I was brought somewhat abruptly from my 

 theorizing by an unexpected development in the 

 hen industry. One morning, on going to feed 

 them, I found one hen dead in a corner, headless 

 and badly gnawed, evidently the work of rats, 

 as a hole in a corner of the pen showed only too 

 plainly. 



This was a calamity second only to roup. I had 

 read of whole communities of fowls ravaged by 

 rats, and the remedy was obvious ; not traps or 

 cats or terriers, but ferrets, the one animal that 

 could pursue rats into their subterranean fast- 

 nesses and there conquer and destroy them. 



