THE MODERN HEN 



IN the rickyard, which now contains but a few slices 

 of hay and one straw-rick from last summer's store, 

 the fowls are scattered in search of the self-hunted 

 portion that ekes out the day's allowance of corn. 

 The farmer's wife does not know exactly how many 

 fowls there are. Some thirty or forty she says, and 

 they produce now about twenty eggs a day. Still 

 harder would it be for her to say which are the best 

 layers. Only when a hen goes persistently broody 

 does she begin to think that the farm might be as 

 well off without her, though even a dozen broody 

 hens are sometimes tolerated with quite Christian 

 forbearance. The layers, too, in a general way, are 

 permitted to lay what sort of eggs they like. " An 

 egg is an egg," runs the country motto. A small 

 egg is supposed to contain as much nourishment as 

 a large one, and no difference in taste has been dis- 

 covered between a brown one and a white one. The 

 higgler can by all means have the large brown ones 

 if he will, for the poor things in the town who set 

 store by such things. 



One evening last week the fox took one of our 

 hens. We know that it was a white one because we 

 saw the feathers in the field, so there must be a white 

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