POULTRY. 293 



communities, that reach their climax so rapidly and pass away 

 so speedily that many who are among the afflicted are con- 

 founded when the reaction comes, having a dim idea of a dis- 

 agreeable dream. A few cool headed sharpers took advantage 

 of the fashionable mania which possessed the public, and in a 

 grand round of villainy fleeced hundreds of their fellow citi- 

 zens whose enthusiasm had for the time got the better of their 

 reason ; and what is the most wonderful feature of the whole 

 delusion, one of these sharpers mistook his scoundrelism for 

 wit, and put himself on record in a work which for impudent 

 rascality wiljii^ong wait for a compeer. Very naturally a great 

 reaction has followed upon this inflated enthusiasm, and thou- 

 sands can now see in fowls only the reminder of their former 

 folly. " One extreme follows another," is a true adage, and 

 what in those days with so many was the height of the desir- 

 able, has changed about and now become the height of the 

 ridiculous, — for it is human nature that a man should scorn a 

 thing which he has used after a foolish manner, rather than the 

 folly that so used it. To many, therefore, any propositions 

 relative to the improvement of the poultry yard sound weak or 

 have the ring of imposition in them, the whole subject being 

 to their minds matter for pleasantry rather than a subject 

 worthy the earnest, conscientious attention of an intelligent 

 worker. 



But when the poulterer at the close of the season strikes his 

 balance, does he consider the difference between a stock of good 

 laying hens and a stock of poor laying ones a joke ? Would 

 he not really prefer for breeding purposes a race good to hatch 

 and rear chickens ; and for his table a fowl with a full breast 

 of fine, compact flesh, to one with a breast as sharp as the hull 

 of a clipper ship with legs like her masts ? — or a fat, juicy 

 chicken to a lean, stringy one? and should a "bag of bones" 

 be brought to his table, would he not find it rather a difficult 

 matter to pick a joke out of it ? Now these and kindred 

 traits of excellence belong to some breeds of fowl more than to 

 others. Why, then, not select such breeds in preference to the 

 chance stock that is usually found in the barnyard ? Enormous 

 sums and great labor are expended to procure the purest blood 

 of the best races of horses, cows, sheep, swine and of every 

 species inhabiting the barnyard, while poor chanticleer almost 



