ee ee ee ae : : ad Sake Waal iol, SS Nah as 
i Cay nO en ee . en ee Ree Pe ae ey mi ae 
Se ea cicada ie hee hg gh Vea RN i cau gk GRR a oe mee het Ne otra 
WHAT SHALL WE ASK OF THE HEN? 107 
no hesitation about this venture, for I did not 
intend to ask more of my hens than a well- 
disposed hen ought to be willing to grant. 
I do not ask a hen to lay a double-yolk every 
day in the year. That is too much to expect of 
a creature in whom the mother instinct is promi- 
nent, and who wishes also to have a new dress for 
herself at least once in that time. I do not wish 
a hen to work overtime for me. If she will fur- 
nish me with eight dozen of her finished product 
per annum, I will do the rest. Whatever she 
does more than that shall redound to her credit. 
Two-hundred-eggs-a-year hens are scarcer than 
hens with teeth, and I was not looking for the 
unusual. A hen can easily lay one hundred eggs 
in three hundred and sixty-five days, and yet find 
time for domestic and social affairs. She can 
feel that she is not a subject for charity, while 
at the same time she retains her self-respect as a 
hen of leisure. 
I have the highest regard for this domestic 
fowl, and I would not for a great deal impose a 
too arduous task upon her. I feel like encour- 
aging her in her peculiar industry, for which she 
is so eminently fitted, but not like forcing her 
into strenuous efforts that would rob her of 
vivacity and dull her social and domestic im- 
pulses. No; if the hen will politely present me 
with one hundred eggs a year, I will thank her 
and ask no more. Some one will say: “ How 
can you make hens pay if they don’t lay more 
