TUB HEN FEVEB. 139 



judiciously managed " (said the agricultural papers), miist 

 pi'ovc immensely profitable to those who engage in it. 



If " skilfully and judiciously managed " ! This was good 

 advice. But no one could inform "the'peoplo" how this 

 management was to be effected. In the mean time, evei-y 

 sort of experiment was resorted to, by amateurs and fan- 

 ciers and humbugs (who had been humbugged), to "im- 

 prove " the breeds of poultry, and to produce new fowls 

 that would lay two or three or four eggs for one, as com- 

 pared with the old-fashioned birds. 



We knew one beginner who had purchased a pretty little 

 place a few miles from the city, who contracted the fever, 

 and " suffered" badly, but who was cured by the following 

 curious result of his early experiments. Eggs were scarce 

 (genuine ones), and, after considerable searching, he finally 

 procured of some one in Boston a clutch of " fancy " eggs, 

 for which be paid big figures, but which did not turn out 

 exactly what he anticipated ; and so he concluded, after a 

 time, that the hen fever was a rascally hum. (He did n't 

 procure these eggs of me, be it understood. / never had 

 any but genuine ones !) 



He purchased what he was assured were pure " Cochin- 

 China" eggs. (Perhaps they were — ^ who knows?) And 

 after waiting patiently for six long weeks for the " curious " 

 eggs to hatch, he found six young ducks in his coop, one 

 morning ! — So much for his knowledge of eggs ! 



