OUR COUNTRY LIFE 



dock to be fed. Now paddock may seem a queer name 

 for a chicken yard but the graveled space adjoining 

 the stable was always called the paddock, and so the 

 name remained even when the stable was transformed 

 into a garage and the graveled enclosure became a 

 chicken yard. These bantams soon became monarchs 

 of the estate, wandering not only through the woods but 

 into the gardens at their pleasure, never doing any 

 harm. They were indeed well-behaved, high-bred, 

 aristocratic fowls, and they ate the grasshoppers and 

 other noxious insects with a thoroughness approved of 

 by the gardener. 



As if all the world had suddenly learned by some 

 occult process that we kept bantams, we began to re- 

 ceive almost daily leaflets and pamphlets about chick- 

 ens ; advertisements of food for chickens ; hints for their 

 care; fantastically named germicides; all manner of 

 paraphernalia for housing them and for breeding them ; 

 catologues of sellers of fine stock and of famous eggs; 

 lists of journals and magazines devoted to their culture. 

 Books began to pour in upon us whether from earnest 



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