1891 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
h39 
HEN FEVER—AN OLD DISEASE. 
It is vastly amusing to note the amount of 
nonsense going the rounds of the poultry 
and agricultural papers relating to poultry. 
One would think that an entirely new 
creation in the feathered world had recently 
been shed down on us without any “ direc¬ 
tions on the wrapper,” and that this new 
race required some kind of treatment, no¬ 
body knows what, different from any 
hitherto known, and that each owner of a 
hen or two was blindly groping in experi¬ 
ments to ascertain just what was exactly 
suited to his individual bird in relation to 
board and lodging. The feverish anxiety 
and sober earnestness with which the most 
ridiculous questions are propounded to the 
poultry editor are very laughable. Infor¬ 
mation is wanted on a hundred subjects to 
which the questioners have, apparently, 
given no thoughtful consideration, or they 
might have worked out their own salvation 
and that of their fowls. One man has a hen 
that wobbles and what shall he do for her ? 
Another has a cockerel with his tail gone 
wrong, and how shall he right it ? Here’s 
a man whose cock has gone blind in one 
eye and whose hen has “dittoed” in both, 
and what under Heaven is he going to do ? 
And there’s another mourner who wants 
to know how many times a chicken can 
have a hard crop and live ; and if you had a 
fowl with a film over its eye and an egg 
that had a false presentation, would the 
editor recommend treatment for cataract 
and the Cmsarian operation ; or, supposing 
that one punched a hole in the web of a 
chick’s foot, would the bird be liable to 
have corns, or would the air rushing 
through the hole cause the chick to take 
cold in the legs ? Do you think a thunder 
storm will change the sex in an egg during 
incubation ? Can you tell how many 
points a Wyanhorn chick at 25 days old 
will score when it is fully grown; and, 
as for feeding, how much screenings would 
you give hens to make them lay—or 
how much grain must I feed 18 hens for 
dinner and supper? What ought I do with 
fowls that refuse to eat? Ought I boil, bake 
or roast the corn fed at night, and how 
much water (warm) will 40 hens drink if 
they haven’t had any for two days? As to 
quarters and profits, would you please state 
in your valuable journal how many fowls I 
could profitably keep in a house 8 by 10 by 7 
feet with a run having 80 square feet, the 
fowls to be confined the year round; or could 
I keep 100 fowls in a house 12 by 15 with a 
run 30 feet long, and how many eggs would 
they lay in a year, and what profit would 
I make, and how much food would they 
consume? Or, I have $150 and am a clerk in 
a drug store in the city. I have a great love 
for poultry and I am kind of handy with 
tools and could build my own houses. The 
market would be about 75 miles away, with 
daily trains. I expect to sell eggs at market 
prices and could get medicine for sick fowls 
(if I had any) at wholesale rates. I see con¬ 
siderable notice of the Rumpless fowls ; 
would they be good winter layers or should 
they be crossed with the Cochumrock. Of 
course good, warm houses, and regular 
feeding and care, and clean water, and green 
food, and gravel, and large runs, and clean¬ 
liness would go far towards success. I pro¬ 
pose to start in with 4,000 hens and work 
up—what I want to know is, how much 
profit can I count on per hen per year? I 
hope you won’t think me visionary; but I 
should really like to learn something of the 
business. I read your valuable paper regu¬ 
larly with great pleasure and much profit. 
It is the best paper on earth. 
P. S. Would 1,000 fowls be too many per 
acre and how many nest boxes would they 
require? And so on and so on indefinitely. 
Is there any cure for it ? I do not know, 
but am very sure that if common sense, 
reflection, and a little more time were 
used, the trouble might be very largely 
alleviated. To be sure, there are emergen¬ 
cies when it is perfectly legitimate to ask 
questions, but there are too many “emer¬ 
gencies” manufactured. People rush into 
poultry as into no other business on earth. 
A hen is such a simple thing. She will lay 
an egg a day. How much is that a year ? 
One hundred hens will Jay 100 times as 
many, and thus the hen business comes to 
be the most disastrous delusion to hun¬ 
dreds of ignorant enthusiasts, from whom 
are hatched out the thousand and one use¬ 
less questions and theories of premature 
birth, which are the perpetual nightmare 
of the poultry editor. I don’t suppose that 
the man with the hen fever would jump 
over his depth the first plunge into the 
drug, dry goods, or grocery business, about 
which he knew nothing, but poultry-rais¬ 
ing is so simple, so transparent, so certain 
as to 'results .that it is quite a different 
thing, “ don’t you know.” And so 
the business goes on, breeeds accu¬ 
mulate, failures ensue, myriads of va¬ 
cant, dilapidated henneries dot the 
land. The latest recruit skips smil¬ 
ingly and confidently to the front with 
his little questions and beautiful theories, 
which latter find a very early grave some 
time before the auctioneer knocks down 
the patent clover-cutter, the new-fangled, 
feeding trough, the wonderful, self-regu¬ 
lating, moisture-supplying, hatch-all incu¬ 
bators, the testing thermometers, hen- 
punches, lice-killera, drinking-fountains, 
brooders, wire-netting, etc., to a crowd of 
other hen men, who have gathered from far 
and near to absorb what is left, at ridicu¬ 
lous prices. If only beginners could be 
persuaded to skirmish slowly with this 
business, and use just plain “ horse-sense,” 
as they experiment in a mild way, there 
would be vastly fewer failures and less 
sack-cloth and ashes. But, like the kero¬ 
sene oil can-servant girl, the man who- 
didn’t-know-it-was-loaded, and Tennyson’s 
“Brook,” they promise to “go on for¬ 
ever.” O. O. SMITH. 
Cumberland Co., N. J. 
THE HEN THAT HOVERED 
KITTENS. 
A TRUK STORY. 
A chubby urchin, hurrying in, inquired : 
“Say, does your old hen hover kittens ? 
Fred says she does and I don’t believe it.” 
“Yes, it’s true ; she does, or rather did.” 
“ Ha 1 H/i 1 That must be real funny. 
Please tell me about it.” 
“ Certainly ; but, first, let me tell you 
what caused the unnatural conduct of the 
hen. It happened in this way : You know 
our hatchway is on the south side of the 
house. It was filled with straw to keep 
out the cold in winter. When spring came 
the doors were opened and let the warm 
sunshine in on the straw. Soon a cute old 
hen came along, peering first one way and 
then another. Suddenly jumping in she 
said: 
“ ‘ I think I’ll make a nest here and raise 
a flock of chicks—handsome Wyandottes, 
like myself. Good singers, too,’ she added, 
as she struck up a ‘ Caw! Caw!’ and 
strutted about. 
“She first scratched a hole in the straw ; 
then sat down in it, and with her bill 
placed a few more straws around the top 
of the nest. ‘There, that will do,’ said 
she. Soon she laid a large, yellow egg and 
departed. We took her egg out and placed 
a China one in its place, and she continued 
to lay and we to take the eggs for 12 days. 
At the end of that time she stopped laying 
and commenced to sit. She wa3 so cross 
that she pecked at everything uhat came 
within her reach. Soon after this we 
missed our house-cat, ‘ Spottie ’ by name. 
After a vigorous search the children dis¬ 
covered her in the side of the hatchway 
opposite the old hen. Spottie had two new 
kittens which she seemed very proud of. 
When she left them and came after milk, 
the children hurried out, thinking they 
would play with the kittens awhile. But 
imagine their surprise—the kittens were 
nowhere to be found. Then they com¬ 
menced plaguing the old hen just to see her 
peck. Soon Fred said : 
“ ‘ The kittens are under the hen. See, 
there’s one’s tail sticking out.’ 
“ ‘Yes,’ said Nelly, * I can see them, too. 
Lot’s get them out.’ She put out her hand 
to do so, but ere she had reached them she 
received several severe pecks from the hen 
in a way that said : ‘ You let my children 
alone or I’ll hurt you.’ That scared little 
Fred, and they both came running into the 
house, saying: 
“ ‘ Mamma, mamma, just come and see ; 
the old hen has the old cat’s kittens and 
is hovering them; we can’t get them out 
and want you to.’ 
“Mamma went out and, sure enough, there 
sat the hen as proud as if she had a flock of 
chicks and as cross too. Mamma took hold 
of the hen’s head with one hand and with 
the other drew out the kittens, greatly to 
the delight of the children who scampered 
away with them. Soon they came back and 
put them with their mother, in their own 
side of the hatchway. The next day the 
hen hovered the kittens in her own nest as 
before while the cat was gone. Their 
mother returned occasionally and suckled 
them, and at other times the hen hovered 
them. This state of things continued for a 
week. Then mamma shut the hen away 
from the kittens, saying she had better be 
getting ready to lay eggs again; she was 
sure it was more profitable. 
“ ‘I wish you had let the old hen finish 
her sitting,’ said one of the children 
‘ maybe she would be clucking around 
here with the kittens following her.’ 
“ ‘ I don’t agree with you,’ said mamma. 
‘ If she had tried it, one mew from the old 
cat would have caused them to follow her.’ 
“‘Then the hen would have followed, 
too,’ said the child, ‘and probably have 
learned to catch mice; for if she could 
learn to hover kittens she could learn to 
catch mice, too and that’s what I’d like to 
see her do.’ ” J. L. I. 
Binghamton, N. Y. 
R. N.-Y.—Let us have more about the 
smart pets. They are constantly doing 
wise things that will amuse and instruct 
us. 
NOTES ABOUT HOME. 
Man is not naturally carnivorous. Bring 
up your children on simpler foods—fruits, 
cereals and milk—banish pastry and, for a 
largo part, cake, and you will find your 
doctors’ bills decreased and your children 
clearer-headed as well as ignorant of head¬ 
aches and dyspepsia. 
It is profitable to make your place beau¬ 
tiful. I sold a little over four acres for 
$5,500, which, cleared of adornments, would 
not have brought half that. It was the 
hedges, trees, shrubbery and fruit that did 
it. 
It pays a man to work on the road until 
he has a good highway along his whole 
front. The most picayune trait of Amer 
ican character is developed by our “ path 
master ” system. We grudge the little we 
are forced to do and prefer to wallow in 
mud than to do more than our share. 
Don’t build just as near the road as you 
can ; but as near the center of your prop¬ 
erty as possible. Think of the saving in 
travel going to and fro about your work. 
Comfort not only keeps fat on your 
animals and saves feed, but adds grace and 
beauty to your family and long life to 
yourself and wife. 
Don’t go about always with the odor of 
the barn in your clothes, and another from 
a foul pipe. If you do you are pretty sure 
to have a nasty conversation, and little 
respect for yourself. Groom yourself as 
carefully as you do your horses to keep off 
the scratches and mange. 
Farm religion is to save yourself from 
degenerating into beastliness, as well as to 
save your property from waste. I saw a 
man the other day, who seemed to me 
about one-quarter saved, three-quarters 
not. 
Some people say consult your wife; I say 
consult your children. See what fine tastes 
in them require cultivation. Give the next 
generation a chance to express their senti¬ 
ments as well as do work. 
A boy that grows up to love flowers and 
trees will love his human friends better and 
home as well. B. p. powell. 
SOME NEWSPAPER OPINIONS. 
Twenty Years Behind Time.— The 
Farmers’ League of Onondaga County, 
New York, is opposed to spending any more 
money on the Capitol at Albany than is re¬ 
quired for necessary repairs, and the league 
is right.—Syracuse Herald. 
One Solution of the Indian Question. 
—The whole Indian Bureau should be 
rooted out, the lying and absurd system of 
making treaties with a people who are not 
treated as an independent nation, but prac 
tically confined to reservations as prisoners 
of war, should be abolished, the Indians 
should be put on the same footing as other 
aliens and gradually prepared for citizen¬ 
ship.—Buffalo News, (Ind.) 
Neither Can Live Without Them.— 
In the next two years they [the farmers] 
will have time and opportunity to blow the 
froth off their new-tangled notions and 
discover whatever of good may remain. 
After that they will be sure to get whatever 
they may ask for at the hands of one or 
other of the great parties of the country, 
neither of which could do without the 
farmers’ votes.—Phila. Record (Dem). 
Significant Straws.— It may seem a 
trivial fact that, whereas last June the 
passage of a free coinage bill through the 
Senate was greeted with applause in the 
galleries, this week the passage of exactly 
the same measure called forth no approval 
of that sort, although the attendance of 
spectators was larger. There is, however, 
a certain significance in the incident. In 
some degree it may be said to reflect a 
change in the attitude of the public toward 
this dangerous experiment. It is doubtful 
if free coinage could to-day command the 
votes of a majority of the American people 
on a direct presentation of the question.— 
Providence Journal (Ind.) 
In writing to advertisers please always 
mention The Rural New-Yorker. 
STUDY Thorough and practical 
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chief merit is the 
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MANURE 
SPREADER 
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DEAF! 
■ NESS & HEAD NOISES CURED bv 
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_ ___ _ _ _ CUSHIONS, Whispers heard. Com 
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“THE FLORIDA REAL ESTATE JOUR¬ 
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275 ACRE FARM. 
Fertile, warm early soil. 
Good Grass Land. 
Good Butter Farm. 
Good Truck Farm. 
Good Fruit Farm. 
Good Poultry Farm 
Deposit of Pink Granite. 
Deposit of Fine Molding Sand. 
Famous Spring of Pure Water 
Twenty seven miles from Boston. Six good manu¬ 
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mile from railroad station, post office, etc. 
JJT FOR SALE AT LOW PRICE. 
May be divided into two farms. Two houses, 
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Address “FARM,” care The Rural Nkw-Yorkkb. 
