FANCIERS’ 
these intended good-natured articles, that meanness, in any 
form, is always reprehensible. 
I consider offensive personalities ‘*highly objectionable,”’ as 
the new standard deems “ vulture hocks”? upon the Brahmas; 
and Iam altogether desirous that no man shall put on his 
back a coat from the wardrobe I casually furnish you, unless 
it fits him! Nor then, either, unless he voluntarily chooses 
to select the garment. ; 
In my last contribution, I generalized; in this number, I 
will particularize—only pre-stating that my remarks are 
intended for no one person especially. Thus I am now 
prompted to write of another prominent class of men, among 
our fraternity, with whom possibly you may have (or haply 
not have) some acquaintance. This class is composed of two 
varieties, to wit: The timber-toed and the thin-skinned, 
among poultry fanciers. 
The ‘‘timber-toe”’ is eternally afraid that correspondents 
in the poultry journals will tread upon his corns; and he is 
as uneasy and oftentimes as truculent in reading the criti- 
cisms of posted contributors, who are talking of other people’s 
short-comings, as he could be if his own artfully concealed 
deformities were alone the subject-matter being criticised. 
This results on the principle, 1 apprehend, that ‘“ every 
rogue, in the darkness, fancies a police officer in the moving 
leaf beside him.”’ 
I can see one of this tender-footed genus (in my memory, 
only) while I write these lines. He is naturally selfish, 
narrow-minded, keen-scented in his business aims, plausible 
to those he meets, and as a rule, outwardly, he is ‘‘ all things 
to all men;” while, at bottom, he goes first for the greatest 
good of the greatest number, and that number is No. 1. 
He has ‘‘an axe to grind,’’ continually ; and he don’t mind 
who turns the grindstone, provided they keep it well agoing 
and don’t stop to spit on their hands, while his little hatchet 
is being sharpened. 
He is not unlike the sightless ground mole, in one respect; 
while he burrows, thus assiduously, upon his own account, 
nosing this way and that, in search of the needful; he is 
himself so blind that he is totally unconscious that there be 
those among God’s creatures who have eyes, and who use 
them. He is most unlike the aspiring poet too, who anx- 
iously exclaims: 
“Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us 
To see oursels as ithers see us,” 
for this would be fatal, indeed, to his ‘‘ quiet little game”’ 
in life. 
Generally speaking, this ‘‘ timber-toe”’ is the huckster, or 
pretender, only; sometimes he is a nominally ‘successful 
breeder,’”’ or ‘‘noted fancier ;’’ occasionally, he is found to 
be a poultry editor, but not often; now and then he is only 
a fulsome ‘‘advertiser’’ of the only pure-blooded stock in 
creation; once in a while he turns up in the person of a 
dignified hen-convention official, whose belly is far more 
capacious than his brain; more than once I have known him 
as a writer of books about chickens, and their ‘‘ history ;’’ 
frequently (in later times) he is a pedigree fowl-breeder only, 
and that (in my opinion) is whatin common Yankee parlance 
is not inaptly compared to the last run of shad. But, wher- 
ever or however, this crotchety ‘‘ timber-toe’’ exists, among 
these or other classes that might be mentioned, he is sure to 
expose himself; and sooner or later his whining, fault-find- 
ing, pretending, assuming, or exacting inclinations—in some 
JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 


717 

——$——— 
face, for the amusement of the careful observer of these 
ugly deformities. 
The ‘‘thin-skin’’ is another variety of this same species. 
This biped is of the smoother kind. He is velvet-footed, 
quiet, silver-tongued, cunning, and timid. He possesses the 
suaviter in modo intensely, but knows nothing of the fortiter 
in re. Heis apt to think himself hit when one is scarcely 
cognizant of his existence. If he has a hobby he jams it 
into the ground and sniffles over its burial, as if it were a 
matter of consequence to anybody on earth besides himself. 
Whoever or whatever may be criticized or commented on, 
he fancies he is directly or indirectly aimed at. Constantly 
on the qui vive, in his own half-peck measure, to overreach 
the uninitiated, and covertly aware that his own intentions 
are anything but useful or praiseworthy, he is the first ‘‘ pot 
to call the kettle black,’’ without realizing that honest men 
can see through his transparent mummery, as if it all were 
sereened but by the clearest glass | 
And still these two varieties of ‘‘ fanciers” are more or 
less successful for the nonce. Do you know any such men 
in the poultry fraternity ? Have you never met them? Do 
the readers of the Fanciers’ Journal ne’er come in contact 
with the ‘‘timber-toes”’ or ‘‘thin-skins,”’ in 1874? Perhaps 
not. I trust they may be all thus fortunate. J have known 
them in the past. I fancy I have heard of such occasion- 
ally, even in the later days. It may be prejudice, however. 
Perhaps, in my way, I may have been (or am) open to some 
of these very charges, in degree. 
I think it is Colton who has written that ‘‘ the real knave 
will rarely quarrel with one whom he can continue to cheat.”’ 
Such an operator is commonly the most forgiving of mor- 
tals, upon the principle that if he comes to an open rupture 
he must defend himself ; and this does not suit the man whose 
vocation it is to keep his hands in his neighbors’ pockets. 
And yet, how apt are men to “spend their lives in gazing at 
their own shadows until they dwindle away into the shadows 
thereof !”’ 
But I will not attempt homily in these papers. If there 
be no timber-toes and no thin-skins among your correspond- 
ents and patrons, Friend Wade, I am glad of it. There is 
no harm in presenting the ‘‘ kindly word of warning,’ never- 
theless; and if this article shall seem over pungent, do not 
print it. 
New YorK, September, 1874. 

(For Fanciers’ Journal.) 
NEW HAMPSHIRE FANCIERS AND BREEDERS. 
I rHovuaur perhaps a few items from the Granite State 
might be of interest to your readers. 
A few weeks ago I visited C. H. L. Hayward, at Peter- 
boro, New Hamshire. He owns a farm of four hundred 
acres—rather rough. He makes poultry a business, and 
does it for profit, instead merely as a pastime, as many do. 
Last winter he had about eight hundred fowls, and raised 
about the same number this summer; but his sales have 
been so large that he has but fifty old hens and some three 
hundred chickens now. 
He keeps his poultry in small houses, 9x18, scattered 
over hisfarm. They are cheaply made, and not very warm. 
Foxes, hawks, owls, and skunks trouble him badly. He 
has lost over three hundred dollars worth this season. He 
breeds Light and Dark Brahmas; Black, Buff, White, and 
form or other—are certain to thrust themselves to the sur-| Partridge Cochins; Plymouth Rocks, White Leghorns, 
