not be
catered to by our feathered tribe." "To their owner they are a thing of
beauty and a joy forever. Their ways are interesting, their language
fascinating, and their lives from the egg to the mature fowl replete
with constant surprises."[1]

[Footnote 1: This clause is true.]

"To simply watch them as they pass from stage to stage of development
fills the mind of every sane person with pleasure." One poultry crank
insists that each hen must be so carefully studied that she can be
understood and managed as an individual, and speaks of his hens having
at times an "anxious nervous expression!"

"Yes, it is where the hens sing all the day long in the barn-yard that
throws off the stiff ways of our modern civilization and makes us feel
that we are home and can rest and play and grow young once more. How
many men and women have regained lost health and spirits in keeping
hens, in the excitement of finding and gathering eggs!"

"It is not the natural laying season when snows lie deep on field and
hill, when the frost tingles in sparkling beads from every twig, when
the clear streams bear up groups of merry skaters," etc.

After my pathetic experience with chickens, who after a few days of
downy content grew ill, and gasped until they gave up the ghost;
ducklings, who progressed finely for several weeks, then turned over on
their backs and flopped helplessly unto the end; or, surviving that
critical period, were found in the drinking trough, "drowned, dead,
because they couldn't keep their heads above water"; turkeys who
flourished to a certain age, then grew feeble and phantom-like and faded
out of life, I weary of gallinaceous rhodomontade, and crave "pointers"
for my actual needs.

I still read "Crankin's" circulars with a thrill of enthusiasm because
his facts are so cheering. For instance, from his latest: "We have some
six thousand ducklings out now, confined in yards with wire netting
eighteen inches high. The first lot went to market May 10th and netted
forty cents per pound. These ducklings were ten weeks old and dressed on
an average eleven pounds per pair. One pair dressed fourteen pounds."
Isn't that better than selling milk at two and a half cents per quart?
And no money can be made on vegetables unless they are raised under
glass in advance of the season. I know, for did I not begin with "pie
plant," with which every market was glutted, at one cent per pound, and
try the entire list, with disgustingly