The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1874-06-23
A PAPER ON CHICKENS.
BY Ben Spinner, OF the Fourth ward
sTt fSahnnl
/. 7. WIKOFF,
Secretary of State.

BY Ben Spinner, OF the Fourth ward
@5 School.
Louisville Courier-Journal.l O.
Most usually it takes two eggs for to
make chicken, because, if you will put
eighteen eggs under hen, only about
nine of 'em will hatch. A hen is so care
less and stubborn that most always she
won't cover her eggs all over, and 80 they
get chilled; then they are eyerlastingly
gone up. Also, the rats will rob nest;
so that if you get half of brood, it is
torable crop, and you should be thankful.
Then, think, it stands to reason this
ought to prove what said at first. A
hen, which has got young family. Is
more crosser than anything else which
can be compared with her under the sun
in the United States. There never was
thing which can ruffle its feathers up
backward and rage worse than fool hen.
A turkey gobbler will do it, but he don't
60 off into red-hot passion about it, and
make fool of hisself, and get enemies all
for nothing like hen would. A chicken
in the spring-time which was put to hatch
in March, if it has good luck and don't
die of the pip, or gaps, or the cholery-
morbus, or get drowned or something,
will be big enough to sell to the restaurant
about in June. They will fetch $6
dozen, and a chicken is more popular
where it is spring chicken than If it
would live long enough to get as tough az
Methuseler. They say that spring
chicken is a luxurious thing for to broil
and mix up with toast. That's what /
have heard. Once in great while we
have spring chickens for dinner. Then
we have the preacher, or else some COM
pany, and / eat at the second handed
table, and l can always tell by the savory
smell going on in the kitchen that
broiled chicken ought to be good enough
for anybody. But if / can't get some
thing to eat more substantialler than
smell, / always fall back on roast beef.
A chicken don't gather shrswdness like a
owl, and it never picks up any wisdom.
1t is not talented thing like fox. If
you can show me a more stupider thing
than a hen, / wish you would trot her
out. The rooster has got what little
sense there ever was in the family. 1t is
one of the worst difficulties with
chicken that she don't know its place.
She won't stay in the barn-yard, where
she belongs, any way you can fix it. If
your mother has got hower-beds in the
front yard-and it's mighty curious
mother which ain't-every last chicken
on the place will get in to scratch them,
if it takes till next Christmas; and then
goodby to the hyacinthes and crocuses,and
jerryranthems, and all that kind of fool
ishness. Then is the time you want to
have two jackets on, or else forget to come
home early, if it was you which left the
lattice gate open. Also, hen is hard
hearted and cruel, and will kill every little
desolated STRAY chicken who tries to
associate with her own brood, and this is
good enough reason why sne is like step
mother. If hen once gets fair hold
of little chicken to shake it by the nape
of the neckit will never kick again in
this community more than twice. The
frequentest bad habit which hen has
got is going off to the neighbors to lay;
also it is too soft a thing for the neighbors;
but it is generally chronic for a hen to do
it, and the only way for to cure her is to
cut her head off and to boil her down
into soup. She won't go to the neighbor
to lay many times after that, 1 don't
think. ID s ar