Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1877-02-02
Hens.
Did you ever keep hens?

Hens.
Did you ever keep hens?
If you have, then you know all about
the grandest glory of existence, and you
have likewise been down in the utter
most depths of tribulation.
For when mans hens lay an egg |
apiece day their owner is prouder and |
more exalted than King; but whel
they refuse to shell out, and go to eat.
ing their feathers and picking each
others combs, then, indeed, is their |
owner, of all men, the most unhappy.
The fact of it is, hens were not invent
ed to lay fresh eggs for delicious Gus
tards and delicate blanc-manges, as is
popularly supposed--not at all! They
are created with the especial end in view
of keeping before their owners the fact,
for which we have Scripture authority,
that "Man is born unto trouble as the
sparks fly upward"
You have heard great deal of how
hens will more than pay their way, and
in some unfortunate moment you resolve
to become hen proprietor.
You purchase half dozen fowls for
six dollars pair, choice breed, with an
and warranted to lay right along.
You indulge in much large talk among
your friends of how you are going to
use no more stale, odorous eggs-you are
going to have your eggs Jresh! yes, sirI
and chicken-pie is henceforth to be an
every day luxury on your tablet No more
tough and superannuated roosters for
| your Christmas dinners.
You feed your hens to repletion, and
shut them up in their new coop, and
expect to carry in the eggs by the
basketful.
In ten days you get two eggs. You
feel deeply wronged and relate your
troubles to your friends. They say you
keep your fowls too close; you must
turn them out to pick gravel and dust
themselves.
So their prison doors are opened, and
when you see how delighted they are
with their freedom you feel like guilty
wretch, and mentally promise the in
jured prisoners that henceforth they
shall roam at will over your demesne.
The hens, with cackle and satisfied
flop of their wings, headed by the rooster,
make directly for your fower-gafden,
and scratch as if for wager among
your choicest plants, and the way your
petunias, and verbenas and stocks are
uprooted is not particularly pleasant to
contemplate.
Somebody says that frequent STRINGS
of the soil around the roots of plants
promote their growth, and of this fact
in agriculture your fowls seem well
aware. They scratch with will! The
dust, and the small stones, and the
gravel fly in grand style, and when you
lay down your interesting evening paper
and go out to see how they are getting
, along you will find all your plants
broken off or uprooted, and your hens
{ nearly buried in the soil, luxuriating in
! the business of busting themselves to
J keep their feathers in healthy state.
J They turn over on the other side at
your approach, and the rooster will lift
his evil eye to yours and who ever saw
a rooster whose eye had not an evil ex-
pression?-and he will straighten him
self, straddle his legs, flap his wings,
and crow so Justify that every feather on
his body will shake with the conclusion,
and he will glance at you as much as ia
say: "There! How's that for highY"
OF course you are indignant, and you
E brandish it in the air, and you shoe
shoe! at the top of your lungs, and al
2 the children and dogs on the street con
+ gregate to learn what is the matter, and
your hens scatter right and left, and two
or three of them fly over the fence into
Nelghbor Jones yard, and you and Jones
!, are not on good terms, and when you
i hens come back from his domains they
e are minus their head.
: Every day you become sicker anC
/ sicker of your fowl speculation.
You have lost much of your ambition
to have fresh eggs on your table. You
don't care as you used to care fo
chicken pie. You would sell out cheap
p: but almost everybody has been through
n with hen-keeping experience, and doe
!! not wish to invest.
e Toward the end of the season you
Q hens get brooding," as your old Aun
\ Peggy would say.
s They steal their nests under the barn
" or out in the hedges somewhere, ant
c come forth with one or two chicken
apiece, and such a spl1tter as they will
e make over their peeping little famil.
e the world never saw,
/. You cannot take your morning nap TO
:, the cackling, and Growing, and peeping
n and the clucking is enough to drive on
r frantic.
o You vow you will have no NOR
e chickens. Then you try the breaking
IS up business, and if ever anybody ha
undertaken to break up setting he
then he. knows all about it. If not, h
a has yer something left to live for.
y We should like to hear from all thos
!, who have tried and been successful il
. side of week. ltwould be an inter
"a estng experience to relate.
- After many and vain attempts you
A patience gives out; you suffer your angr
.. passions TO rise; you cut off the heads O
your fcathcred tormentors, and pot pi
graces your table until YOU fairly loath
/; the sight of poultry. Thorn, 4
Is ~ y Weekly.
Is A MOT by the lamented Choquar
No duelist; They were speaking of SON
If one not present, for whom he did not al
l. pear to entertain much affection. VI
n leRs am seriously mistaken saws Che