The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-11-09
Nine Rules for Poultry NOyices.

l. Wall uHllI Gl6 IuOOu goes down
before purchasing your chickens. Pull
lets are always cheaper in the dusky
hours that precede the dawn
2. If you buy fancy eggs for hatch
ing, do not buy any that were picked
last fall. "Hope springs eternal in
the human breast" but an egg STAYS
right by the date of its birth, and is
twenty-hours older and poorer at each
succeeding sunset.
3. Always consult the hens conven-
fence in the matter of setting. Do not
insist on her breaking any other en-
gagements, or putting off baking or
ironing day, for the purpose of taking
charge of thirteen eggs, of unknown
sex or quality. Better, far better, that
you should give up society and set on
those eggs yourself. rather entrust
them to reluctant and assembling
hen. You might break the eggs, but
the tickle hen would break for the ver-
bena bed, the first thing in the morn
ing.
4. Build your nests wide enough for
cow to turn around in. If the nest
has an all-out-door, illimitable-wast
kind of look to it, where one hen will
feel so lonesome ard lost that she will
wall and squawk with terror every
time she looks around and feels the
burden of her loneliness upon her, all
the wealth of the Incas couldn't induce
another hen to go'in and keep her COM
pany or gossip with her until bed time.
But if you make nest just big enough
for one lean hen to squeeze into with
out breathing, the nine biggest hens in
your flock will fight for that nest, and
all crowd into it at the same time, flat
ten out all the eggs, and then with a
gloomy but patient countenance, and
their several heads turned in nine DIFF
ferent directions, they will sit on the
cold ashes of shattered ambition and
wrecked dreams for the next four
months. ... .t-...
5. Sprinkle sulphur in the nests be-
fore the hen is allowed to enter upon
the performance of her incubation con-
tract. The smell of the sulphur will
prevent the hen from imbibing PERM
cious doctrines, and will keep her from
assuming too much, under the impress
sion that a hen that can produce dur
nal egg, and from that evolve living,
breathing, scratching chicken, could, if
she would give her mind to it, create q
universe and people its planets with
races of lying, thieving, swearing men.
6. Boost the hen off the nest once a
day for exercise. Too much sentiment
and reflection, an excess of self COM
muniOn, is apt to make the hen moody
and low spirited. Point her to the
dreadful effects of too long continued
shown in the sad fate Of Sergeant Bates
and Dennis Kearney.
Z. About the time the young chicks
are coming out, borrow shotgun, and
tell your neighbor some scoundrel is
shooting cats, and last night he killed
a cat that belonged to your wife that
you wouldn't have taken fifty dollars
for. This will pave the way for future
developments. A successful hennery is
tented young chicks is an infaliible evil
dence that you can't shutyour eyes and
stick spade in the ground anywhere in
that precinct without disturbing the
eternal rest of some cat that has taken
parlors on the ground floor of the win
dowless palace of rest.
8. If you have no grass plots or
kitchen garden or pansy beds for your
chickens to range in, cut a hole low
down in the fence so as to let your
chicks in on your neighbor. 1t will be
perfectly safe since the loss of his cat.
If he says anything about chickens, tell
him you told FOrsman (the other neigh
bor) that if he wanted toraise chickens
he must do as you do, and keep them
shut up. Do not give your chicks I'M
bridled liberty, for sometimes brood
of healthy chicks 90 out in the morning
when the dew on the onion tops gilt
ters in the sunshine, and like the base
less fabric of a vision they pass away,
and like the stuff that dreams are made
of leave not track behind, and all the
tears your burning eyes can shed over
the legs and claws and heads you find
in the alley will not call them back.
9, In raising fowls for the market,
remember there is the greatest danger
OF sending them out in an immature
state. Chickens are not healthful food;
nor do they contain any of the perfect
elements of nutrition, until they are
fully and completely developed physic-
ally. Keep them about you then, while
painting time tolls after them in vain.
Life is at best but a walking shadow,
and your chicks should have at least
eleven years of home care and training
before they rest their heads for one
brief second on the chopping block,
and go to grace the table of the happy
boarding-hou For any further and
more specific information on this sub
ject send three-cent stamp and your ad-
dress .-HaaOk-Eye. .....