The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1882-06-10
A Word to the Town People of the VAL
ne Of Local Trade and EXCHANGES.

it will bring, and this law is known and
acknowled by the savages of the Congo
river the wild Tartars of the Oriental
desert, as we'll as the rude peasantry OF
Ireland and Italy, the poor whites and
negroes of the South. This, however, is
no explication of the laws of trade, or rel
alive values.
We have heard much complaint Of the
prices asked by country people for but
ter, eggs, chickens, etc. Let us reason
on this point little and we think that
we can clear up some of the mooted
points in this slight misunderstanding
between the denizens of our little coun-
ty metropolis and the simple rustics who
patronize it with their haro earned COM
modities. First, this has been very
unfavorable spring in the production of
much animal and vegetable life. We
are not discussing the ca,ases 'achy, the
hens began to lay so late, but we are
dealing with the fact, and there is no in
telligent housewife in the country that
will not tell you that poultry generally
began laying az much later period this
spring than usual Where hens were set
with care, and in favorable places, they
hatched out large broods, not one of
which in many cases in ten days, was
living, 20 great was the mortality in the
infant brood. This we kno,0 We at
tributed it to the extraordinary contin-
ued cold weather When hundreds would
be chirping around one week, half of them
had disappeared, in the next and in some
cases even more. The hens thus deprived
of their young, instead of taking to the
nest again as usual, in few days, would
60 around singing, and in some instances
take to growing or trying to, as though
disgusted with the maternal relations
and were making efforts to unsex them,
selves, and assume the role of boss of the
barnyard.
Another strong point--corn has been
so costly, that hundreds of people who
have had heretofore a few chickens or
eggs to spare, have not been able to feed
themselves and families in abundance
with the simple element of bread, and
consequently. have not tried to raise
chickens, and where they had a few, there
was nothing with which to feed them,
which, of course, added to the swift NOR
taity of the few little birds that were
hatched. Let any man with the present
prices of corn and meal take brood Of
a dozen chickens and watch them, and
feed them by day, house them in dry
warm place at night, and keep them
there until the sun was up to dry off the
heavy dews, for three consecuivemonths,
and although but half grown, if those
chickens are not in actual real values
worth quarter each, 1t is because we
do not know how to estimate labor and
trouble, and per centage.
If countryman comes to town to bny
q pound of bacon or a peck of meal, be
has to pay two prices for it, measured
by former standards Should not such
delicacy as a fat spring chicken 60 upon
the same financial basis? Isay it openly,
fearlessly and above board, that such a
fowl, raised under the pressure of
and seasons like the present with
everything else that we buy of the grocer
so high, that well grown, well fed three
months old healthy chicken is worth
every farthing of twenty-five cents
and the man who disputes the PROPOSE
tion derives his knowledge of the business
Of raising chickens from the fabulous ac-
counts of the artificial incubators, or he
has forgotten the elementary lessons of the
horn book of political economy. Then,
town friends, don't forget that the 1--we
of spring chicken pie, is not confined to
the tastes of the cultivated and opulent.
God struck it deep into the palate OF his
universal humanity and the rustic, when
he does indulge this royal luxury on
calm, quiet Sunday in gratitude says
| grace so long that the little ones
around the table break up the gravity of
he occasion by premature calls for
chicken pie. Be thankful to get halt
grown young chicken now at two bits,
'y the time they are grown you will be
educated to pay from forty to fifty for
ne same without murnur.
SPRING CHICKEN.
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