Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-09-11
A Talk on the Hen.


A writer who was led into the poultry
business by reading flaming accounts ap-
pearing in some of the papers relative TO
great fortunes speedily realized by per-
sons who jumped into the said business,
says he got out of it minus the great for
tune promised, but with lots of valuable
information touching the hen. His
adopted calling afforded HIM splendid
opportunity for studying the hen, and he
studied her.
AS result of his studies the gentleman
now fully believes, SO he tells US and all
others concerned, that much as may be
said TO the contrary by editors OF poultry
departments in the 'agricultural Jour-
nails, - the hen will never achieve any
very great reputation as pleasing song
stress. She is not likely TO get upon the
bulletin boards of our variety theaters as
a veritabIe prima-dOnns to attract pat
ronege, nevertheless, she deserves full
credit for having head of her own when
not specially dressed for dinner. Fine
dressing for such occasions appears to
put Ii IT head good deal out of balance,
just as it does the heads of many other
people. OF course the arrangement of
natural balance may be fraught with
something of variation in the two cases,
but that don I matter particularly.
So long as her head is all right the hen
does what she undertakes in highly
satisfactory manner to herself. She,
like the country newspaper just Offering
its first number to the public, is designed
TO I'LL long felt want, and she fills it to
complete fullness. Her chief character
istic is persistency, and when the natural
instinct is strong within her, the only
way to prevent her ''settiug' is to clip
her bill feathers about two inches abaft
her tail-and send her to market as
spring chicken.
Hens are SAID to have reached the ripe
old age of thirty years, aud the man who
has fritted away few years in city
boarding house will not be found taking
issue against this position. The hen is
also noted for her peryersity. ANY man
who takes the advice of the not few
'agricultural papers, edited by nickel
plated ten-cents- a-dOzen city dudes, who
could not tell a hay tedder from q barrel
of saur kraut; any such man, we say,
who upon such species of advice launches
out into the hen business to make for
tune in a few months will realize that the
hen Is filled with perversity rs well as
corn and wheat screenings. For in
stance, when eggs are selling at eight
cents dozen, every able bodied hen on
the ranch will get up before daylight and
work all day as though she was the na-
ton hope, but when eggs are scarce at
four bits dozen, she goes on strike;
aud when her employer tries to comprom-
Use with her she treats him with such
stole Indifference as would seem to imply
that the "uniou" is allowing her 81 a
day, and she don t propose to strike an
other lick until the treasury is drained.
The hen aud the baby, says our friend,
are the only two things known to agri-
culture that fatty defy the lord of crea-
ton and willingly obey his better half.
a man may walk the floor all night with
a bowling baby and wear his throat out
trying to sing, and in talking baby talk
to it, but the harder he works the more
it howls. But the moment his wife snug
giles it down beside her and says, 'There,
there, it shuts right up and begins
paving around for something else to en-
gage its intention. When dozen hens
get into the garden and begin burrOwing
in the fanatic bed, the proprietor PUSHES
out, and after filling his hat with bricks,
begins wild assault. Then every hen
raises her voice and makes a hundred
unintelligible remarks, and they scatter
hither and yon and fly all around exactly
where he don It want them to go. Upon
this he gets warmer and warmer and
chucks bricks right and left, smashes
window glass, perspires and mixes his
language with 'remarks that would
not look well in print, and finally pays
visit to his nearest neighbor to borrow
gun, declaring that he Will wipe the
whole hen tribe off the face of the earth.
AS soon as he is out of sight his wife
comes into the garden, shakes her skirts
and says, "ShoO, there!' and in two
minutes every hen is back on the reser-
walton.
The consort of the hen is somewhat
laTger-a Mormon by nature and slug
ger by profession. When not engaged
in putting up jobs on hens by cycling
kernel of corn and insulating that the
hen that puts on the most style and gets
there first will have it, and then, just as
q dozen hens are eagerly reaching for it,
deliberately swallows it himself, he is TAX
ing a lckin' from some other rooster. or
inviting an enemy (thaJ he knows he can
knock out in two rounds) to come over
and get raped. comp concludes the
gentleman, 81 know the whole lot of 'em
now, and though the knowledge was not
cheaply bought it promises, so far as
am concerned, to be extremely lasting.
OF course this article is not intended to
discourage persons from going into the
poultry business. The business, under
intelligent management, Is usually
good one-the manager must understand
his trade thoroughly, however, for man.
aging poultry calls for such previous ex-
perience as justly entities it to class as
trade But the man who has had no ex-
perienoe with poultry had best keep out,
particularly on q large scale. If he don't
he will be very apt, like our friend men
toned above, to soon come out with tar
more costly hen sense than money.
Old Span sh Peaches.
At some points along the western Dor
der of Texas an old and somewhat peou-