St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-06-10
A Strictly Veracious Chron-
icle Of Something New
in Jags.
Two Hundred Chickens Load
Up on Cherry Bounce
% With Sad Results.
They Make the Usual Racket
and Then Try to Sleep
1t Off.
Next Morning They Find, as
Usual, That They Have
Been Plucked.

"The incident of my life which i'm
pressed my mind most deeply was a
calamity that befeli my immediate fam
lily during my early bOyhood," said a
government official to reporter for the
Washington Star. my father was a
farmer. We kept chickens, about two
hundred in number. the eggs and ten
der progeny of which were sent to mar
ket and furnished not inconsiderable
fraction of the family income. 1t is
said that a we'll managed hen will pro-
duce clear profit of So per annum.
Such an estimate Is trifle exaggerated,
for no fowls were ever more carefully
and economically bred, fed and cared
for than ours, and we thought that they
did excelIentiy when they earned about
Sl25 a year. How far that sum went to
supply necessaries any one can imag-
inc who has been brought up to agri-
ultural pursuits.
son farm the 'hen money'-that is,
the cash obtained by the sale of eggs
and birds-is custOmarily regarded as
belonging to the women folk. In our
case it bought clothes for my mother
and my little sisters, provided many
small luXurieS, also, and leaving each
year a goodly sum to be put away In
long and mysterious stocking where the
family savings were kept. Our flock
of chickens was, in short, equivalent to
a safe investment in bonds, from which
a regular income could with certainty
he drawn. My earliest occupation was
to assist in taking care of them. 1t was
my task to search for hidden and sur
reptitiOus nests in the barn and else
where, and as soon as was big enough
| made traps to capture the rats and
other vermin which preyed upon the
young ones when they could.
"Without further preface let me say
that in the summer, at the season when
the fruit was ripe, my mother made a
great quantity of cherry bounce for
the brewing of which she was famous.
After completing the process she di-
rected me to throw the refuse of fer
mented cherries away and l did so. l
threw the stuff near the chicken houses,
thinking that the fowls might relish it.
Later on we heard a good deal OF ex-
cited sQuawking from that direction, but
paid no particular attention to it. After
supper went out, as was my usual
duty, to see that the poultry had
gone q to rOoSt all right for
the night. You can imagine my aston
ishment and dismay when found all
of the chickens-hens, r0oSters, pullets
and cockerels-scattered in and around
the chicken houses, every one OF them
dead. :,
81 need not dwell upon the consterna-
ton oceasioned in the family by this
appalling misfortune. Two hundred
fowls, which a short time before had
hnalfhu Ynnl-
try that ever scratched for worms in
barnyard, were stiffening in death. 1t
was no time to indulge in Improbable
grief, however. As my mother suggest
ed, while drying her eyes with her
apron, the only thing to do was to pluck
them Immediately and send them to
market in the morning.
with all hands buSily engaged we
finished the job by a. M, stacking up
the plucked chickens on tables and in
corners. 1t was melancholy task, but
we tried to console ourselves with the
reflection that the money they brought
for flesh and feathers would purchase
fair nucleus for new flock. SO tired
were that none of us woke up until after
6, which is pretty late for farmers. l
was the first to go down stairs. 10 my
amaZement and horror the results of
IdUOE vi PlCNIOuS CNOlliHS hdu
vanished. Of the 200 neatly picked
fowls, which we had made ready for
market, not one remained. The kitchen
door, left accidentally unfastened the
night before, now swung wide, opening
through the wOOdshed to the garden,
and showed how the robbers had emit
cred.
.sJust as l was ON the point of giving
the alarm l heard familiar 'cOck-a-
doodle.doo!' and most remarkable
looking creature, witch I hesitated mo-
mentarily to identify as bird, hoped
upon the threshold and crOwed thrice.
ran to the door of the woodshed and
there. in the garden, were all of our
chickens-200 of them, plucked, but
none the less alive-busily scratching
up the vegetables. A family council,
quickly summoned, found no difficulty
IN Analysing the situation. Evidently
the fowls had fed upon the fermented
cherries, which had thrown where they
could get them. and when we had sup
posed them dead they were in reality
dead drunk. While we were asleep
they recovered their senses and walked
out of doors. Happily, none of them
seemed to be injured at all by the pro-
cess of plucking they had undergone.
The hens kept on laying just as we'll
and the rOoSttrS were as proud as ever.
In fact, my mother afterward said that
the feathers brought her considerable
profit and she seemed to think that per-
haps chickens would yield better re-
turns as matter of ordinary business
if they were deprived of their plumes,
like sheen of their wool. at iudiciOuS in