Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1897-12-25
DIGGING CELLAR DRAINS.
Always DO The WORK From the Outside IL
You Have Beau Losing Poultry.

You Have Bcsn Losing Poultry.
II George Avery of this neighborhood
ever digs out another cellar drain, he
will begin at the outside and dig in,
because nobody can tell what cellar
drain holds until its whole length has
been explored. Though cellar drain
has no apparent connection with hens,
Avery has learned otherwise aud pald
more than $50 for learning
Avery has bought II lot of hens for
three or four years and has made money
out of them When his neishbors saw
how he prospered, they went to raising
hens also and when tho spring of 1897
opened there was moro poultry running
loose in Whiting Hill than i'll any other
place east of Bangor. Some time last
May the young chickens and early broil-
ers began to disappear, going out healthy
and strong in the morning and neglect
ing to show up at night. On some days
Avery lost four or five, and then the
average would reach 10 or 10 every day
for a week The neighbors began to lose
chickens too. They complained to Avery
about his dog, and Avery entered a
counter complaint about their CATS and
both sides were getting hot about it
when Sam Adams solved the mystery
by seeing black fox i'll the very act Of
carrying away plump cockerel. OF
course it is bad thing to have any kind
of fox carry away ones poultry, but If
a man has got to surrender his hens to
the foxes he would sooner see black
fox get them than one of any other col
or. The reason for this is that black
fox wears an overcoat worth anywhere
from 500 to $3.50, and the man who
captures the fox and sells the pelt Is
pretty sure to get good pay for his hens.
In less than n week every hen man Ill
Whiting Hill had turned fox hunter and
was out With traps, guns and poison.
Every morning and night they devoted
at least an hour to stalking the black
fox, and every day the black fox sneaked
in and carried of all the hens he want
ed. The hen raiscrs caught Avery S dog,
and he caught two of their cats, and all
of them caught plenty of hens, but in
spite of all the Establishments they
could hold out the black fox absolutely
refused TO get into Il trap or eat poison
or expose himself as target for loaded
guns. Meantime the hens kept growing
fewer, until Avery sold out and quit
the business, though he continued to
hunt for the fox whenever he had time.
After the last big rain Avery's cellar
drain refused to carry off the overflow,
and the water backed up until the Gel.
lar was half full. Avery began to dig
from the inside, making 4 hole through
the cellar wall and working down to
see what stopped it up. When Avery
was half way to the outlet, he sent his
boy outside to watch for water while
he gave some vigorous punches with u
long pole. Tho third time he drove the
pole into the drain the water began to
spout, and the boy yelled:
"Oh, father, it's coming. It's black.
It's Observation-Disclosures
Avery looked out of the cellar win
dow in time to see Il very fat and very
wet black fox scamper off to the woods
Then he sat down and said words that
he would thrash his boy for uttering
The fox had been living i'll Avery's eel
lar drain all along and had brought in
so many hens that the accumulated mass
of bones had stopped up the outlet
Whiting Hill (Alc. Letter in New York
SIM