The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1899-03-15
THINK OF THE SETTING HEN,
And Know What a Mystery Of Mysteries
She Is.
Boston Erening Transcript.
She Is.

is CHt Ou1y Oue 1Ado VIII lay 066o M uSAo
winter when they are worth fifty
cents a dozen. The chicken that
is born on or before the first day Of
March is worth dozens born in May or
June, when all the hens want to set.
The trouble is to find the hen who is
inclined to incubation in the month OF
February. Generally speaking, she
must be March chicken herself;
therefore to have March chickens, you
must first have March chickens. 1t
is like the great economic propositions:
To make money you must have money
to make il with. However, it is not
necessary to inherit March pullets;
they car be acquired at reasonable
rates; and every practical hen keeper
aside from those wholesale gentle
men who can devote all their time and
attention to the monumental task OF
making incubators incubate, and who
are consequently independent of the
natural means of incubation-will tell
you that the early-born pullet who is
under sort Of natural compulsion to
lay early herself, is, even when of no
breed 3at all, Of more value than the
high-bred fowl who declines to lay
any eggs until the balmy springtime
has come and eggs can be bought for
l5,cants dozen.
The eccentricities Of the setting
hen are beyond all account. No power
on earth or heaven can prevent certain
hens from setting half their lives.
They will set on good eggs OF bad
eggs, on china eggs, on stones, on
sticks, on nothing at all. Turned out
Of one place, they will set in any
other. By actual experiment a GER
tain Plymouth Rock (of whose breed
one of the many noble qualities is
broodines) persisted in setting for six
weeks running, though she was given
no eggs at all and was treated with
the greatest contumely, being moved
from pillar to post and afflicted with
sharp-cornered cobblestones, and daily
driven away with violence from her
pathetic attempt to convert these ig-
nominious rocks into the noble ones
Of Plymouth, At the end Of the six
weeks she did give UP further setting,
but she appeared to entertain no
grudge on account of her treatment,
and would on occasion come and eat
out Of the hands of her late tormen-
tors. It was in the autumn when she
made this Quixotic attempt, and she
had already in this same year brought
off two Gne broods Of chickens-one
in early March and the other in June.
Other hens will never set at all.
The white Minorcas-those hens with
great combs, which look exactly like
roosters and are called "Catalans' by
the Spanisb-wifl lay perhaps more
eggs in year than any other sort of
hen, and lis unlikely that any one Of
them was ever known to hatch brood
Of chickens. The Minorcas will, IN
deed, sometimes begin to set, but they
seem to be under the impression that
three days ought to be, in all con-
science, long enough time in which
to hatch out an egg, and at the expi-
ration Of about that time they will
abandon the attempt with a great hut-
ter and much denunciatory oratory.
If they are fastened down on the nest
with a board placed above their backs,
they will stand up as high as they can
under the board and let the cold air
addle their eggs. 1t is doubtful it
ever any human being, male or female,
wicked or pious, Christian or pagan,
ever got through without profanity an
attempt to make Minorca hen set.
There are other breeds of non-setters,
which are not merely too numerous
but too contemplate to mention. The
Plymouth Rock will not lay so many
eggs in year as the Minorca, but she
will lay what she does lay when you
want them, and she will perpetuate
her kind.
Strange to say, another kind Of hen
that makes good.mother is the game
. hen. She seems to be engaged in an
attempt to prove thata certain amount
Of Amazonianism is not inconsistent
with proper regard for the duties of
motherhood \ very peaceful gentle
man, not unconnected with the work
Of the Humane Society, moved into
the country three or four years ago.
Having occasion to purchase two or
THEE settings Of eggs he bought one
Of a good working woman. who lived
on the outskirts of the town. and who