Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1901-08-14
HE FOOLED THE HENS.
But the Result Showed that he Could
not Fool Nature.


iAtS.A shS -tSW itEk DuH-l
Until three weeks ago, Silas Wass, of
Beddington, Me-, believed he had made
the greatest discovery of the age. Mr..
Wass draws a pension. AS his quarterly
allowance does not supply all his needs,
he tries to make little money by raising
eggs for the Boston market. His expenses
are so great that he finds little profit in the
eggs.
He calculated that ii every one of his
hens laid 100 eggs year he would come
out even, and that every egg more than 100
was clear profit. He had read great deal
about the 200 egg producing hen in the
poultry papers that he took, and had spent
more money than he could afford to get
the right breed, but the best hen he had
been able to procure would not yield more
than 125 eggs year.
But his studies and experiments had not
been in vain. He observed, among other
thing, that the really good hens always
went to their nest to lay as soon as they
hoped from the roosts in the morning.
Here was an idea worth following up. IL
| hen laid every morning when the days
were twenty four hours long, she would
| no doubt keep up the practice IL she lived
on planet where the days were one half
so long. Therefore he went to work to
| change the length OF the day.
A hen is stupid creature that mistakes
any kind of darkness for night. flock
has been known to go to roost at midday
during total eclipse OF the sun. Hence
he reasoned that If he could have short
night made to order along about noon, the
henslwould take 1t for the real thing and
would conduct business to conform to the
new conditions.
The next time Wass went to Bangor to
shiplhis eggs he brought home great roll
Of curtain stuff, which was made up into
heavy shades and hung on patent rollers
in front OF the windows in the roosting
pens of his fowls. After the hens had
had their breakfast one morning and most
OF the active ones had laid their eggs,
Wass began to pull down the shades, let
ling them drop by degrees. In fifteen
minutes the:hens were grooming to them
selves and going to roost.. As soon as all
were quiet, Wass drew the curtains to the
floor and let them remain for half an
hour.
Then he walked along the pens and let
in ray Of light that set the roosters to
growing. As the curtains went up by de-
the hens flew down and ran to their feed
ing troughs for breakfast. When they
had been fed and watered, most of them
mounted aloft to the nest boxes and
squatted down to lay.
81 was making money hand over fist"
said Wass, sand getting ready to sell
county and State rights for the use of my
great discovery, when my hens began to
shed their feathers and stopped laying. 1t
was cold weather, and lot of them died
before new feathers could grow, because
hens do not shed their feathers in the win
ter when left in state of nature. The
ones that lived grew stiff and dumpy, so
they could hardly move about. They
seemed to have caught the rheumatism.
"When / killed one to cook for the min
lister, the meat was SO tough that nobody
could eat it. Then woke up 10 the fact
that my hens were dying from old age.
They had been living two days to my one,
and were worn out and old by the time
they had ceased to be pullets. l was
sorry things turned out that way, because
/ had made the greatest discovery the
world has ever seen. 1t fooled the hens,
sure enough, but when l tried to honey
fogle old nature met my match and had
to give in"