Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-01-18
HEN FEVER
Disease Has to Have Run Like
the Measles.
John Quill APPLY Describes An Ex-
tremeIy Bad Case.
Incubator Finally Blew Up, Owner Is Now
Taking Account Of Stock.

still wondering why it is that every
man. once in Il lifetime, gets the hen
fever. Men who are a fair success in
other lines of business, pretty con-
sentative sort of men who don't go
hunting up some slick Eph 10 sell him
u gold brick, almost invariably trip on
the hen business. But once let the hen
feyer get into mans system and 1t
is as fatal as the Asiatic cholera.
There is no cure for it, at least not
that l have heard of. 1t has to have
its run like the measles. And when a
man energies from "a real good attack
Of hen fever ne is pretty streaked
looking mortal, sort of goose flesh all
over. and really believe you take a
man when the first symptoms show
themselves and put him in the peni-
Tertiary for 10 years or longer and the
very first thing he does when he comes
out is to buy an old Speckled hen and
an incubator and go into the business.
II is sort of mania with them They
can't help il.
Now, / have Il friend, Il hope | have
r.anyl, but this one in particular came
to me some time ago with the pros
pectus CT an incubator concern that
promised all sorts of things. All you
had to do was to put the eggs in one
end and the hens would hop out the
other all ready to eat corn, and man
with one of these incubators could
spend his summers on his yacht,
cruising along the coast. and his WIN
tiers in Southern Italy while his hired
man baled his money up in bundles
ready for the bank.
| The fellow who wrote that prospec-
| rus was a very smooth article and my
| friend who had the hen fever buZzing
in his bonnet swallowed the whole
| thing hook and line. I tried my ut
| termost to convince him that you
couldn't raise pumpkins on buckle
| berry bushes and that the incubator
man was not in business for his health
but was out for the cold cash, not
glory and the bouquet he threw had a
| string attached to it. But l might just
as well have tried to sweep back the
Atlantic ocean with a broom and make
the waters run us hill, for the poor,
guileless boy believed every word i'll
the prospectus and thought the man
must be very modest that he didn't
claim more for the machine
| realized at once that it was a case
of hen fever Of most violent type
and that anything that I could say or
do was like throwing pearls before
swine as his thinking dome was in
flated with Don Quixote ideas and he
could see himself in his minds eye a
rultimillonaire, throwing money to
the birds, founding libraries without
stint and clothing the naked heather
with raglans.
| So he purchased the hatch factory
and launched out as a full fiedged
poultry fancier. He called me over to
see the machine when it arrived. 1t
locked like a miniature Bar Harbor
villa with turrets, baywindows,
verandas. hot and cold water all over
the house and good sized heating APP
paratus in the basement.
The book Of instructions that came
With it was about the size of Web
ster's Unabridged Dictionary and to
the beginner as clear as mud, but my
friend was as enthusiastic as ever and
| after placing the hen sanitarium in
lpcsition in the shed he started in to
wade through that voluminous work
| on How to Raise Hens Without a
Mama and long after other people
had retired and the world was hushed
in sIumber I could see that pickering
light in his room as he labored over
the feathery problem.
But that was only the beginning. He
found as he waded into the depths of
that history of hen culture and his
mind broadened he must have more
advanced literature, so every day or
50 he would send for another load Of
books until his house looked like the
Congressional library at Washington.
He had the History of the Hen from
the Cradle to the Grave How to
Raise Eggs for 10 Cents Dozen"
I'Why Some Eggs Are Good and Others
Just the Reverse and How to Tell the
Difference Without Breaking Them"
Every once in while he would come
over to my den and figure all over the
papers on my desk just to show me,
50 he said. that an incubator could be
made to pay If 1t was run right and
he had got the thing down pat and
was going to start it up just as soon
as the six dozen eggs came that he had
ordered from a concern out in Michi-
gan. In due course of time the hen
fruit arrived. He loaded the old ma
chine up, started his kerosene heat in
the basement and was prepared to do
a Rummage sale business on hens.
But Just then something happened
and the heater cut up some undignified
lcapers not down in the instruction
book. The temperature ran the whole
length of the thermometer scale like a
race horse. He said he guessed it was
la little eccentric. / agreed with him
perfectly. He left me in charge of the
outfit while he disappeared into the
library to look up Rule SIS. page 500.
book V. Presently he returned and
commenced to tinker the machine
while l modestly retired to the back
ground as my faith in incubators is
somewhat limited. But the thing got
down at last on an even keel and act
ed about rational for week
Then she commenced to buck in the
harness again. The eggs got restless
ana got to chasing each other around
the coop. The mercury in the tfer-
mometer went up so high you couldn't
reach 1t with a search warrant. Then
it would go way down just as far the
other way.
had just dropped in after tea the