The progressive farmer and the cotton plant., 1905-02-14
PRACTICAL POULTRY TALKS.
I-Introducing the Writer to His Readers.

GTmllIC ILLS w OPOh q 0A1 OAuA-h AL
the benefit of all readers of The Progressive
Farmer and Cotton Plant who are interested in
better poultry, and more of it-a subject that
every one who owns or works an acre of ground,
or who even has a fair sized city lot, should be
interested in, as there is no industry that will pay
a better margin of profit than poultry, if proper
" managed, either a few hens on a small lot or
a large farm devoted to poultry.
And now for just a little bit of ancient his
tory by way of introduction to all those who
peruse in subsequent issues this poultry column,
so that you may be able In a general way to know
the manner of man writing these articles. Well,
about fifteen years ago Cor to be more exact, N
the winter of $780,, when / had arrived at the
age where some one recently said a man should
retire from active business life ii. e., thirty-ive
years, which, by the by, is all bosh), / was seized
with the desire to leave town and "seek a lodge In
some vast wilderness" "far, far from the madden
ing crowd" there to r~usticate and grow wise, and
incidentally raise garden sass" for the hungry
Charlotte people.
Think when this desire first took hold, I was
suffering from a bad case of disordered liver, and
a fit of the blues, owing, no doubt, to bad collec-
tions in business. Had that stirred feeling" but
strange to say, have never had a recurrence of
that feeling: don't have time to "brood"Iet the
hens do that. 1t keeps me hustling early and
late looking after our garden, chickens, hogs and
cows. Oh, no, we don't grow cotton; cannot af-
ford it. We get too and three crops off our land
in a season, while with cotton, you only get one.
Besides, I don't know much about cotton as / was
born in a State where tobacco, corn and hay
were the principal crops.
Well, when we mentioned to our seven-eighths
that we thought of moving to the country, she
was delighted, as she was raised on the farm.
And, to make a long story short, we moved to
the country, four miles from town, and early In
the spring started gardening operations. Of
course we bought up a few SCRUB" hens so we
would have lots of fresh eggs. As / had never
plowed a furrow In my life, you can imagine
what uphill work it was; but with valuable assist
ance from my seven-eighths, and a few suggestions
from the hired boy, we managed to get our gar
den in good fix and planted.
But one day while in town looking up some gar
den seed / CHANGED across a copy of a poultry
journal published in Massachusetts,. That night
by the light of the "dip," / read every line in
that book, advertisements and all; my seven
'eighths rowed with me for burning the "mid-
night oil" (dip, / mean). Next morning I felt
queer, kept repeating to myself a few lines /
had read in the journal the night before, to the
effect that a Mr.. Winter had sold one of his win
ming Brown Leghorn cockerels didn't know then
what a cockerel was, but supposed it was a chick
en- of some kind) to Mr.. Yoder for $50, and it was
not considered a high price. AT noon / could not
eat my dinner, moped around all afternoon, and
by night was convinced that / had a bad case of
hen fever, and the only remedy was to humor it.
So I looked over the poultry journal again and
found a man Che now has a worldwide reputation
for high-class stock) was offering eggs the balance