Adopting an Abandoned Farm

ous roosters were sold; and then, supposing the extra eggs to have paid for their keeping and the produce to be worth only a dollar and a half a pair, there would be a cle

ll as this, but merely mention what mi

T ROO

ted largely in prize fowls secured at State fairs and large poultry shows, buying a

nky-brown beauties, just to show what they could do if they chose, then stopped suddenly. I wrote anxiously to former owners of this vaunted stock to explain such disappointing behavior. Some gu

about doing nothing. And when guests desired some of my fine fresh eggs boiled for breakfast, I

snowy, self-supporting fleet on my reformed lakelet, I bought the whole lot, and for long weary months they were fed and pa

his respect. They were always coming up to the back door, clamoring for food-always unappeased. They preferred cake, fresh bread, hot boiled potatoes, doted on tender bits of meat, but would gobble up anything and everything, more voracious and less fastidious than the ordinary hog of commerce. Bags of corn were consumed in a flash, "shorts" were never long before their eager gaze, they went for every kind of nourishment provided for the rest of the menagerie. A goat is supposed

ed to sell something, why those ducks would not lay a single

t lay is because they're too old to liv

ectf

HURL

ic roads, on streets of cities, and on all the lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, and brooks in the country. That is the secret of their lack of progress. What time h

f he had hatched, rather than sold, seventy-two dozen eggs, struck me as wildly apocryphal. Also that caring for said hens and ducks was merely an incident of his day's work on the large farm, he working with his laborers. Heart-sick and indignant, co

ect that a poor young girl had three ducks' eggs given her as the basis of a solid fortune,

in print a profit of $448.69

They gave her sixteen hundred and ninety eggs, of which she

with a longer beard, and his face was haggard, unkempt, anxious. He could scarcely stop to converse, evidently grudged the time, devot

pay you?

mewhat of a bigotist," he s

Crankin-"

makes money, has a sight o' incubators, makes 'em himself, sells a lot, but some say they don't act like his

ducks l

re the pin feathers come; then they're good eatin'-for them as lik

kin s

the voice would have filled a cathedral), "I te

eggs were scarce and high priced, two hundred eggs-hens' eggs, ducks' eggs, goose eggs. The temperature must be kept from 102° to 104°. The lamps blazed up a lit

ed. The eggs were probab

ale very reasonable. Great reduction from original price; shall no

se, and peacocks, and a pair of

d neither lay nor set, I sent to noted poultry fanciers for "settings" of eggs at three dollars per thirteen, then paid a friendly "he

e were drowned in a saucer of milk, some perished because no lard had been rubbed on their heads, others passed away discouraged by too much lard. Several ate rose bugs with fatal results; others were greedy as to gravel and agonized with distended crops till released by death. They had more "sand" than was good

the illusions of youth, until ther

ful old hen with her large family. It is now a wonder to me that any chickens arrive at maturity. Fowls are afflicted with parasitic wrigglers in their poor little throats. The disease is called "gapes," beca

e of truly national importance to find

One man wisely advises: "Fence the garden in and let the chickens run, as the man divided the house with his quarrels

n't read them, or they would have all at once, as J.K. Jerome, the witty playwright, decided he had

Apoplexy. 2. Paralysis. 3. Vert

DIGESTIVE

tism. 2. Cramp. 3. Gout. 4. Leg weakness

ses caused

inju

miscel

ied ills: Homesickness, fits, melancholia, c

and those big Brahmas-don't you know how they were brought up by hand, as you might say, and they know me and hang around the door for crumbs, and that beauty of a Wyandock, you couldn't eat him!" When the matter is decided, as the guillotining is going on, Ellen and I sit listening to the axe thuds and the death squaks, while she wrings her hands, saying: "O dearie me! What a world-the dear Lord ha' mercy on us poor creatures! What a thing to look into, that we must kill the poor innocents to eat them. And they were so tame

ld head off-will soon be too tough"-Ugh! Here Tom comes w

ankin's two diff

e that I must be classed as a "chump." As it contains the secret of succes

makes

of it t

en wh

hang on,