The History of the Hen Fever. A Humorous Record

Another round of hearty cheers succeeded this sentiment, a parting bumper was enjoyed, and the circle separated, to meet again at Philippi, – or elsewhere, – where the author hopes to encounter only friendly faces, whatever may have been his business relations with his acquaintances in the days that are now passed away.

The mania is over. I have frankly repeated to you the humble history of this curious fever, and we have reached

THE END

notes

1

After a hen had set over four weeks on her nest, I should suppose she might have been thus affected!

2

O, the cannibal!

3

I never heard from this customer again, and should now be glad to know if he ever got his "munney"!

4

Here was a "lawyer," who knew the difference between a Cochin-China and a Shanghae!

5

This was the kind of gentleman I loved to fall in with.

6

Some persons would consider this personal!

7

I would liked to have seen the dealer that could "fule" this customer more than "twict."

8

I informed this purchaser that I could send him a pair which, if they "couldn't eat off the tops" of his flour-barrels, I'd warrant would eat up the contents of one as quickly as he could desire!

9

"This gigantic bird," says Richardson, a noted English writer, "is very prolific, frequently laying two, and occasionally three eggs on the same day!" And, in support of this monstrous assertion, he subsequently refers, as his authority for this statement (which was called in question), to the "Rt. Hon. Mr. Shaw, Recorder of Dublin, to Mr. Walters, Her Majesty's poultry-keeper, and to J. Joseph Nolan, Esq., of Dublin." This was, in my opinion, one of the hums of the time, and I never had occasion to change that opinion. I do not believe the hen that really laid two eggs in one day ever lived to do it a second time! I have heard of this thing, however. But I never knew of the instance, myself.

10

I never found, in my limited experience in this business, any particular necessity for attempting to prove anything. "The people" wanted fowls – not proofs!

11

I trust that this association may not be confounded with the "Fort Des Moines Iowa Company." The difference will plainly be seen, of course.

12

This article was originally published in the New York Spirit of the Times, substantially, and was afterwards issued in an edition of my fugitive literary productions, by Getz & Buck, of Philadelphia, in a volume entitled "Stray Subjects."

13

This was the kind of customer I met with occasionally, and whom I always took at his word. The gentleman who "didn't care about price" was always the man after my own heart.

14

Certainly – of course. The express agents had nothing else to do but to "feed and water" fowls "three times a day" on the way!

15

We have found it a very comfortable "rage," thank you!

16

Since this was written, I find in the Country Gentleman a communication from L.F. Allen, Esq., on this very subject, in which he says that "A correspondent desires to know how to build a chicken-house for 'about one thousand fowls.' If my poor opinion is worth anything, he will not build it at all. Fowls, in any large number, will not thrive. Although I have seen it tried, I never knew a large collection of several hundred fowls succeed in a confined place. I have known sundry of these enterprises tried; but I never knew one permanently successful. They were all, in turn, abandoned." The thing is entirely impracticable.