To Raise Poultry

[Being a letter written to a Poultry Society that had conferred a complimentary membership upon the author.]

Seriously, from early youth I have taken a special interest in the subject of poultry-raising, and so this membership touches me. Even as a schoolboy, poultry-raising was a study with me, and I may say that as early as the age of seventeen I was acquainted with all the best and quickest methods of raising chickens, from raising them by burning matches under their noses, down to lifting them off a fence on a frosty night by putting the end of a warm board under their heels. By the time I was twenty years old, I really suppose I had raised more poultry than any one individual in all the section round about there. The very chickens came to know my talent by and by. The youth of both sexes stopped to paw the earth for worms, and old roosters stopped to crow, when I passed by.

I have had so much experience in the raising of fowls that I cannot but think that a few hints from me might be useful to the society. The two methods I have already touched upon are very simple, and are only used in the raising of the commonest class of fowls; one is for summer, the other for winter.

In the one case you start out with a friend along about eleven o’clock’ on a summer’s night (not later, because in some states – especially in California and Oregon – chickens always wake up just at midnight and crow from ten to thirty minutes, according to the ease or difficulty they experience in getting the public waked up), and your friend carries with him a sack. Arrived at the henroost (your neighbor’s, not your own), you light a match and hold it under first one and then another bird’s nose until they are willing to go into that bag without making any trouble about it. You then return home, either taking the bag with you or leaving it behind, according to the circumstances. N. B. – I have seen the time when it was appropriate to leave the sack behind and walk off with considerable velocity, without ever leaving any word where to send it.

In the case of the other method mentioned for raising poultry, your friend takes along a covered vessel with a charcoal fire in it, and you carry a long slender plank. This is a frosty night, understand. Arrived at the tree, or fence, or other henroost (your own if you are an idiot), you warm the end of your plank in your friend’s fire vessel, and then raise it and ease it up gently against a sleeping chicken’s foot. If the subject of your attention is a true bird, he will return thanks with a sleepy cluck or two.

The Black Spanish is an exceedingly fine bird and a costly one. Thirty-five dollars is the usual figure, and fifty is not an uncommon price for a specimen. Even its eggs are worth from a dollar to a dollar and a half apiece. The best way to raise the Black Spanish fowl is to go late in the evening and raise coop and all. The reason I recommend this method is that, the birds being so valuable, the owners do not permit them to roost around promiscuously, they put them in a coop as strong as a fireproof safe and keep it in the kitchen at night. The method I speak of is not always a bright and satisfying success, and yet there are so many little articles of interest about a kitchen, that if you fail on the coop you can generally bring away something else. I brought away a nice steel trap one night, worth ninety cents.

But what is the use in my pouring out my whole intellect on this subject? I have shown the Western New York Poultry Society that they have taken to their bosom a member who is not a chicken by any means, but a man who knows all about poultry, and is just as high up in the most efficient methods of raising it as the president of the institution himself. I thank these gentlemen for the honorary membership they have conferred upon me, and shall stand at all times ready and willing to testify my good feeling by deeds as well as by this hastily written advice and information. Whenever they are ready to go to raising poultry, let them call for me any evening after eleven o’clock.

The Siamese Twins

I do not wish to write of the personal habits of these strange creatures solely, but also of certain curious details of various kinds concerning them. Knowing the Twins intimately, I feel that I am peculiarly well qualified for the task I have taken upon myself.

The Siamese Twins are naturally tender and affectionate indisposition, and have clung to each other with singular fidelity throughout a long and eventful life. Even as children they were inseparable companions; and it was noticed that they always seemed to prefer each other’s society to that of any other persons. They nearly always played together; and, their mother was so accustomed to this peculiarity, that, whenever both of them chanced to be lost, she usually only hunted for one of them. She knew that when she found that one she would find his brother somewhere in the immediate neighborhood.

As men, the Twins have not always lived in perfect accord; but still there has always been a bond between them which made them unwilling to go away from each other. They have even occupied the same house, and it is believed that they have never failed to even sleep together on any night since they were born. The Twins always go to bed at the same time; but Chang usually gets up about an hour before his brother. Chang does all the indoor work and Eng runs all the errands. This is because Eng likes to go out. However, Chang always goes along. Eng is a Baptist, but Chang is a Roman Catholic; still, to please his brother, Chang agreed to be baptized at the same time that Eng was, on condition that it should not “count.” During the war they were strong partisans, and both fought – Eng on the Union side and Chang on the Confederate. They took each other prisoners at Seven Oaks, but the proofs of capture were so evenly balanced in favor of each, that a general army court had to be assembled to determine which one was properly the captor and which the captive. The jury agreed to consider them both prisoners, and then exchange them.

Upon one occasion the brothers quarreled about something, and Chang knocked Eng down, and then tripped and fell on him. Both began to beat each other without mercy. The bystanders interfered, and tried to separate them, but they could not do it, and so allowed them to fight it out. In the end both were carried to the hospital.

Their ancient habit of going always together had its drawbacks when they grew up, and entered upon the luxury of courting. Both fell in love with the same girl. Each tried to steal clandestine interviews with her, but at the critical moment the other would always turn up. By and by Eng saw that Chang had won the girl’s affection; and, from that day, he had to live with the agony of being a witness to all their cooing. But with a supernatural generosity, he succumbed to his fate, and sat from seven every evening until two in the morning, listening to the fond foolishness and kisses of the two lovers. But he sat patiently, and waited, and yawned for two o’clock to come. And he took long walks with the lovers on moonlight evenings – sometimes walking ten miles, even though he was usually suffering from rheumatism. Eng cordially wanted them married, and done with it; but although Chang often asked the important question, the young lady could not gather sufficient courage to answer it while Eng was by. However, once, after having walked some sixteen miles, and sat up till nearly daylight, Eng dropped asleep from exhaustion, and then the question was asked and answered. The lovers were married. All acquainted with the circumstance applauded the noble brother-in-law. His faithfulness was the theme of every conversation. He had stayed by them all through their long courtship; and when at last they were married, he lifted his hands above their heads, and said, “Bless you, my children, I will never desert you!” and he kept his word. Fidelity like this is all too rare in this cold world.

By and by Eng fell in love with his sister-in-law’s sister, and married her, and since that day they have all lived together, night and day.

The sympathy existing between these two brothers is so close that the feelings and the emotions of the one are instantly experienced by the other. When one is sick, the other is sick; when one feels pain, the other feels it; when one is angry, the other’s temper takes fire.

At the same time, Chang belongs to the Good Templars, and is a hard-working, enthusiastic supporter of all temperance reforms, but every now and then Eng gets drunk, and, of course, that makes Chang drunk too. This has been a great sorrow to Chang. Eng always walks alongside of him in temperance processions, drunk as a lord, yet no more hopelessly drunk than his brother, who has not tasted a drop. And so the two begin to yell, and throw mud and bricks at the Good Templars; and, of course, they break up the procession. It would be wrong to punish Chang for what Eng does, and, therefore, the Good Templars accept the situation, and suffer in silence and sorrow.

There is a moral in these solemn warnings. Let us profit by it.

I could say more of an instructive nature about these interesting beings, but let what I have written suffice.

Having forgotten to mention it sooner, I will remark in conclusion that the ages of the Siamese Twins are fifty-one and fifty-three years.

How I Edited an Agricultural Paper (Once)

I did not take temporary editorship of an agricultural paper without misgivings. But I was in circumstances that made the salary an object. The regular editor of the paper was going off for a holiday, and I accepted the terms he offered, and took his place.

The sensation of being at work again was luxurious, and I worked all the week with pleasure. We went to press, and I waited a day to see whether my effort was going to attract any notice. As I left the office in the evening, a group of men and boys at the foot of the stairs gave me passageway, and I heard one or two of them say: “That’s him!” I was naturally pleased by this incident. The next morning I found a similar group at the foot of the stairs, and couples and individuals standing here and there in the street, and over the way, watching me with interest. I heard one man say, “Look at his eye!” I pretended not to observe the attention I was attracting, but secretly I was pleased with it. I went up the stairs, and heard cheery voices and a laugh as I approached the door. I opened it and saw two young rural-looking men, whose faces went pale when they saw me, and then they both jumped through the window with a great crash. I was surprised.

In about half an hour an old gentleman entered, and sat down at my invitation. He seemed to have something on his mind. He took off his hat and set it on the floor, and got out of it a red silk handkerchief and a copy of our paper.

He put the paper on his lap and said, “Are you the new editor?”

I said I was.

“Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?”

“No,” I said; “this is my first attempt.”

“I thought so. Have you had any experience in agriculture practically?”

“No. I believe I have not.”

“Some instinct told me so,” said the old gentleman, putting on his spectacles, and looking over them at me, while he folded his paper into a convenient shape. “I wish to read you what must have made me have that instinct. Listen, and see if it was you that wrote it: ‘Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree.’ ”

“Now, what do you think of that? – for I really suppose you wrote it?”

“Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I have no doubt that every year millions and millions of turnips are spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition, when, if they had sent a boy to shake the tree… “

“Shake your grandmother! Turnips don’t grow on trees!”

“Oh, don’t they? Well, who said they did? The language was intended to be figurative. Anybody that knows anything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the vine.”

Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small pieces, and stamped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I did not know as much as a cow; and then went out, and, in short, acted in such a way that I felt that he was displeased about something. But not knowing what the trouble was, I could not be any help to him.

Pretty soon after this a long creature, with thin locks hanging down to his shoulders, entered the office and halted, motionless, with finger on lip, and head and body bent in listening attitude. No sound was heard. Still he listened. No sound. Then he turned the key in the door, and tiptoed toward me. He was within long reaching distance of me, when he stopped. He scanned my face with interest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his bosom, and said:

“There, you wrote that. Read it to me, quick! I suffer.”

I read as follows; and as I did so, I could see the anxiety go out of his face:

“The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing it. It should not be imported earlier than June or later than September. In winter it should be kept in a warm place, where it can hatch out its young.

“Concerning the pumpkin. This berry is a favorite with the natives of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who prefer it to the raspberry for feeding cows…

The excited listener sprang toward me to shake hands, and said, “There, there, that will do. I know I am all right now, because you have read it just as I did, word for word. But, stranger, when I first read it this morning, I said to myself, I never, never believed it before, and my friends kept me under watch so strict, but now I believe I am crazy. With that I started out to kill somebody – because, you know, I knew it would come to that sooner or later. I read one of the paragraphs over again, so as to be certain, and then I burned my house down and started. I have crippled several people, and have got one fellow up a tree, where I can get him if I want him. But I thought I would call in here as I passed along and make the thing perfectly certain. And now it is certain, and I tell you it is lucky for the chap that is in the tree. I should kill him, sure, as I go back. Goodbye, sir, good-bye, thank you for the article.”

I felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this person had been entertaining himself with. I could not help feeling remotely related to them. But then the regular editor walked in!

The editor was looking sad and perplexed.

“This is a sad business – a very sad business. The reputation of the paper is injured – and permanently, I fear. True, the paper never sold such a large edition or soared to such celebrity; but does one want to be famous for lunacy? My friend, as I am an honest man, the street out here is full of people, waiting to get a glimpse of you, because they think you crazy. And well they might after reading your editorials. Why, what put it into your head that you could edit a paper of this nature? You do not seem to know anything agriculture. Ah, heavens and earth, friend! I want you to throw up your situation and go. I want no more holiday. Certainly not with you in my chair. It makes me lose all patience every time I think of your discussing oyster-beds under the head of ‘Landscape Gardening.’ Oh! why didn’t you tell me you didn’t know anything about agriculture?”

“Tell you, you cabbage, you son of a cauliflower? I tell you I have been in the editorial business for 14 years, and it is the first time I ever heard of a man’s having to know anything in order to edit a newspaper. You turnip! Who review the books? People who never wrote one. Who criticize the Indian campaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a war-whoop from a wigwam, and who never have had to pluck arrows out of the several members of their families to build the evening camp-fire with. Who write the temperance appeals? Folks who will never draw another sober breath till their grave. Who edit the agricultural papers, you? Men, as a general thing, who fail in the poetry line, novel line, drama line, city-editor line, and finally end up with articles on agriculture. You try to tell me anything about the newspaper business! I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes. I leave, sir. Since I have been treated as you have treated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I have done my duty. I have fulfilled my contract as far as I was permitted to do it. I said I could make your paper of interest to all classes – and I have. I said I could run your circulation up to 20,000 copies, and if I had had two more weeks I’d have done it. You are the loser by this rupture, not me, Pie-plant. Adios.”

I then left.