_April 22d._
The day is bright and windy. The sky has sunk back to the uttermost,
and the arch seems wonderfully deep above your head. Little
cloud-ships go sailing about in the heavens as busily as if they
carried freight to long-expectant owners. It is a day for the country.
The city palls on the jaded nerve. I long to hear the hens cackle.
There are lively times now in barn and barn-yard, I’ll warrant you. If
I were lying on the east veranda of a cottage that I wot of, I should
see flocks of pure white Leghorns, wind-blown, shining in the
sunlight, searching for a morsel in and out of the shrubbery, and hear
the cocks crowing, and the hens crooning. The Leghorn, of true blood,
leads the race of fowls for continuous eggs, in season and out of
season; eggs large enough, of fine quality, and sprung from hens that
never think of chickens. For a true Leghorn seldom wants to sit. They
believe in division of labor. They provide eggs; others must hatch
them. Other fowls may surpass them on the spit or gridiron, but, as
egg-layers, they easily take the lead. They are hardy, handsome, and
immensely productive. As it is just as easy to keep good fowls as poor
ones, thrifty housekeepers should secure a good laying breed. Not
every pure white fowl is a Leghorn. There are many White Spanish sold
as Leghorns. They may be known by their gray or pearl-colored legs.
The pure Leghorn has a yellow leg, a single comb, quite long and
usually lapping down. This breed is well known about New York, but no
description of it can be found in English poultry-books. Indeed, we
are informed that Tegetmayer, the standard authority, but recently
knew anything about them, and then from a coop sent from New York.
The Brahmas and Cochins have good qualities. They are large, even
huge. They are peaceable, and the Cochins do not _scratch_,—an
important fact to all who have a garden, and who yet desire to let
their poultry run at large. They are good layers, admirable mothers,
and yield a fine carcass for the table, but the meat is not fine,
though fairly good. But a more ungainly thing than buff Cochins the
eye never saw. A flock of Leghorns is a delight to the eye. One is
never tired of watching them. Their forms are symmetrical, and every
motion is graceful. But the huge poddy Cochins waddle before you like
over-fat buffoons. They are grotesque, good-natured, clumsy, useful
creatures; but they have a great love of sitting. Every Cochin hen
would love to bring out two broods in a season; while the white
Leghorns fill their nests with eggs, and then think their whole duty
done. We keep Cochin hens to sit on Leghorn eggs. Better mothers
cannot be.
I hear my hens cackle! These bright spring days are passing, and the
concert of the barn-yard is in full play, but I am tied up to the pen!
Currant-bushes are pushing out their blossom-buds; rhubarb is showing
its red knuckles above the ground; willows are pushing out their silky
catkins; birds have come—everything has come but me! I cannot sprout
yet. Patience! I shall be green enough in a few weeks. The city shall
not always prevail. In due season I shall go to grass. Already I smell
it. The odor of new grass can be perceived but for a few days only in
spring. It should be noticed then, for it is unlike any other perfume,
and will be perceived no more until another year. How happy are they
that dwell among open fields,—or how happy they might be if they but
knew their privileges!