Let no man turn up his contemptuous nose at this Treatise until he has
traced the manifold relations of eggs and capons to cake, company, and
civilization. Banish the barnyard, and the universal aldermanhood
would shrink and grow lean; cup-cakes and sponge-cakes, omelets, whips
and legionary confections, would become mere dreams of remembrance.
Every friend of the trencher, every notable housewife, complacently
glorious amidst stacks of praised and devoured cake, has an interest
in this book. There is, therefore, a certain interest which every
civilized community should take in the progress of the great art of
fowl-breeding.
There are striking analogies, also, which should be noticed by every
comparative psychologist. The doctrine of transmigration has some of
its strongest proofs in the Kingdom of Poultry. The glowing comb, the
haughty carriage, the resplendent tail-feathers, and ostentatious
crowing of the lord of the barn-yard creation, reveals to the
sagacious reasoner either the origin or destination of many other
“lords of creation.”
Nor can one mistake the resemblances traceable in the gentler sex of
hens. Some there are industrious only in scratching and cackling, but
nervous, gadding, restless; never content at home, never so happy as
when at work in a new-made garden, and sagacious always of the very
spots which are most precious in the owner’s eyes. Are these the types
of human busybodies, or are these resemblances only accidental? Others
are discreet, domestic, prolific, useful and happy hens, human and
feathered. Many there are neglectful. Some fowls are laborious
egg-layers, but poor setters; others disdain the pains of laying, but
are quite willing of a leisure summer’s month to set awhile upon other
eggs.
In the management, too, of their families, can any candid man resist
the evidence of resemblances and affiliations between hens and
humanity? Here a hen walks forth from her nest with but a single
chick; the whole farm is too small for her anxious spirit. On this one
precious pledge she bestows more clucking, more research and
scratching, than a discreet old matron of many broods would upon five
annual generations! And after all, what is the little brat good
for—lazy and worked for, but never taught to work, it lives a few
months petted and spoiled—dies of neglect, or is anatomized by some
science-loving weasel! Other, and unnatural hens there are, to whom
the vast brood of peeping, chirping chicks is but a burden. They seem
to have thoughts of their own, and are perplexed and interrupted by
the cares needful for their household. Could we pry into the secrets
of this race, doubtless there would be found to be literary mothers,
too busy for the general good to have much time for special duties. We
cannot stop now to draw out these analogies, so well worthy the study
of mental philosophers; else we should exhibit the distinctions of
rank, race, and culture, in this interesting kingdom. There are nice
questions of pedigree, there are points in relation to feathers and
top-knots, combs and spurs, tail-feathers and wing-feathers,
neck-hackles and toes, which are worthy the attention of any Calhoun
of the barn-yard. The more savory but homely considerations of
fattening, slaying, dressing, selling, stuffing, cooking, carving,
distributing, eating and digestion, must be left to our readers’ own
reflections. Meanwhile, any man that owns a hen, or has a coop in
prospect, may buy this book, certain of his money’s worth.
Book-farming and book-fowling are better than nothing.
[22] Published by A. O. Moore & Co., New York. Price $1 00.