Great reduction from original price; shall no doubt be forced to give them away to banish painful recollections.
I also invested in turkeys, geese, and peacocks, and a pair of guinea hens to keep hawks away.
For long weary months the geese seemed the only fowls truly at home on my farm.

They did their level best.

Satisfied that my hens would neither lay nor set, I sent to noted poultry fanciers for "settings" of eggs at three dollars per thirteen, then paid a friendly "hen woman" for assisting in the mysterious evolution of said eggs into various interesting little families old enough to be brought to me.
Many and curious were the casualties befalling these young broods.
Chickens are subject to all the infantile diseases of children and many more of their own, and mine were truly afflicted.

Imprimis, most would not hatch; the finest Brahma eggs contained the commonest barn-yard fowls.

Some stuck to the shell, some 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.