HOW TO RAISE CHICKENS.

Patea Mail, Volume III, Issue 240, 28 July 1877, Page 4

HOW TO RAISE CHICKENS.

We had a good deal of trouble last summer with Pitman’s chickens. As fast as wc would plant anything in our little garden, those chickens of Pitman’s would creep through the fence, scratch out the seeds, fill up, and go home. When the raddish-beds had been ravished in this manner for the fifth time, we complained to Pitman. He was not disposed to interfere. <£ Adder.” he said, ££ 1 tell yon it docs ’em good ; and it does them beds good to bo raked over by chickens. If I have raddishes, give me chickens to scratch around ’em and eat up the worms. Paddishes that haven’t been scratched ain’t worth a cent.” Then we climbed over the fence, with the deteamination to take the law into our own hands. Wo procured a half peck of corn, and two dozen diminutive fish hooks. Fastening the hooks each into a grain of corn, wo tied thin wire to each hook. Then wo scattered the

whole of the com on the raddish-bad and fixed the end of the wires to the biggest sky-rocket we could get. The rocket stood in a frame about ten yards away from the books. That very morning; Pitman’s chickens came over and instantly began to devour the corn. We were ready, and as soon as it was evident that the hooks wore all swallowed, we applied a match to the rocket. It is regarded as probable that no barn-yard fowls that have lived since the days of Noah ever proceeded to the azure vault of heaven with such rapidity ns those did. A fizz, a few ejaculatory cackles, a puff of smoke, and Pitman’s roosters and pullets were swishing around among the celestial constellations without their feathers, and in some doubt respecting the stability of earthly things. Pitman never knew what became of his fowls; but when we read in the the paper next day that twenty-four undone chickens, with fishooks in their craws had been rained down by a hurricane in New Jersey, wo felt certain that the sky-rocket had done its duty. —Max Adder.