HOW TO RAISE CHICKENS.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 781, 19 June 1877, Page 3

HOW TO RAISE CHICKENS.

Wb had a.-good deal, of trouble last summer -with Pitman's chickens.' As fast as we would plant any thing in our little garden, those chickens of Pittnau's would creep through the fence, soratch out the seeds, fill up, and go home.' When the x'uddishbeds had been ravished in this for the fifth tim^e, we complained to Pitman. He was not disposed tojuterfere. ' Adeler,' he said, * J tell you it does 'eta good.; and it does them beds good to be raked over by ohickens. If I have js_ddishes, give "me chickens to soratch around 'em and cat up the worms. Kaddishes that haven't been scratched ain't woffth a bent.' We climbed over the fence, with the determination to take the law into our own ;hands. We prooured a hair-peck of corn, 'and two dozen diminutive fish-hooks. Fastening the hooks eflach Talo a grain of corn, we tied thin yii'e to each hook. Then we scattered the whole of the corn on the raddish-bed 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 hooks. 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 were all swallowed, we applied a match to the rocket. It is regarded as probable that no bam-yard fowls that have lived since the "days of ; Noah ever proceeded toward ' the azure vault of heaven with such • rapidity as those did. A' fizz, a few ejaculatory cockles, a puff of smoke, and Pitman's roosters and pullets were swishing around among the celestial constellations without their feathers, and in some doubt as to the stability of earthly' things. Pitman never knew what became of his fowls ', but when we read in the' paper next day that tweny-four undone chickens, with fishooks in their craws Lad been" rained down by a hurricane in New Jersey, we felt certain that the skyrocket fiad done its dutyrr-Max Adeler.