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The History of the Hen Fever. A Humorous Record
"The two cocks above delineated weighed between ten and eleven pounds each at six months old; the pullets drew seven and a half to nine pounds each at seven to eight months old; the original imported pair of old ones now weigh upwards of twenty-three pounds, together. In the existing rage for weighty birds, this variety will naturally satisfy the ambition of those who go for the 'biggest kind' of fowls!
"The group represents this variety with accuracy, and are, without doubt, for their kind, rare specimens of the genuine gallus giganteus of modern ornithologists. As Her Majesty has long been known among the foremost patrons of that agreeable branch of rural pursuits, poultry-raising, we do not doubt but that this splendid present from Mr. Burnham will prove highly gratifying to her tastes in this particular."
Portraits of these fowls appeared in Gleason's Pictorial for January, 1853, and the editor spoke as follows of them:
"The Grey Shanghae Fowls lately presented to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, of Great Britain, by George P. Burnham, Esq., of Boston, were extraordinary specimens of domestic poultry, and were bred the past season by Mr. Burnham from stock imported by him direct from China. They were universally admitted, by the thousands who saw them before they left, to be the largest and choicest-bred lot of chickens ever seen together in this vicinity. These fowls were from the same broods as those lately sent to Northby, of Aldborough, by Mr. Burnham, who is, perhaps, the most successful poultry-raiser in America; and while these beautiful birds are creditable to him as a breeder, they are a present really 'fit for a queen.'"
The New York journals alluded to them in flattering terms, during their transit through that city on the way to their destination; and the numerous orders that crowded in upon me was the best evidence of the estimation in which this variety of domestic fowls was then held, as well as of the determined disposition of "the people" to be supplied from my "pure-bred stock."
By one of the British steamers, in the summer of 1853, the express of Edwards, Sanford & Co., took out to Europe from my stock, for Messrs. Bakers, of Chelsea, Baily, of London, Floyd, of Huddersfield, Deming, of Brighton, Simons, of Birmingham, and Miss Watts, Hampstead, six cages of these "extraordinary" birds. The best of the hens weighed nine to nine and a half pounds each, and three of the cocks drew over twelve pounds each! There were forty-two birds in all, which, together, could not be equalled, probably, at that time, in America or England, for size, beauty and uniformity of color. The sum paid me for this lot of Greys was eight hundred and seventy dollars.
Of the three fowls sent to Mr. John Baily (above mentioned), and which he exhibited in the fall of that year in England, the following account reached me, subsequently:
"Mr. Geo. P. Burnham, of Melrose, sent out to England, last fall, to Mr. John Baily, of London, a cage of his fine 'Grey Shanghaes,' which were exhibited at the late Birmingham Show. The London Field of Dec. 24th says that 'one pair of these fowls, from Mr. Burnham, of the United States, the property of Mr. Baily, of Mount-street, were shown among the extra stock, and were purchased from him, during the exhibition, by Mr. Taylor, of Shepherd's Bush, at one hundred guineas' ($500)!"
This was the biggest figure ever paid for two fowls, I imagine! Mr. Baily paid me twenty pounds sterling for the trio, and I thought that fair pay, I remember. The following brief account of my trade for the year of our Lord 1853, I published on the last day of December of that year, for the gratification of my numerous friends, and for the information of "the people" who felt an interest in this still exciting and (to me) very agreeable subject:
"Eds. Boston Daily Times: In a late number of your journal you were pleased to allude to the sales of live-stock made by me latterly. At the close of the present year, I find upon my books the following aggregate of sales for 1853, which – to show how much has been done by one dealer – may be interesting to some of your readers who 'love pigs and chickens.'
"I have sent into the Southern and Western States, through Adams & Co.'s Express alone, from Jan. 1st to Dec. 27th, 1853, a little rising $17,000 worth of Chinese fowls and fancy pigs. By Edwards, Sanford & Co.'s Transatlantic Express, in the same period, I have sent to England and the continent about $2000 worth of my 'Grey Shanghaes.' By Thompson and Co. and the American Western Express Co., I have sent west and south-west, in the same time, over $1200 worth; and my minor cash sales (directly at my yards in Melrose) have been over $1000; making the entire sales from my establishment for the past year nearly or quite twenty-two thousand dollars in value. Of this amount, $7300 worth has been sold since the 10th of Sept last.
"By the first steamer that leaves New York in January, '54, I shall send to New Orleans (to a single customer) between five and six hundred dollars' worth, ordered a few days since. I have also now in hand three large orders to fill for Liverpool and London, immediately; and the present prospect is that the poultry-trade will be considerably better next year than we have ever yet known it in New England. Wishing you and my competitors in the trade a 'Happy New Year,' I am theirs and yours, truly,
"Geo. P. Burnham."Melrose, Dec. 30, 1853."
I have offered these statistics and facts to give some idea of the amount of trade that must have been current, in the aggregate, when these isolated instances are considered, and for the purpose of affording the reader an opportunity to judge measurably to what an extent this fever really raged.
Thousands and tens of thousands of "the people" were now (or had been) engaged in this extraordinary excitement, who were continuously humbugging themselves and each other, at round cost. And when these thousands are multiplied by the fives or tens, twenties or fifties, one hundreds or five hundreds of dollars, that they invested in this mania, the "prime cost" of this hum can be fancied, though it can never be known with accuracy.
CHAPTER XXI.
EXPERIMENTS OF AMATEURS
The newspapers of the day were now occupied with speculative and actual statistics, of various kinds, relating to the utility and value of poultry and its produce, and every one seemed to join, in his or her way, to magnify the vastness of this enterprise; and statements like the following, in respectable public journals, had the effect to increase and keep up to fever-heat the state of the hen malady:
"By reference to the agricultural statistics of the United States, published from reliable sources in 1850, it may be seen that the actual value of poultry, in New York State alone, was two millions three hundred and seventy-three thousand and twenty-nine dollars! Which was more than the value of all the swine in the same state; nearly equal to one half the value of its sheep, the entire value of its neat cattle, and nearly five times the value of its horses and mules!"
The amount of sales of live and dead poultry in Quincy Market, Boston, for the year 1848, said another paper, was six hundred seventy-four thousand four hundred and twenty-three dollars: the average sales of one dealer alone amounting to twelve hundred dollars per week for the whole year. The amount of sales for the whole city of Boston, for the same year, was over one million of dollars. The amount of sales of eggs in and around the Quincy Market for 1848 was one million one hundred and twenty-nine thousand seven hundred and thirty-five dozen, which, at eighteen cents per dozen, makes the amount paid for eggs to be two hundred three thousand three hundred and fifty-two dollars and thirty cents; while the amount of sales of eggs for the whole city of Boston, for the same year, was a fraction short of one million of dollars; the daily consumption of eggs at one of its hotels being seventy-five dozen daily, and on Saturday one hundred and fifty dozen.
At this time, a single dealer in the egg-trade, at Philadelphia, sent to the New York market, daily, one hundred barrels of eggs; while the value of eggs shipped from Dublin to Liverpool and London was more than five millions of dollars for the year 1848.
In addition to these facts, frequent allusions were made to the enormous quantities required for other markets, in the interior, to supply which the number of laying hens must be kept good, and increased, as the demand for the eggs was constantly augmenting, and the business, "if skilfully and judiciously managed" (said the agricultural papers), must prove immensely profitable to those who engage in it.
If "skilfully and judiciously managed"! This was good advice. But no one could inform "the people" how this management was to be effected. In the mean time, every sort of experiment was resorted to, by amateurs and fanciers and humbugs (who had been humbugged), to "improve" the breeds of poultry, and to produce new fowls that would lay two or three or four eggs for one, as compared with the old-fashioned birds.
We knew one beginner who had purchased a pretty little place a few miles from the city, who contracted the fever, and "suffered" badly, but who was cured by the following curious result of his early experiments. Eggs were scarce (genuine ones), and, after considerable searching, he finally procured of some one in Boston a clutch of "fancy" eggs, for which he paid big figures, but which did not turn out exactly what he anticipated; and so he concluded, after a time, that the hen fever was a rascally hum. (He didn't procure these eggs of me, be it understood. I never had any but genuine ones!)
He purchased what he was assured were pure "Cochin-China" eggs. (Perhaps they were – who knows?) And after waiting patiently for six long weeks for the "curious" eggs to hatch, he found six young ducks in his coop, one morning! – So much for his knowledge of eggs!
But this was not so bad as was the case of one of his neighbors, however, who paid a round price for half a dozen choice eggs, queer-looking speckled eggs – small, round, "outlandish" eggs – which he felt certain would produce rare chicks, and which he was very cautious in setting under his very best hen.
At the end of a few days he was startled, at the breakfast-table, to hear his favorite hen screaming "bloody murder" from within the coop! He rushed to the rescue, raised the box-lid, and found her still on the nest, but in a frightful perturbation – struggling, yelling and cackling, most vociferously.
He spoke to her kindly and softly; he would fain, appease and quiet her; for there was great danger lest, in her excitement and struggles, she would destroy the favorite eggs – those rare eggs, which had cost him so much money and trouble. But soft words were vain. His "best" hen continued to scream lustily, and he raised her from the nest to look into the cause of the trouble more critically. His astonishment was instantaneous, but immense; and his surprise found vent in the brief but expressive exclamation, "Turkles – by thunder!"
Such was the fact. This poor, innocent poultry-"fancier" was the victim of misplaced confidence. The party who sold him them eggs had sold the buyer shockingly! And instead of a brood of pure Cochin-Chinas, he found that his favorite hen had hatched half a dozen pure mud-turtles, all of which, upon breaking from the shells, seized upon the flesh of the poor fowl, and had well-nigh taken her life before they could be "choked off." He has given up the chicken-trade, and has since gone into the dwarf-pear business. Poor devil!
A youthful lawyer of my acquaintance, away Down East, who was proverbial for his "sharp practice" at the bar, met with a young doctor, who was a great bird-fancier, and with whom he subsequently formed an intimate acquaintance. Our medicinal friend owned a pretty little estate; distant a few miles from the city of P – , where he kept up a very neat establishment, which was thoroughly appointed. Among his out-of-door appurtenances, he maintained a modern bee-house, a choice dove-cot, and a well-selected aviary; in the latter he had some choice poultry, and into this the doctor invited his legal associate, one day, to examine his specimens of cacklers and crowers.
There was a super-excellent "Bother'em" fowl among this collection, – a rare hen, the many good qualities of which the doctor dilated on (as he always did before his visitors), and the lawyer took a fancy to the beauty, instanter; but this fowl was a great favorite, and the doctor would neither sell, lend, or give her away; and then the visitor begged some of her eggs, as a last favor. But the doctor was selfish in regard to this particular bird – he wanted the breed exclusively to himself. It was of no avail, however, and his friend promised to embrace the first opportunity to steal the hen, and all the eggs he could find, if his request were not complied with; whereupon the doctor at length reluctantly promised to send him a dozen within a week, provided he said nothing about it. He would do it for him, as a particular favor – and so he was as good as his word.
The young lawyer had his poultry-yard, also; and, selecting a fine hen, he quickly set her upon the choice Bother'em eggs, resolved to have as good a show as his neighbor. But three weeks passed – four, and upwards – but no chickens appeared! He broke up the nest, at last, and then called upon the doctor at once.
"What luck, Tom?"
"Not a chick!"
"No!"
"Not a one. The eggs weren't good."
"No? That is queer," continued the doctor, "when I took so much extra pains with 'em."
"Extra pains – how?"
"Why, I boiled every one of 'em, the last thing before I sent 'em down to you!"
And so he did. Tom grinned, squirmed, and went home, – but that wasn't the last of this joke.
Six months afterwards, the keen-witted doctor visited the lawyer's little place, where he saw a magnificent large Bucks County rooster stalking about in the latter's yard.
"By Jove, Tom! That's a rouser," exclaimed the doctor, enthusiastically, "'pon my word! Where d'you get him?"
"Pennsylvania – Buxton's; a fine fellow that. Only eight months old."
"Will you sell him?"
"Yes – no; I reckon not, on the whole."
"I'll give you an X for him."
"Well, take him. He's worth twenty dollars; but you shall have him for ten dollars, being an old friend."
The doctor placed the huge crower in his gig immediately, went home, killed off two of the finest Dorking roosters in the county, and put the new comer into his nice poultry-house; congratulating himself upon having at last secured a "tip-top breeder," and nothing else.
At the end of the season, however, he complained to his friend the lawyer that he had had but very few eggs latterly; he could raise no chickens from them – not a one; and he didn't think much of the ten-dollar bird he purchased of him, any way.
"He's a rouser, Bill, surely," said the lawyer, with a knowing smirk, repeating the doctor's exclamation on first beholding the rooster.
"Well, yes – large, large – but – "
"And a finer capon I never sold to anybody in my life!"
"A what!" screamed the doctor, springing towards his horse, which stood near by.
"What's the price of b'iled eggs, Bill?" roared the lawyer, in reply.
"Ten dollars a dozen, by thunder!" was the answer, as the doctor drove his rowels into the sides of his nag, and dashed away from his friend's gate a wiser if not a better man.
Many amateur poultry-raisers resorted to the most ridiculous and injurious shifts for remedies against the ills that hen-flesh is heir to. I have known certain friends who passed two or three hours every morning in running about their fowl-premises with pill-box and pepper-cup in hand, zealously dosing their drooping chickens, to their certain destruction. And some of the "doctors" went into jalap, in cases of colds, fevers, &c., in their fowls. We should as soon think of using arsenic, or any other poison, under such circumstances. The internal formation of a hen is scarcely believed to resemble that of a human being, surely; and why such medicinal applications, pray? This reminds us of a private joke, by the way, that was "let out" by a young fancier (out West) a little while ago.
He had a bad cold himself, and had mixed "summat hot" to swallow, one evening. His servant informed him that his favorite Cochin-China crower had been ill for a day or two; and he ordered twenty grains of jalap to be prepared for his fine bird. By some mistake his toddy was given to the crower, and he swallowed the hen-medicine himself, and retired to bed.
He slept soundly for a time, but was visited with shocking dreams. He fancied himself to be a huge rooster – one of the biggest kind; that he had taken all the premiums at all the shows, and that he had finally been set to hatch over a bushel of Shanghae eggs. It was the twentieth day, at last, and the chickens commenced to come forth from their shells beneath him. He dare not move, – his fowl-cure was at work, – and his critical position, for the time being, can be better imagined than portrayed. With a desperate effort, and a shrieking crow, he at length sprang from his couch, dashed out of doors, and, since the day afterwards, has resolved to eschew the use of jalap among his poultry, – a determination which, in all candor, we recommend earnestly to the hen-Galens who imagine that a hen is "a human."
It had now become an every-day occurrence to hear of black chickens emerging from what were "warranted" pure white fowls' eggs; top-knot birds peeped forth from the eggs of pure-bred anti-crested hens; and all colors and shapes and varieties of chickens, except those that they were purchased for, made their appearance about the time of hatching the eggs so bought.
All the old-fashioned fowls were utterly discarded. Cochin-Chinaism, Shanghae-ism, Bother'em Pootrumism, was rampant. The fancy egg-trade had begun to fall off sensibly. "The people" had had enough of this part of the enterprise, which was destined to prove so "immensely profitable," if "judiciously and skilfully managed;" and the price was reduced to the miserable sum of three to five dollars a dozen, only, as customers chanced to turn up.
From the commencement of the trade, in 1849, down to the month of August, 1853, I had a continued and certain sale, however, for every egg deposited upon my premises, at my price.
But this, though an exception, was not to be wondered at. I kept and raised only the "genuine" article.
CHAPTER XXII.
TRUE HISTORY OF "FANNY FERN."
I was riding through Brookline, Mass., one fine afternoon, on my round-about way home from a fowl-hunting excursion in Norfolk County, when my attention was suddenly attracted by the appearance and carriage of the most extraordinary-looking bird I ever met with in the whole course of my poultry experience.
I drew up my horse, and watched this curiosity for a few minutes, with a fowl-admirer's wonder. It was evidently a hen, though the variety was new to me, and its deportment was very remarkable. Her plumage was a shiny coal-black, and she loitered upon a bright-green bank in the sunshine, at the southerly side of a pretty house that stood a few yards back from the road. She was rather long-legged, and "spindle-shanked," but she moved about skippingly and briskly, as if she were treading upon thin egg-shells. Her feet were very delicate and very narrow, and her body was thin and trim; but her plumage – that glossy, jet-black, brilliant feathery habit – was "too much" for my then excited "fancy" for beautiful birds; and I thought I had never seen a tip-top fowl before.
As I gazed and wondered, this bird observed me coquettishly, and, raising herself slightly a tip-toe, she flapped her bright wings ludicrously, opened her pretty mouth, and sent forth a crow so clear and sharp, and so utterly defiant and plucky, that I laughed outright in her face. I did. I couldn't help it.
She noticed my merriment, and instantly flap went those glittering wings again, and another shout – a very shriek of a crow, a termagant yell of a crow – rang forth piercingly from the lungs of my sable but beautiful inamorata.
This second crow was full of fire, and daring, and challenge, and percussion. It seemed to say, as plainly as words could have uttered it, "Who are you? What you after? Wouldn't you like to cage me up —s-a-y?"
I laughed again, wondered more, stared, and shouted "Bravo! Milady, you are a rum 'un, to be sure!" And again she hopped up and crowed bravely, sharply, maliciously, wildly, marvellously.
I was puzzled. I had heard of such animals before. I had read in the newspapers about Woman's Rights conventions. I had seen it stated that hens occasionally were found that "crowed like a cock." But I had never seen one before. This was an extraordinary bird, evidently.
There it went again! That same shrill; crashing, challenging crow, from the gullet of the ebon beauty before me. O, what a crow was that, my countrymen! I resolved to possess this bird, at any cost. And I was soon in communication with the gentleman who then had her.
"Is this your hen, sir?" I inquired. And I think the gentleman suspected me, instanter.
"Yes," he answered. "That is, I support her."
"Will you sell her?"
"No – no, sir."
"I will give you ten dollars for her."
Crack! Crash! Whew! went that crow, again. I was electrified.
"I'll give you fifteen – "
"No, sir."
"Twenty dollars, then."
"No."
"What will you take for her?"
"Hark!" he replied. "Isn't that music? Isn't that heavenly?"
"What is that?" I asked, eagerly.
"My hen."
"What is she doing?"
"Singing," said the gentleman.
"Beautiful!" I responded. "I will give you forty dollars for her."
"Take her," replied her keeper. "She is yours."
"What breed is it?" I inquired.
"Spanker," said the gentleman, "but rare. It is one of Ellett's importation – genuine."
"Remarkable pullet!" I ventured.
"Hen, sir, hen," insisted the stranger.
I paid him forty dollars down, and seized my prize, though she proved hard to catch.
"She's much like the Frenchman's flea, sir," said her previous possessor. "Put your finger on her, and she's never there. Feed her well, however, keep her in good quarters, let her do as she pleases, and she'll always crow – always, sir. Hear that? You can't stop her, unless you stop her breath. She always crows and sings. There it is again! Isn't that a crow, for a hen – eh?"
It was, indeed.
"Good-day," said the Brookline gentleman, quietly pocketing his money. "Fanny will please you, I've no doubt."
"Fanny?" I queried.
"Yes; I call her 'Fanny Fern,'" said the stranger to me, as I entered my wagon; and, half an hour afterwards, my forty-dollar cock-hen, "Fanny Fern," was crowing again furiously, lustily, magnificently, on the bright-green lawn beneath my own parlor-windows.
"Fanny" proved a thorough trump. Bantams, Games, Cochins, Dorkings, Shanghaes, Bother'ems, were nowhere when "Fanny" was round. She could outcrow the lustiest feathered orchestra ever collected together in Christendom. She was a wonder, that redoubtable but frisky, flashy, sprightly, sputtery, spunky "Fanny Fern."
And didn't the boys run after her? Well, they did! And didn't they want to buy her? Didn't they bid high for her, at last? Didn't everybody flock to see her, and to hear "Fanny" crow? And didn't she continue to crow, too? Ah! it was heaven, indeed (and sometimes the other thing), to listen to "Fanny's" voice.
When "Fanny" opened her mouth, everybody held their breath and listened. "Fanny" crowed to some purpose, verily! She crowed lustily against oppression, and vice, and wrong, and injustice; and she crowed aloud (with her best strength) in behalf of injured innocence, and virtue, and merit, exalted or humble.