Sam Jones, the chicken-loving man, was as pleased as a boy with a new top when I began to talk of a hen plant.  He had a lot of practical knowledge of the business, for he had failed in it twice; and I could furnish any amount of theory, and enough money to prevent disaster.

In his previous attempts he had invested nearly all his small capital in a plant that might yield two hundred eggs a day; he had to buy all foods in small quantities, and therefore at high prices; and he had to give his whole time to a business which was too small and too much on the hand-to-mouth order to give him a living profit.  My theory of the business was entirely different.  I could plan for results, and, what was more to the point, I could wait for them.  Mistakes, accidents, even disasters, were disarmed by a bank account; my bread and butter did not depend upon the temper of a whimsical hen.  The food would cost the minimum.  All grains and green food, and most of the animal food, in the form of skim milk, would be furnished by the farm.  I meant also to develop a plant large enough to warrant the full attention of an able-bodied man.  I felt no hesitation about this venture, for I did not intend to ask more of my hens than a well-disposed hen ought to be willing to grant.

I do not ask a hen to lay a double-yolk every day in the year.  That is too much to expect of a creature in whom the mother instinct is prominent, and who wishes also to have a new dress for herself at least once in that time.  I do not wish a hen to work overtime for me.  If she will furnish me with eight dozen of her finished product per annum, I will do the rest.  Whatever she does more than that shall redound to her credit.  Two-hundred-eggs-a-year hens are scarcer than hens with teeth, and I was not looking for the unusual.  A hen can easily lay one hundred eggs in three hundred and sixty-five days, and yet find time for domestic and social affairs.  She can feel that she is not a subject for charity, while at the same time she retains her self-respect as a hen of leisure.

I have the highest regard for this domestic fowl, and I would not for a great deal impose a too arduous task upon her.  I feel like encouraging her in her peculiar industry, for which she is so eminently fitted, but not like forcing her into strenuous efforts that would rob her of vivacity and dull her social and domestic impulses.  No; if the hen will politely present me with one hundred eggs a year, I will thank her and ask no more.  Some one will say:  “How can you make hens pay if they don’t lay more than eight dozen eggs a year?  Eggs sometimes sell as low as twelve cents per dozen.”