working with the peasants. But 'tis a solemn, almost tragical
experience, not much better than the fate of the Siberian exile. Rise at
dawn; work till dark; eat--go to bed too tired to read a paper;--and no
money in it.

Let these once prosperous farms be given up to Swedish colonies, hard
working and industrious, who can do better here than in their own
country and have plenty of social life among themselves, or let wealthy
men purchase half a dozen of these places to make a park, or two score
for a hunting ground--or let unattached women of middle age occupy them
and support themselves by raising poultry. Men are making handsome
incomes from this business--women can do the same. The language of the
poultry magazines, by the way, is equally sentimental and efflorescent
with that of the speeches at agricultural fairs, sufficiently so to
sicken one who has once accepted it as reliable, as for instance: "The
individual must be very abnormal in his tastes if they can not be
catered to by our feathered tribe." "To their owner they are a thing of
beauty and a joy forever. Their ways are interesting, their language
fascinating, and their lives from the egg to the mature fowl replete
with constant surprises."[1]

[Footnote 1: This clause is true.]

"To simply watch them as they pass from stage to stage of development
fills the mind of every sane person with pleasure." One poultry crank
insists that each hen must be so carefully studied that she can be
understood and managed as an individual, and speaks of his hens having
at times an "anxious nervous expression!"

"Yes, it is where the hens sing all the day long in the barn-yard that