WAY BACK WHEN
(The Spirit is pleased to share with our readers vignettes of life in the 19th century as originally reported in past issues of the newspapers. These reproduced stories include their original headlines.)
March 4, 1896 An Industrious Hen
Walter Brown, of this place, is an admirer of gallinaceous fowls, commonly called sultry, and what he doesn’t know about the rearing of chicks and the care of hens is scarcely worth knowing. He has a large number of hens, and they lay eggs just as regularly and industriously in the winter as in the gentle spring. “In the morning,” Mr. Brown says, “I feed my hens bran mash, nice and warm. At noon I give them wheat, and for supper the menu is shelled corn. Another thing, I never permit my hens to run around at night. I insist upon them going to bed early. A hen that gets into the habit of keeping late hours will not yield much fruit, and will soon take on a haggard and worn-out appearance. Speaking of setting hens,” continued Mr. Brown, “I have a hen that hatched out four settings of eggs last summer consecutively. I then loaned her to a neighbor and she hatched out two more. That was eighteen consecutive weeks of setting. And she didn’t seem to mind it, either. She wore a contented look all the time, and seemed to say by her actions: “Bring on your eggs. Don’t be alarmed about me. Hatching out eggs is my forte.” And that hen kept fat and high-spirited all the time. Some hens will droop, and look careworn and weary after fetching out a few families of chicks, but this one don’t. She thrives on it. And it’s all on account of my treatment of her. I take her off the nest every day, give her some exercise and corn meal, and a good drink of water. I attribute her cheerful disposition to that.”
March 11, 1896 Florida on Wheels
“Florida on Wheels,” a magnificent car, built at a cost of $20,000 in the Florida woods, and constituting the finest exhibit at the Atlanta Exposition, will be at the P. & N. W. Depot, Punxsutawney, on Friday and Saturday, March 20 and 21; at Fordham, Thursday, March 19, and Horatio, Monday, March 23, and Lindsey Tuesday, March 24. The car contains a wonderful exhibition of Florida’s fruits and flowers, alligators and other tropical beauties, and is under the special supervision of Wanton H. Webb, Director General of the Florida Sub Tropical Exposition, and is well worth seeing. An admission fee of ten cents for adults and five cents for children is charged to help defray expenses.