In 1852 a Boston agricultural journal stated that "within three months extra samples of two-year-old fowls, of the large Chinese varieties, have been sold in Massachusetts at $100 the pair. Several pairs, within our own knowledge, have commanded $50 a pair, within the past six months. Last week we saw a trio of White Shanghaes sold in Boston for $45. And the best specimens of Shanghaes and Cochin-China fowls now bring $20 to $25 a pair, readily, to purchasers at the South and West."
Now, these prices may be looked upon by the uninitiated as extraordinary. So they were for this country. But at a Birmingham (Eng.) show, in the fall of 1852, a single pair of "Seabright Bantams," very small and finely plumed, sold for $125; a fine "Cochin-China" cock and two hens, for $75; and a brace of "White Dorkings," at $40. An English breeder went to London, from over a hundred miles distant, for the sole purpose of procuring a setting of Black Spanish eggs, and paid one dollar for each egg. Another farmer there sent a long distance for the best Cochin-China eggs, and paid one dollar and fifty cents each for them, at this time!
This was keeping up the rates with a vengeance, and beat us Yankees, out and out. But later accounts from across the water showed that this was only a beginning, even. In the winter of 1852 the Cottage Gardener stated that "within the last few weeks a gentleman near London sold a pair of Cochin-China fowls for 30 guineas ($150), and another pair for 32 guineas ($160). He has been offered £20 for a single hen; has sold numerous eggs at 1 guinea ($5) each, and has been paid down for chickens just hatched 12 guineas ($60) the half-dozen, to be delivered at a month old. One amateur alone had paid upwards of £100 for stock birds."
To this paragraph in the Gardener the Bury and Norwich Post added the following: "In our own neighborhood, during the past week, we happen to know that a cock and two hens (Cochin-Chinas) have been sold for 32 guineas, or $160. The fact is, choice birds, well bred, of good size and handsome plumage, are now bringing very high prices, everywhere; and the demand (in our own experience) has never been so great as at the present time."
In this way the fever raved and raged for a long year or more. Shows were being held all over this country, as well as in every principal city and town in England. Everybody bought fowls, and everybody had to pay for them, too, in 1852 and 1853!
In a notice of one of the English shows in that year (1853), a paper says: "There is a pen of three geese weighing forty-eight pounds; and among the Cochin-China birds are to be found hens which, in the period that forms the usual boundary of chicken life, have attained a weight of seven or eight pounds. Of the value of these birds it is difficult to speak without calling forth expressions of incredulity. It is evident that there is a desperate mania in bird-fancying, as in other things. Thus, for example, there is a single fowl to which is affixed the enormous money value of 30 guineas; two Cochin-China birds are estimated at 25 guineas; and four other birds, of the same breed, a cock and three hens, are rated in the aggregate at 60 guineas,—a price which the owner confidently expects them to realize at the auction-sale on Thursday. A further illustration of this ornithological enthusiasm is to be found in the fact that, at a sale on Wednesday last, one hundred and two lots, comprising one hundred and ten Cochin-China birds, all belonging to one lady, realized £369. 4s. 6d.; the highest price realized for a single one being 20 guineas."
Another British journal stated, a short time previously, that "a circumstance occurred which proves that the Cochin-China mania has by no means diminished in intensity. The last annual sale of the stock of Mr. Sturgeon, of Greys, has taken place at the Baker-street Bazaar. The two hundred birds there disposed of could not have realized a less sum than nearly £700 (or $3500), some of the single specimens being knocked down at more than £12, and very many producing £4, £5, and £6 each."
The attention, at this sale, devoted to the pedigree of the birds, was amusing to a mere observer; one fowl would be described as a cockerel by Patriarch, another as a pullet by Jerry, whilst a third was recommended as being the off-spring of Sam. Had the sale been one of horses, more care could hardly have been taken in describing their pedigrees or their qualifications. Many were praised by the auctioneer as being particularly clever birds, although in what their cleverness consisted did not appear. The fancy had evidently extended to all ranks in society. The peerage sent its representatives, who bought what they wanted, regardless of price. Nor was the lower house without its delegates; a well-known metropolitan ex-member seems to have changed his constituency of voters for one of Cochins; and we can only hope that it may not be his duty to hold an inquest on any that perish by a violent or unnatural death. The sums obtained for these birds depended on their being in strict accordance with the then taste of the fancy. They were magnificent in size, docile in behavior, intelligent in expression, and most of them were very finely bred.
And while the hen fever was thus at its height, almost, in England, we were following close upon the footsteps of John Bull in the United States. At the Boston Fowl Show in 1852, three Cochin-Chinas were sold at $100; a pair of Grey Chittagongs, at $50; two Canton Chinese fowls, at $80; three Grey Shanghae chicks, at $75; three White Shanghaes, at $65; six White Shanghae chickens, $40 to $45, etc.; and these prices, for similar samples, could have been obtained again and again.
At this time there was found an ambitious individual, occasionally, who got "ahead of his time," and whose laudable efforts to outstrip his neighbors were only checked by the natural results of his own superior "progressive" notions. A case in point: