MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



regard to the fattening of fowls, which I have 

 never had the heart to try. They go beyond 

 the rules of the Strasburg poulterers in harsh- 

 ness; and that elegant heathen Columella, has 

 the effrontery to advise that the legs of young 

 doves be broken, in order to cram them the 

 more quickly. Such suggestions belonged, 

 of right, to a period when Roman ladies — 

 Sabina, and Delia, and Octavia — looked down 

 coolly on gladiators, gashing their lives out 

 with bare sabers, and then lolled home in 

 chariots, to dine on thrushes, fatted in the 

 dark. We, — good Christians that we are, — 

 shudder at thought of such barbarism; we 

 pit no bare-backed gladiators against each 

 other, with drawn swords, in our very pres- 

 ence; but we send armies out, of a hundred 

 thousand in blue and gray, and look at their 

 butchery of each other, very coolly, — through 

 the newspapers, — and dine on pate de foie 

 gras. Of course we have improved some- 

 what in all these ages, since Columella broke 

 pigeons' legs; of course we are civilized; but 

 the devil is very strong in us still. 



IS IT PROFITABLE? 



When I have shown some curious city visitor 

 214 



