ESSAY ON REARING TURKEYS. 



16^ 



growth of wealth and population among us. If these state- 

 ments are correct, it follows that poultry may be made a more 

 extensive and profitable part of the animal products of our 

 farms, than they have heretofore been. 



The fowl mania now so prevalent, may to some have the 

 appearance xnore of fancy than utility ; but there will be this 

 benefit growing out of it, that new and valuable breeds of poul- 

 try will be introduced and disseminated. The mania will 

 abate after passing its crisis, if it has not already passed it, 

 while the effects of the excitement will be for the general good. 

 The efforts of those who have evinced so much laudable en- 

 thusiasm in this direction, seem to have been confined princi- 

 pally to the procuring and propagating of pure specimens of the 

 different breeds. Their form, color, and other distinctive 

 properties, have been duly ascertained and promulgated ; but 

 the general management of fowls and their habits, the rearing 

 and fattening of them, with other important particulars tend- 

 ing to make them profitable, have not, as it seems to me, re- 

 ceived their proportionate share of attention. The great ques- 

 tion with a New England farmer — I mean a practical and not 

 a fancy farmer — as to the raising of any animal or crop is, — 

 will it pay ? If he is satisfied that it will, he may be induced 

 to enter npon it, though the fixed habits of most of our farm- 

 ers make them averse to deviate from the beaten and safe path, 

 into new practices however promising. Still, the all powerful 

 influence of a new and successfid example, often compels imi- 

 tation. Thus may be witnessed in particular neighborhoods, 

 particular courses of husbandry, that have been started by some 

 enterprising cultivator, who, perhaps, was considered at first as 

 rash and inconsiderate as was Jared Elliot, when, more than a 

 century ago, he began to reclaim a shaking meadow of forty 

 acres in Guilford woods, Connecticut. " The meadow," he 

 says in his Essays on Field Husbandry in New England, "was 

 deemed so poor that none would take it up. I was pitied as 

 being about to waste a great deal of money, but they comfort- 

 ed themselves that if I spent it unprofitably, others that stood 

 in need of it, would get it." And he adds, with an honest 

 pride in the result of his efforts, " they are of another opinion 

 now." 



