94 LIFE OF TEGETMEIEK 



Probably the subjects in connection with 

 poultry through which Tegetmeier was best 

 known to the general public were his antagonism 

 to poultry farming and his advocacy of utility 

 fowls. How far, by the vear 1892, he had fallen 

 out with and awa} r from ordinary fanciers may 

 be seen from the following extract which he put 

 conspicuously on the title-page of his Table and 

 Market Poultry : " As the result of my experience 

 of nearly half a century, I do not hesitate to 

 affirm that no one breed of fowls has been taken 

 in hand by the fancier that has not been seriously 

 depreciated as a useful variety of poultry." 

 Nothing roused him to more vigorous denunciation 

 than the subject of so-called poultry-farming, 

 and that we hear so much less of this visionary 

 industry than we used to is due very largely 

 to the unflagging energy with which he exposed 

 its fallacies when well-meaning but unpractical 

 persons tried to encourage the establishment of 

 farms for the exclusive rearing of chickens. As 

 an accessory to real farming, he always readily 

 acknowledged that a head of poultry could be 

 and often was made fairly profitable ; but he 

 spared no effort to show that such stock cannot 

 be made to produce a profit if the breeder is at 

 the cost of renting land for the purpose. 



At the time when poultry-farming was being 

 advocated as a means of earning a livelihood, 

 Tegetmeier would watch for the publication of 



