PREFACE. ix 



ter of this volume will probably surprise and astonish many who had paid 

 little or no attention to the amount consumed, or been in the habit of reflect- 

 ing on the various items that go to swell our agricultural prosperity. 



In my endeavors to keep pace with the improvements of the age, I have 

 been actuated by the most liberal views in obtaining the best and most 

 reliable information that could be obtained on the subject, suited to the prac- 

 tical breeder as well as to the amateur or novice. 



Among the novelties of the age is the excitement that has been manifested 

 within a few years, in this country and Europe, on the subject of improved 

 breeds of poultry. " It has had the effect of calling attention to the subject," 

 say the editors of the American Agriculturist , " not only in the different 

 breeds of fowls, but to the care and general management of them, and much 

 good will arise from it. It has awakened public attention to the true value 

 of poultry as an article of domestic stock, or creatures of sufficient merit and 

 beauty in themselves to render them worth attention beyond the common 

 fowls of the barn-yard. The extravagances, however, which have grown out 

 of it, have afforded the lovers of fun not a few occasions for jest and merri- 

 ment ; for not a few of our notable savans in business and professional fame 

 became as much absorbed with this branch of research as they would have 

 been previously in matters out of which fortunes were to be made. Posi- 

 tively it was ungenerous to laugh at them for this new type of human char- 

 acter. Thousands, as notable as they are, have evinced, in relation to other 

 matters, similar gushing impulses. Rarely does a year roll round and pass 

 away without leaving on its tombstone some corresponding inscription of a 

 new-fledged zeal that marked its authors for unenviable notoriety." 



Every one who directs his thoughts to the subject, will at once acknowl- 

 edge that poultry are just as capable of improvement as any other farm- 

 stock, by breeding from selected specimens, and the beneficial results arising 

 from this attention to superior parentage are already very marked. From 

 my own experience these facts are very apparent, and no one conversant 

 with poultry can attend our markets without seeing evidences of great im- 

 provement. Many specimens show increased compactness, roundness, and 



