• 















T 



C. Ill CULTURAL G.VZETTE 



23/ 



It 



ib one 



m matter of profitable investment. The 

 which eouu-s home to the bosoms and 



of ererv on . particularly about Thanksgiving 



UU no* about ftve vears since the first edition 



ork i» published! 1-ur editions haw been 



hoped for something fresh and good ; 



w on ooeu.n • die book, down came disappointment, 

 h,,, on op^ _»__.„ mni the cloud was not quite dis- 



rfth« 



off. W 



e 



Uke a drizzhng nv 



in. am 



abundance of food, contrary to most other wild animals, 



this species has degenerated. Wild turkeys, it is said, 



often weigh from 40 to 60 lbs.* Can there possibly be 

 an original specific distinction between the two races (] 

 In a very windy time he would leave his roost ing-place, 

 and go into the haiel bushes which were near by, to 

 lodge. On one of these occasions he was killed, pro- 



York poultry-horn . A plan, section, and elevation ar 

 given. Its principle li in its consisting of two apart 

 ments ; an inner one all bricks and roof, and an outer 

 one partially glazed in front and above (which may be 

 made the " walk " in hard frosts) ; to this a flue or 



A few cents.- 



few are novel, none are 



bvduT stmdrv curiosities that are to be found 

 J American literature may be believed 



Sm x5S*ely embryotic ; the New World Poultry- 

 link is at present unwritten. 

 The cuts are numerous ; iew are mm* ««™ — 



J "licaL The frontispiece is the Royal poultry-house 

 TWindsor. This we had all seen well drawn m 

 JVmrmin^ for Ladies," ill drawn in Mr. Nolan's book ; 



aiil niHit be welcome to the American reader: but 

 "^ we have Mr. England's poultry-house at 



tove might be advantageously added. 



worth of firing a day would make it quite a go-ahead 



bably by a prairie wolf, as there were plenty in "the affair. A "poor man's poultry-house " with a central 



neighbourhood. This turkey was so thoroughly dom - citadel having a thatched roof— " mind, I say straw 





farther 



on 



99 ; the 



That 



00 1 -'the bantam's nesting places, p. -~ , 

 ^aU.feeding fountain, p. 117 ; the domestic turkey, 

 ^oiq - Reaumur's hatching apparatus, p. 324 ; Reau- 

 Lrt artificial mother, p. 337 ; and the progress of the 

 m* during incubation, at p. 313 ; all which had been 

 Saved °on the wood on this side of the Atlantic, long 

 Jfore they were traced by the pencil of any artist in 



the United States. 

 Penrhvn s poultry- house, is once more served up again. 

 The narrative cannot move without long ([notations from 

 Houbray, Boswell, Cobbett, Main, Walter 13. Dickson, 

 Parmentier, Reaumur, and Olivier de Serres. We 

 hoped that America had brought forth from her vast 

 Storehouse some relishing and substantial ■**— -* • ™ 

 fall to with appetite, but alas ! • 



" the funeral baked meats 



ever-standing 



dish, Lore! 



we 



Do coldly furnish forth the marriage tables." 



We should not take the trouble of sending to New 

 j : for the information that " in December, 1793, the 

 number of turkeys sent to London, by the stage coaches 

 from Norwich alone, amounted to upwards of 2500, 

 weighing nearly 14 tons." (p. 15.) From America, 

 ho ver, we do look for something good about the 

 tarkey, and the preface to the fifth edition announces 

 that u A few hints on the subject of rearing turkeys, fur- 

 nished by a friend, on page 239, will no doubt be found 

 verv u-eful to the breeders of that valuable domestic fowl." 

 We' turn to the place, afad find from Col. Wade Hampton, 

 of South Carolina, as follows : 



• 0a the subject of rearing turkeys, I venture to 

 m you a suggestion or two. As soon as they are 

 re »ved from the nest, immerse them in a strong decoc- 

 tion of tobacco, taking care to prevent the fluid from 

 entering the mouth or eye of the chick, and repeat the 

 operation whenever they appear to droop. Corn bread 

 soaked in pepper tea, is the best diet for them, after 

 they are two or three days old, that I have ever tried. 

 They are particularly liable to chills, which nothing so 

 effectually cures as the pepper. A table spoonful of 

 cayenne pepper to a quart of boiling water is about the 

 rate at which it is used." 



We refrain from any comment on the tobacco bath. 

 Should any poulterer see fit to try it this season, per- 

 haps he will be so obliging as to communicate the result. 

 But more really valuable hints than this are given re- 

 specting the turkey in America. Mr. Bement quotes 

 Mr. Peter Boswell's statement that when first discovered 

 in America, it was seen both in a wild and a domestic 

 state. Neither writer gives his authority, and we have 

 not time to hunt for it, but might probably find it 

 either in Buffon or in Dr. Latham ; but there is a curious 

 statement in Gosse\s " Birds of Jamaica," to the same 

 effect, i. c, that this bird was already found in a domestic 

 state by the Spaniards among the natives of Hispdniola ! 

 This unexpected fact would throw back the domestication 

 of the turkey to quite an indefinitely remote era. And 

 there seems to be almost the same ill-luck and difficulty 

 attending the endeavour to obtain a tame race of 

 turkeys from the wild birds of America, that there is in 

 rearing farm-yard ducks and drakes from the British 

 Mallard, or A nas boschas. Mr. Bement quotes a letter 

 from the 10th vol. of " The Cultivator." 



ticated that he would eat corn out of my hand, and I 

 showed no more disposition to wander off than my hens." 

 (P. 215.) Another equally disappointing attempt follows. 

 Mr. Bement gives similar ones from his own observa- 

 tions amongst his acquaintance. 



" A family in a small grove, had a pair of wild 

 turkeys ; the hen, when a year old, laid a nest of eggs, 

 but none of them hatched ; a season after this, she 

 raised a litter of young ones, which, after getting their 

 growth, with the old ones in company, left the grove, 

 and never returned. [Exactly as our wild ducks would 

 do.] Another family had a pair ; the hen got acci- 

 dentally killed when about a year old. and the male 

 kept company and roosted with the fowls. The next 

 spring the owner procured two tame hen turkeys, and 

 succeeded in raising 28 half-bloods. A neighbour 

 a wild male domesticated, one year old, and two tame 

 hen turkeys. That season not one egg hatched ; the 

 next season, from one of the hens, the other having died, 

 he raised 14 or 15 half-bloods. The cocks (unlike the 

 tame in that respect), it seems, do not come to maturity 

 till they are two years old. The hall-blooded turkeys 

 bear a greater resemblance to the wild than they do to 

 the tame, and will breed equally well." This informant 

 sums up, * Although my attempts at rearing wild 

 turkeys have been so unsuccessful, I am not dis- 

 couraged, but intend to persevere in the effort a while 

 longer ; I believe it will be some little object to raise 

 the full and half-bloods here, but much more of an 



The 



thatch for roof, as it is far the best thing ; and, if pro*. 

 perly done, it will last 20 years" — and a circumscribing 

 fortification of faggots—" go to the swamp for brush- 

 wood, and cut a good parcel of it, leaves, small twigs, 

 and burrs, all just as it stands "—is the very thing for 

 Cobbett to have fallen over head and years in love with, 

 and to have bored everyone to death till they made 

 like it. But the climax of all is the * plan for 



A woodcut is given, but the ground- 

 plan may be suffi- 

 h h 



one 

 nest 



at p. 125. 



h 



had 



a 



A 



B 



LLi 



C 



their organ 





object in your neighbourhood, for the city market, 

 reason why they would have a preference over the tame 

 turkey is: 1st. That they are larger; one was killed 



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ cient for our pur- 



I pose. " The hen is 

 a prude, and likes to 

 steal away in some 

 sly place to deposit 

 her eggs. To gratify 



of se- 

 cretiveness, the following ingenious plan for fixed 

 nests we take from the American poultry book [How 

 long will poultry-books continue to indulge their cannibal 

 propensities, and live by sucking each others' blood ?] 

 which has been lately contrived in Connecticut, and I 

 have tried with complete success. Hens are well known 

 to be anxious to deposit their eggs in secluded places. 

 The secret nests here alluded to are well adapted to 

 satisfy this propensity. They are made thus : Place a 

 platform of boards, two feet wide, and, say 10 feet long, 

 (though it may be made of any length), against a build- 

 ing, or a close board fence, about three feet from the 

 ground. Along the outer edge of this platform, nail a 

 board lengthwise and upright, about one foot high, 

 cutting a space in the middle and at each end. as at 

 A, B, and C, eight or nine inches wide, and divide the 

 remaining space inside into nests a foot square, as at 

 a, b, c, d, thus leaving a passage nearly a foot wide 

 behind the nests. The top must slope from the wail, 

 and open either in parts or entirely, with hinges, as at 

 4, h, h. These nests are easily examined, and give the 

 fowls all the secresy they seem to require." P. 125. 

 The simple hen walks in at A, is charmed with the clear 

 obscure, the " dim, religious light" of the passage, turns 

 in cunningly at a, day by day deposits her produce, 

 feeling as safe as if she were in the labyrinth of Crete, 

 or in Fair Rosamond's Bower, and is one morning 

 surprised by the uplifting of the lid, sudden daylight, 

 and the consciousness that she has all her work to do 



about 10 miles from me which weighed 24 lbs. ; and I 

 have heard of their being killed in Ohio, one at least, 

 which weighed rising of 30 lbs. 2dly. They are more 

 robust, will bear the rain and wet Grass, and therefore 

 more easily raised than the common turkey. 3dly. They 

 are hunters of flies, bugs, and other insects; and eat 

 much less corn or meal than other poultry, and are of 

 course more profitable. They are a more profitable 

 fowl than the tame turkey ; their colour is brown or 

 snuff, with feathers having a lustre or brilliancy upon 

 them in some degree like the peacock." 



These are the sort of particulars that make an Ame- 

 rican poultry-book interesting to Europeans, and which 

 are requisite to give it a permanent value even in its 

 own country. So few travellers are competent to make pver again ! We only wonder whether the American 

 trusty observations on the domesticated animals of foreign hens have not become so cute as to refrain from cackling ! 

 lands, that any technically correct account of them is 

 eagerly perused, for the sake of the information to be 

 gained from it. Botanists and nurserymen send edu- 

 cated discoverers to traverse the face of the earth, and 

 pounce upon any novelty the moment it is detected by 

 their sharp glances. Natural history, as far as wild 

 creatures are concerned, has agents stationed in every 

 province, who secure for anxious and liberal em- 

 ployers at home every suspected addition to the 

 world's Fauna— living or dead, in the skin, in the 

 feather, or in the flesh ; but with 99 tourists out of 

 100, a cow is a cow, a sheep is a sheep, and a hen is a 

 hen. Unknown bpeeds of cattle and of poultry might 3 



unobserved, and remain unimported. Domestic 



METEOROLOGICAL REPORT — April. 



(Continued from page 221.) 



Date. 



April 1 



Time, 



Max. 



Min. 



Wind.— Weather. 





t 



4 

 5 



" Ever since General Lafayette was in this country, 

 and expressed a wish to obtain some wild turkeys to I as they do at home." Dr. Rufus Kettridge, of Ports- 



pass 



races are too often not made a study by those who ought to 

 study them, till the opportunity of observing them abroad 

 is lost for ever. We would give anything in reason now 

 to see what we might once have seen of domestic birds 

 and beasts, in our range between John O 'Groat's house 



and the south of Italy. 



The Midland Counties will be pleased to hear from I Sund. 6 



Mr. Bement, that one of their favourites, * the Bolton 

 Greys, or Creole Fowl," maintain, under the very dif- 

 ferent climate of America, exactly the same character 



10.40 a.m. 

 7.30 p.m. 

 » 40 a.m. 



2.20 p.m 

 8 p.m. 



11 p.m 



8.10 a.m.! 



30.08 



30.00 



• ■ i 



. . • 



29.98 



11 p.m 



7.25 a.m. 



10 



p.m 



take with him to France, I have felt an interest in this 

 kind of poultry. When I came to this state (Illinois) in 

 1835, I made up my mind that I would endeavour 

 to obtain and domesticate some of them as soon as I 

 could. Upon inquiry, I learned that occasionally a nest 

 of eggs was found and put under hens to be hatched out, 

 and the youug ones killed in the following winter, under 

 *** apprehension that they would run off in the spring. 

 J^ 1*W, a nest of 8 eggs was found, which I purchased. 

 These I set under a hen, and ail were hatched out. A 

 mniculty now occurred — the young turkeys paid no 

 attention to the hen's cluck, were disposed to wander 

 **J°ut, and make the hen follow them, instead of their 

 following the hen. In this way some of them were lost, 

 in consequence of going further from the house than the 

 hen was disposed to follow. Of the eight I succeeded 

 to raising but one ; though I believe some of them died 

 * na tural death. This one kept company with the hens, 

 and roosted with them, till, by repeated alarms from 

 v ermin, he forsook the lien-house, and took the roof of 

 a stable for a roosting-place. This proved to be a cock 

 but it was not till he was more than 18 months old that 

 ■* began to strut and gobble [L c, he was three times 

 as long in attaining the adult state as birds of the 

 domestic race. The discrepancy is very remarkable. 

 Wsewhere (p. 213) Mr. Bement informs us that, " the 

 wild turkeys are described as being much larger than 



the f — ~~-~- — ~~ — ~~„ & *** U v,li iaigci Luau severe winter ^aooui wnieu we, who are inguwuw u *it« 



* tame ones. Far from being improved by care and j mercury approaches to zero, know nothing), is the New 



mouth, N. E.,who seems quite a connoisseur in the poul- 

 try business, says, in a letter to the author, "the first 

 account I ever saw of the Creole fowl (which led me to 

 procure them), was in the " New England Farmer," 

 vol. xviii., Nos. 39 and 43. The Creole is a small fowl, 

 about the size of our common hen ; the greatest layers 

 I ever saw. I received my two from Philadelphia ; on 

 the 5th of May they both laid. In 22 days I had 41 

 eggs, and in 54 days I had 95 eggs. They are never 

 inclined to sit. Their colour is a white ground, with 

 black spots on their bodies ; their neck white. They are 

 a very hardy fowl, and I value them the most of any 

 I have" Pp. 159-60, with a woodcut evidently copied 

 from Mowbray's copper plate. 



About the best part of Mr. Bement's book is his de- 

 scription of the poultry-houses, contrived to suit the dif- 

 ferent parts of the United States. The bowery laying 

 places once adopted at Windsor have been imitated in 

 America. From the above (cut in the Illustrated Neics) 

 we took a hint, and procured some Hemlock boughs and 

 tacked to our box nests, nearly obscuring the entrance-, 

 giving the hen an opportunity of gratifying her pro- 

 pensity of secreti veness. This arrangement seemed to be 

 very satisfactory to the hens, and added much to the ap- 

 pearance of the room." (P. 99.) An admirable arrange- 

 ment for fowls that are exposed to the rigours of a 

 severe winter (about which we, who are frightened if the 



7.40 a.m 

 5 p.m. 



10.30 p.m 

 7. SO a.m 



10 p.m 



30.03 



2997 

 29.97 



3o!oD 



30.06 

 30,04 



« • • 



• • • 



29.90 

 •29.95 

 29.95 



29.94 

 29.86 



29.86 



• •• 



SW. noon. SSW. p.m. 

 Bright and sunny day. 



SSW. Brisk breeze; over- 

 cast all day. Evening, 

 SW. ; less wind. 



a.m. WNW., brisk breeze. 



noon, N W. ; evening, N. ; 



less wind. 

 Bright sunny day. 







X. all day. Brisk breeze ; 

 bright sunny day. 



a.m. E N E. ; noon, ESE. ; 

 p.m. SSW. Overcast and 

 very cold ; gentle breezes. 



am. N. ; noon, NNE. ; even- 

 ing, N E. Gentle breezes ; 

 bright sunny day, with large 

 masses of white clouds. 



6.40 a.m. 



29 97 



5.35 p.m. 



8 7.20 a.m 



• • • 



9 



t 



10 



2.50 p.m. 

 S.10 a.m. 

 2.30 p.m 

 10 p.m 

 7 a.m. 

 7.40 a.m 

 6 p.m. 



29.87 



29.79 



29.91 



• » • 



29.83 



'29.85 

 29.85 



• • • 



29.77 

 29.77 

 29.83 



a.m. N. Light breeze? ; hard 

 white frost ; very heavy 

 clouds on the edge of 

 soutnern horizon, as of 

 heavy storm gathering in 

 that quarter. 



Noon and p.m. NE. Brisk 

 j breeze and cloudy all day. 



a.m. NE. Stiff breeze, 

 cloudy. 



i».m. N. Less wind, cloudy. 



N. f and moderate all day. 

 Light clouds aud sunn?. 



*»• 



* 



+ 



* 



N. Gentle breeze 

 pleasant day. 



warm 



* 



* A storm coming from the west, and passing away to the 

 eastward. 



f Notwithstanding the wind continued steady at north, 

 though light, the barometer fell slowly alt the 4th (a very un- 

 usual occurrence), but on the 5th it veered to ENB. and ESE., 

 and on the afternoon to SSW., and became very cold, with the 

 barometer rising at night, and on the 6th was again north. 

 We were, therefore, in the front and right-hand semicircle oi 

 this storm, which must have been at a high elevation on the 

 4th, coming from the westward, and passing away to the east- 

 ward, and having its central track at a considerable distance to 

 the northward. 



X This should be a storm travelling northward, over central 

 Germany, from its warmth aud drj ne*s. A airocco pro&amj 

 blew at Rome, the earlier part of this week. 



Dorchester, April 10th. 



< To be continued.) 



F.P.B.M. 



