440 Bird-;Lore 



Turkey has now been domesticated in almost every civilized part of the known 

 world, and it is probable that it will be sooner extirpated from the greater part 

 of its native wilds than from the poultry-yards of the opulent and luxurious. 

 Bonaparte observes, that it is now extremely rare, if, indeed, it exists at all, 

 in the northern and eastern parts of the United States. In New England, it 

 even appears to have been already destroyed one hundred and fifty years back. 

 . . . We may anticipate a day, at no distant period, when the hunter will 

 seek the Wild Turkey in vain." 



It seems a long step from our common barnyard fowl to the jungles of 

 India where some of its ancestors had their native haunts, or from the sociable 

 grunting pig of our farms to the fierce wild boars of Europe and Asia. It is, 

 perhaps, not quite so difficult a stretch of the mind to associate the quiet 

 cattle and sheep of our pastures with the huge musk-oxen of the frigid north 

 and the water-buffalo of the Philippines and East Indies, or with the graceful 

 pronghorn of the Rocky Mountains, and even with the more familiar goat. One 

 has only to study the origin and distribution of any domesticated animal to 

 learn much of interest and value in the history of mankind. Whether other 

 animals than those already domesticated might have been tamed to the ser- 

 vice of man, we can only test by experiment. Those animals and birds 

 which man has thus far trained to live under his care are the ones upon 

 which we most depend for food. It will be useful in your nature-study work 

 this coming year to read all you can about these food-producing creatures, 

 and to write compositions describing their native haunts and nearest rela- 

 tives, as exercises in English, geography, and history. 



Many boys and girls nowadays are joining Pig Clubs or Poultry Clubs, 

 to help themselves and others learn to properly conserve and increase these 

 valuable sources of meat-supply. All that you can find out about pigs and 

 poultry, for example, will add to the interest of your Club meetings and 

 aid your own intelligence in selecting and breeding good strains or stocks. 

 It might be stated as a rather important point that many of the failures of 

 poultry-raisers and stock-owners are the result of lack of knowledge. If there 

 were space to make this matter more emphatic by giving statistics and detailed 

 illustrations, it would be delightful to go more deeply into the history, let us say, 

 of a Jersey cow, a Shropshire sheep, or a common black pig and Plymouth Rock 

 hen. But this you can do for yourself, if you will take the pains to ask your 

 public librarian to assist you, or write to the U. S. Department of Agriculture 

 at Washington. In any case, remember how much there is to be learned about 

 LIVE ANIMALS before they become part of our marketable food-supply. 



Considering now these same animals as a source of meat-supply, we may 

 first lay stress on their value as food for man, as compared with the value of 

 cereals, vegetables, fruits, or various other accepted articles of diet. 



Meat is rich in protein and fat, but lacks carbohydrates, while cereals 

 contain the latter and protein, but lack fat. In determining the value of dif- 



