442 Bird - Lore 



told that we must give up the highly fattened prize beef, mutton, and pork, 

 which have made our markets famous, because the fodder or food of cattle, 

 sheep, and hogs must be reckoned more carefully in relation to its use. Beyond 

 a certain point in fattening stock for market, it is wasteful to feed so large a 

 ration as is necessary to add still more fat to the animal, already sufficiently 

 fattened for food-purposes. 



Not only must we learn to cut down our ration of meat at need, but we must 

 also learn to give up over-fattened meats and to take substitutes, as well as to 

 add new kinds of meat to our present variety. In Peary's arctic bill-of-fare 

 appear walrus and seal meat, which he describes as making a "healthy diet 

 not relished by white men as much as by Eskimos" ; musk-ox, reindeer, and polar 

 bear meat, "all delicacies for any table;" harp and square-flipper seal meat, 

 which is not as strong as the walrus and other seal meat; and among birds, a 

 variety of northern species upon which human life depends at certain times for 

 existence in latitudes where no cereal crops are known. Fish also enters into 

 this arctic diet. 



The possibilities of the prairie-dog, the muskrat (sold under the name of 

 "marsh rabbit"), of horse-flesh, and even of the hippopotamus, are to-day made 

 known to us. Some of the North American Indians found dog-meat wholesome, 

 while we recall the birds'-nest soup of the Chinese made from the nest of a species 

 of Swift, and the cultivated taste of the Boers in South Africa for Ostrich eggs. 

 One Ostrich egg weighs from two to three pounds and is equivalent in quantity to 

 two dozen hens' eggs. Daniel Lewis Noyes, writing about "New Meats for the 

 Wartime Table" says that eggs of the Ostrich are being canned, without the 

 shell of course, and shipped to London to be used as a substitute for hens' eggs. 



This leads us to call attention to the possibilities of adding to our meat- and 

 poultry-supply by proper means of rearing certain edible birds in domestica- 

 tion, in addition to the common forms of fowl now in use. Such artificial pro- 

 pagation calls for much skill and knowledge and is worthy the ambition of the 

 careful student. At present, every boy and girl on a farm should at least 

 learn to care successfully for a dozen or more hens, or for enough to supply home 

 needs. Here in town, some people are producing their own egg- and poultry- 

 supply by using the portable houses which shelter a dozen fowls. The results 

 are remarkably good, and one looks with envy at the young woman whose daily 

 record shows that from the middle of December to the first of September 2,316 

 eggs were produced from twenty-two hens, kept in a small chicken-house on 

 the back of a narrow city lot. 



By actual tests, boys and girls who have become active members of Poultry 

 Clubs, as well as of Pig Clubs, have improved in so many ways that too much 

 cannot be said in favor of these Clubs where they are conducted by an in- 

 formed and responsible person. 



In our study of the meat-supply of the world, there are still other points 

 of great interest and value, namely, the investigation of diseases among cattle 



