AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
* FOR THE 
Farm, GrarcLen, and FTo 11 selio 1 cl. 
“AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, MOST USEFUL, AND MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAS,*’—Washington. 
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY,) ESTABLISHED IN 1842. ( TERMS : SI.50 per Annum in Advance, post-free; 
Publishers and Proprietors, 245 Broadway. f German Edition issued at the same rates as iu English. * Four Copies $5.-Single Number, 15 Cents* 
VOLUME XXXIX.—No. 11. ISTjEW YORK, NOVEMBER, 1880. NEW SERIES—No. 406. 
TAKING THE THANKSGIVING TURKEY .—Drawn BY W. M. Cary .—Engraved Expressly for the American Agriculturist. 
Instituted by the Pilgrim Fathers as a day of 
prayer and praise in memory of the bountiful 
crops of 'the first harvest in their new home, 
Thanksgiving Day has grown with the nation’s 
growth, and become a National Holiday. It was 
originally a farmer's festival, but now the ob¬ 
servance has become so general that the home that 
is not upon the farm is none the less the scene 
of thanksgiving joys and praise. One of the 
most attractive features of this memorial day 
is the gathering of the scattered members of the 
family at the old home, there, under, the parental 
roof, to give hearty thanks to the Giver of all good 
for the ingathered crops, and the great blessings of 
national growth and prosperity. To many of us 
Thanksgiving means a feast of the fat things of the 
land—the best pumpkin made into the best pie, and 
the finest turkey of the flock served up with cran¬ 
berry sauce, and all the good things that go to make 
the feast complete. Thanksgiving Day and turkey 
have been associated together so long, and that for 
excellent reasons, that it seems as if the noble bird 
would almost know the day appointed by the Presi¬ 
dent for his dissolution. From the time he is 
hatched out of the speckled egg, through his early 
confinement in coops and pens, and later, the wider 
range and roaming over the fields—through ail this 
time, every act of kindness and care shown him by 
his owner is prompted by the amount and sweetness 
of the meat he will put upon the platter at the 
“Thanksgiving Dinner”—the center-piece of the 
loaded board. In the accompanying engraving the 
artist shows us one of the last scenes iu the tragic 
life of the fated turkey. It is doubtless Thanks¬ 
giving eve—the night before the feast. With one 
or two exceptions, all the turkeys of the flock, save 
those reserved for the next season’s breeding, have 
been sold and are already dressed and in the mar¬ 
ket. The hour has come for the exceptional turkey 
—the largest one of them all, it may be ; watched 
and fed with more than average care, because se¬ 
lected weeks before for the part he is soon to play 
at the joyful reunion of his owner’s relatives and 
friends. The engraving shows how, in many a 
farm-yard, the boys and the lantern go forth to catch 
and kill the fat and innocent bird. “Thanksgiv¬ 
ing” is preeminently a home festival, and though 
as yet a distinctively American institution, it de¬ 
serves not only to be preserved to us with all its sa¬ 
cred recollections, but it or some similar custom 
should be spread throughout every land where the 
ties of family friendship prevail. For the past few 
years we have been blessed with full crops, and at 
no time in the history of our Republic have we had 
more reason for hearty rejoicing than at the close 
of 1880. We hope the day will be observed by every 
member of the great American Agriculturist family, 
whether he dwells in New England, the birth-place 
of the institutional - on the frontier, where the thanks 
perchance may be for the first harvest from his land. 
Copyright, 1880, by Orange .J cud Company 
Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as Second Class Mattep.. 
