AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Dmprfr ta impish \\z ^farmer, t\jt flatter, attft tfje (Sarkaer. 
AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHY , THE MOST USEFUL , AND THE MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN- Washington. 
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PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY ALLEN & CO., 189 WATER ST. 
VOL. XII.—NO. 4.] NEW-YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1854. [NEW SERIES.—NO. 30. 
m~FOR PROSPECTUS, TERMS, £c., 
SEE LAST PAGE. 
THE NATIONAL POULTRY SOCIETY. 
So much badinage has of late been talked, 
written, and published in relation to chicken 
shows, and the poultry trade, and so many crit¬ 
icisms in prose, verse, and caricature, perpetra¬ 
ted at the expense of the unoffending Shanghais, 
and their Asiatic compeers, it will hardly be 
taken by our readers that we, in due gravity, 
commence an article with the imposing sobriquet 
we have placed at its head. We are, however, 
and we intend to keep, in sober earnest through¬ 
out this discussion while upholding the integ¬ 
rity of the Society and its labors, and in com¬ 
mending to the universal family of mankind, 
where space and opportunity serve, so laudable 
an example in raising up and improving one of 
the choicest gifts which Heaven has vouchsafed 
to fallen man with which to enrich and comfort 
himself, as well as to promote a refined and 
genial taste in the development and improve¬ 
ment of animal life. 
“Well, truly,” says one intellectual reader, 
and man of acres, “ this is a great business for 
an agricultural paper of high pretensions, sci¬ 
entific and otherwise, to go into a chicken dis¬ 
cussion, as if it were really of any consequence 
above the attention of serving women and boys ! 
away with such nonsense!” 
Softly, good friend. Have you never talked 
politics ; dawdled away hours of time in-various 
kinds of nonsense; discussed frivolous subjects 
time and again, and spent dollars in what you 
knew would prove a waste, or worse than a 
waste, of the whole amount invested ? Yes you 
have—own up—confess the truth, and hear us 
patiently, for we will open your eyes before we 
have done; and if not a convert, you shall ac¬ 
knowledge that the science of poultry rearing 
and keeping is worth the study of every one, 
who has a space of ground sufficient to hold, and 
time enough on his hands to care for them. 
It is within ten years past only that public, 
attention has been awakened to the true value 
of poultry as an article of domestic stock, or as 
creatures of sufficient merit and beauty in them¬ 
selves to render them worth attention beyond 
the rude call of the clowns of the barn-yard, or 
the pence-saving economy of the common house¬ 
wife. In the multiplied objects, however, which 
increased intelligence and luxury are continu¬ 
ally adding to the demands of country life, the 
resources of the poultry-yard have been drawn 
into active requisition. The various species, 
kinds, varieties and tribes of the whole domes¬ 
ticated feathered world have been examined, 
their merits canvassed, and their subjects ap¬ 
propriated to the use, pleasure, and amusement 
of our people, to a degree certainly never equalled 
since our country had a population. As a mat¬ 
ter of taste they have become a branch of the 
fine arts—“high art,” poor Haydon, in his en¬ 
thusiasm for art-progress, would have called it. 
There is as much science, taste, and art in 
breeding poultry “ to a feather,” as in breeding 
a horse to the highest racing or trotting speed, 
and to our notion, quite as useful to the world 
at large—and, in their consequences, vastly less 
productive of the questionable commodity of 
“fast” men, than the latter pursuit. We have 
sat at the dinner table where grave and reverend 
gentlemen sipped their wine and bobbed their 
heads towards each other with the most potential 
dignity, and where wine vaults, the years of 
their vintage, and their manner of keeping, were 
discussed for hours together, and not a single 
valuable idea eliminated during the whole sit¬ 
ting ; and if, in place of such a bore, the com¬ 
pany could have adjourned to a well-bred poul¬ 
try-yard, and discussed the merits of its several 
inhabitants, with the taste and intelligence which 
they deserved, each one would have been the 
wiser in head, and better in stomach and body 
for the transition. 
Claiming, therefore, that poultry are worth 
the attention of thinking people, we at once de¬ 
clare in decided favor of the recent formation of 
the National Poultry Society, and class it among 
the beneficent institutions of the land. 
“ But,” says our unsatisfied auditor, “ why 
put Barnum at the head of it, and thus stamp it 
a humbug of the first water; have the show at 
his Museum, among the Catamounts, and Kan¬ 
garoos, and disgust all sensible people with such 
a beginning ? 
“Well, my good sir, let Barnum be a humbug, 
if you will have it so. But when Barnum hum¬ 
bugs the public he has the manliness and hon¬ 
esty to let them know how they are humbug¬ 
ged—so they have it as cheap as he gives it. 
And we would like you to tell us how so cheap, 
efficient, and convenient a plan could have been 
got up for the late poultry exhibition as he pro¬ 
posed and carried out at his Museum ? It cost 
the exhibitors next to nothing; saved them 
much trouble; he paid the premiums all out of 
his own pocket, without cost to any one; grati¬ 
fied the public; and if he made money by it, it 
was because he was so situated he could do 
what no one else could accomplish. Now 
where’s the humbug or wrong about that?” 
“ I see. You are determined to have the ar¬ 
gument all your own way. So I may as well 
sit quiet and remain a listener.” 
“Not altogether so, my old friend; but as you 
have condescended to have a little reason on the 
subject, we shall take pains to have a conversa¬ 
tion—or if you so consider it—an argument , at 
a future hour; for we have so many calls upon 
our time at this moment, that with your leave, 
the subject will be postponed till another day, 
when, not Barnum, but poultry, in its merits as 
a valuable branch of domestic stock, a subject of 
taste, and a department of the fine arts, will be 
the order of discussion. 
THE INDIAN CORN FIELDS OF THE WEST. 
Now that American grain and provisions are 
bringing a high price in the Atlantic markets 
for export, it is cheering to contemplate the 
broad extent of country which we have to pro¬ 
duce them. 
While in Ohio recently, we selected thfbe ears 
of corn, a fair average, from a large crib, the 
product of a field near by. The owner told us 
that he usually planted his corn 4 feet apart 
each way, and never wanted more than three 
stalks in a hill. Thus planted, and the corn 
well tended, he seldom got less than sixty to 
eighty bushels per acre, on good corn land; on 
rich bottoms frequently more. Knowing the 
proneness to overrate these things, we shelled 
and weighed the kernels on these three ears, 
and we are certain they were not over the aver¬ 
age of the crib, in size. The weight of the corn, 
on the three ears was 34$- ounces, averdupois. 
The production of an acre, supposing every hill 
to produce three stalks, and one ear on each, the 
hills four feet apart, and 2724 of them on an 
acre, will be 104 50-56 bushels. We have seen 
corn grown much thicker than that, and pro¬ 
duce well, but as the great western corn is a 
gross feeder, both in the roots and the stalk, it 
should never be crowded. One hundred and 
sixty bushels has been certified as the produc¬ 
tion of an acre in Indiana—but that is one of 
many thousand. We have no doubt, however, 
that sixty bushels, with the casualities and 
omissions incident to its growth, is a fair crop, 
on good corn lands in the Ohio and Mississippi 
vallies, below 41 north latitude, and north of the 
Gulf of Mexico. This may scarcely be believed 
by those who have only witnessed the stinted 
growth of our northern corn; yet where it is all 
but spontaneous, as at the West, the capacity of 
that broad region in its production is almost 
illimitable. It would, properly cultivated, bread 
the world! 
For the American Agriculturist. 
KEEPING EGGS. 
The triumphant cut-cut-cur-dar-cut, which 
so often greets my ear from the poultry-yard, 
assures me that its inhabitants are busy in im¬ 
parting their wealth to us who have fed and shel- 
