AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
FOR THE 
Farm, Gfarden, and. Honseliold. 
“ AGRICULTURE 18 THE MOST HEALTHFUL, MOST USEFUL, AND MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN.”-Wi.nraoTO». 
'OKAW4S13 JUDD, A.M., 
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. 
VOLUME XX—No. 5. 
ISP Office at 41 Park-Row, (Times Buildings). 
lE^ Contents, Terms, &c., on pages 15o-60. 
Entered recording to act of Congress in the year 1861, 
iby Orange Sudd, in the Clerk’s Office of the District 
(Court df the United States for the Southern District of 
New-York. JT^IV. B .—Every Journal is invited freely 
lo copy any desirable articles, i/'each article or illustration 
•copied, be duly accredited to the American Agriculturist. 
5ltnmcflu Stguicultuvift in ©cnmui. 
Hike AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST is published in 
(both #16 Englisli and German Languages. Both Editions 
; arc.of jthe same size, and contain, as nearly as possible, 
dhe same Articles and Illustrations. The German Edition 
iis furnished at the same rates as the English, singly or in 
rclubs. A .e.lub may be part English, and part German. 
• The careful lien 
"Calls all her chirping family around, 
;iFed and defended by the fearless cock, 
tWhose breast with ardor flames as on lie walks, 
• Graceful, and crows defiance. In the pond 
•The finely checkered duck before her train 
: Rows garrulous. The stately-sailing swan 
(Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale ; 
And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet 
(Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier isle, 
■Protective,of his young.”— Thomson. 
We affect poultry in all its variety, from the 
lordly turkey to the cooing dove, in all its phases 
of life and death. They are charming with the 
feathers on, and not less so with the feathers off, 
undressed for life, but dressed for their last ap¬ 
pearance at the festive board, where they go 
the way of all flesh. They are both ornamental 
and useful, valued friends in life, and in death 
leaving pleasing memories behind them. To 
the epicure, their last days are their best days, 
and the glory of the gobbler culminates, not in 
his shining plumage, and not in his aristocratic 
.strut, hut in his last appearance upon the table. 
Our sanctum is not far from the poultry yard, 
and these lines are written amid the suggestive 
sounds of cackling hens. There is inspiration 
for the writer upon rural themes, in the crowing 
-of cocks, the quacking of ducks, the gabble of 
geese, the cooing of doves, and all the varied 
ESTABLISHED IN 1842. 
NEW-YORK, MAY, 1861. 
sounds of the farm yard. We love to call the 
whole feathered tribe around us, and watch 
them as they take their morning meal, and sep¬ 
arate, going whither their instincts lead them— 
the turkeys to the fields and woods, the ducks 
and geese to the pond, and the hens and guinea 
fowls to the barn and garden. We admire the 
beautiful iridescence upon the plumage of the 
turkey, and the dove, the snowy whiteness of 
the 4fcicks and geese, and the endless variety in 
the hues of the cocks and hens. We love to 
study their habits and mental traits, the chival¬ 
ry of the cock, his pugnacity and pluck, his in¬ 
dustry and self denial in providing for the feath¬ 
ered dames of his household; the fierce tender¬ 
ness and devotion of the hen in sheltering and 
protecting her brood ; the triumphant rapture 
of the geese as they lead their newly hatched 
goslings to the stream, where they are to find 
their daily food and their pleasure ; the shyness 
of the turkey hen in stealing her nest and filling 
it with eggs, before one suspects she has laid; 
the endless bowings and congratulations of the 
ducks in every puddle, upon all occasions. 
No first class residence in the country is com¬ 
plete without these feathered tribes. It adds as 
much to the charms of the sylvan lake, to see 
its mirror surface broken by water fowl, as it 
does to the extensive lawn, to behold here and 
there, grazing cows, and flocks of sheep. The 
beauty of an object is only perfect, when there 
is some seeming use for it. The cropped lawn 
is no longer a wide expanse of verdure. It 
is a pastute ground, and the grasses are 
ministering to animal wants. Their manifest 
enjoyment as they graze or lie down in the 
shade, adds to our own, as we look out upon the 
landscape. So our esthetic nature is pleased 
when the stream or pond is covered with fowls. 
Every man of taste enjoys the picture which 
Mason gives us of such au English residence: 
“Hence did the lake, the islands, and the rock, 
A living landscape spread ; the feathered fleet, 
Led by two mantling swans, at every creek 
Now touched, and now unmoored ; now on full sail, 
With pennons spread, and oary feet, they plied 
Their vagrant voyage ; and now as if becalmed, 
’Tween shore and shore at anchor seemed to sleep. 
Around those shores the fowl that fear the stream 
At random rove ; hither hot Guinea sends 
Her gadding troop ; here midst his speckled dames, 
The pigmy chanticleer of Bantam winds 
His clarion ; while, supreme in glittering state, 
The peacock spreads his rainbow train, with eyes 
Of sappiiire bright, irradiate each with gold. 
Meanwhile from every spray the ringdoves coo. 
The linnets warble, captive none, but lured 
By food to haunt the umbrage ; all the glade 
Is life, is music, liberty, and love.” 
It is well for gentlemen who have the means, 
and the leisure to indulge their tastes in these 
rural embellishments, to stock their grounds 
and lakes with rare birds and water fowls. The 
peacock and swan are aristocractic birds, and so 
little useful, except as ornaments, that they are 
out of place except in pleasure grounds. The 
j $1.00 PER ANRUM, IN ADVANCE. 
1 SINGLE NUMBER. 10 CENTS. 
NEW SERIES—No. 172. 
farmer, whose necessities require his daily toil, 
can hardly find place for them upon his premises. 
But most of the fowls that have been domesti¬ 
cated, ai’e more useful than ornamental, and con¬ 
tribute directly to the farmer’s thrift. The labor 
expended upon them is directly profitable, and 
by those who are skilled in the business, the 
poultry yard is thought to pay much better 
than many other departments of husbandry. 
If the farmer have a running stream or pond 
near the house, there is no good reason why he 
should not have geese and ducks. They will 
become objects of interest to the hoys and girls, 
and will train them to habits of industry. They 
are full of life themselves, and they like to see 
life in all its variety. It will break up the dull 
round of plowing and hoeing, to feed dough and 
cracked corn to the chickens, to see them safely 
housed at night, to watch the clutches of turk- 
ies as they come off, and see that they do not 
stray too far in the dewy grass in these May 
mornings. These cares of the young birds im¬ 
press the heart of boyhood, and girlhood, as 
nothing else will. Who that lias been trained 
in a farm house, does not remember the chilled 
chicken, wrapped in wool and put in a basket 
by the kitchen fire; the hen with broken leg 
and splints; the drooping gosling, that could 
not keep up with the flock; the sick duckling 
crawled away into the wall to die ? There is a 
great deal of education in the poultry yard,.and 
it is none the less valuable for our children be¬ 
cause it helps pay our bills, instead of making- 
out bills against us for schooling. Anything is 
to be prized that weds the heart of the child to 
the farm, that makes his affections take root in 
the soil. Work is thus beguiled of its drudgery, 
and the hoy growsunto industrious habits, with¬ 
out that conscious repugnance, which all chil¬ 
dren feel toward unattractive labor. 
Most farmers keep fowls, but comparatively - 
few have a poultry house, or any suitable accom¬ 
modations for them. There is as much profit 
in housing them, and in feeding them well, as 
in caring for any other domestic animal. We 
have, for several years, kept accurate accounts 
of debt and credit with a flock of hens, aud 
have found them to average about a dollar each, 
above the expense of feeding. Geese are not so 
profitable, for they are much more uncertain in 
pairing and in hatching. Turkeys, where they 
have a good range, often pay much better. They 
usually lay more eggs than they can cover, are 
quite sure in the hatching, and if kept within 
bounds for a few days, and out of wet grass, the 
young thrive as well as chickens. In whatever 
light we look at this bird, he stands at the head 
of the poultry yard. No sight can be grander 
around the farm house than the full grown cock, 
strutting among the beauties of his harem. 
Throughout the civilized world he is associated 
with festivity and good fellowship, and in all 
our borders, the name is almost synonymous 
with our only social festive anniversary. 
