AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
FOR THE 
Farm, Garden, and. Household. 
“AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, MOST USEFUL, ANI> MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN,” — Washington. ? 
OKAJfGE judd & co.,) ESTABLISHED IN 1842, ( $i.so pee annum, in advance. 
PUBLISHERS AND PROPRIETORS. C ' J SINGLE HUMBER, 15 CENTS. 
Office, 245 BROADWAY. ) PiitlisUed also in German at $1.50 a Year. ( 4 Copies for $5 ; 1 0 for $12; 20 or more, $ lead. 
Entered according to Act of Congress in September, 1868, by Orange Judd & Co., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York. 
VOLUME XXVII.—No. 10. NEW YORK, OCTOBER, 1868. NEW SERIES— No. 2G1. 
[copyright secured,] 
WILD TURKEY S.— Drawn FROM Life by Herrick. — Eng-raved for the American Agriculturist. 
The turkey is the largest and one of the most 
beautiful game birds in the world; it is, more¬ 
over, peculiarly our own—a genuine native 
American fowl. It lias all the royal grace and 
dignity of the forest chiefs who with it have 
melted before civilization and the destruction of 
the timber. It has, however, qualities of shy¬ 
ness and caution, which have preserved it in 
some localities long after the grand hard wood 
forests liaye been succeeded by the humbler 
second growth. Every State of the Union was 
once the home of the wild turkey, hut now, east 
of the Alleglianies, it is almost unknown. Do¬ 
mestication is easily accomplished, and cross¬ 
es with the domestic species are made with 
great advantage. The wild turkey is distin¬ 
guished from others by the entire lack of white 
bands or tips on the feathers, by its more deli¬ 
cate head, the bluer color of the naked skin of 
the head, the longer and larger tuft of hair up¬ 
on the breast, and by the more brilliantly metal¬ 
lic hues of the feathers of the neclc and bodj\ 
The legs are also longer and more slender. 
Turkeys seldom gain their full growth before 
they are five years old, and an old wild gobbler 
of large size is one of the most magnificent of 
birds, being remarkable for the glow of cop¬ 
pery red, purple and golden hues which 
flash over his hack, and the changing tints 
of ilie peculiar carunculations of the neck. 
