Mr. Skinner, - I beg you to
encourage your fare readers, (who are under great obligation to you for your endeavors
to improve their husbands and their husbands' lands,) to attend to their poulty
yards, by letting them see how profitable they may be made.[1]
I state
from good authority, that several thousand turkies [sic] may be hired out in Prince George's county, during the past
summer, at the rate of twenty-five cents a piece per month and found. They will
be returned when their work is done, and if any are overworked or die from any
other cause, they will be paid for at the rate of 75 cents each.
Some of
your distant readers, who know nothing about tobacco, may think this a quiz.
But I assure you, these wages were actually offered the last summer. Now it
will certainly be desirable to encourage the breeding of this useful animal,
and after having helped the planter in his crop, the turkies themselves will be
almost as good shewing as the tobacco, and if they are killed pretty soon in
the season. they may even have a fine relish of it. I am, Sir, yours, A. Chewer.
Note - The Editor of the American
Farmer, being the agent through whom all communications passed between the government,
and the commanding officer of the enemy's squadron in the Chesapeake during the
war [of 1812], had frequent occasion to go on board, where he was often compelled
either to "keep fast" or to
dine on poultry and live stock plundered from his own countrymen and friends.
He recollects that dining with Admiral Warren the day that a large detachment
advanced upon St. Michaels, in Septmebr, he was invited to partake of some
"turkey poults and oysters," -- It was the first time
he had heard the term, and never having seen turkies eaten at that age, knew
not what they meant. --They were the size of dunghill fowls, and no doubt thoroughly
impregnated with the contents of tobacco
worms. Hew declined the invitation, and dinner being removed, he took occasion
to explain to them, as ou correspondent has done, their great utility in
devouring tobacco worms at that season, and we have some reason to hope, that
this insight into the natural history and propensities of the nice :turkey
poults," had the effect of saving the flocks of many good house wives from
the ravages of an an enemy, from whose rapacity nothing was too sacred or too humble
to escape.
[1] American Farmer Date: 10-15-1819; Volume: I; Issue: 29; Page: Page 231; Location: Baltimore, Maryland
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