A Poulterer's View of Mechanical Poultry Raising

Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880, by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. A Poulterer's View of Mechanical Poultry Raising.

A Poulterer's View of Mechanical Poultry Raising.

A prominent dealer in poultry, Mr. H. W. Knapp, of Washington Market, gives a discouraging opinion of the probable success of chicken raising by artificial means in this country. He said recently when questioned on this subject by a representative of the Evening Post:

"I went to France to study the matter, for if it can be made to succeed it will make an immense fortune, as it has already done in Paris. I was delighted with what I saw there, and the matter at first sight seems to be so fascinating that I do not wonder that new men here are always ready to take hold of it as soon as those who have bought dear experience are only too glad to get out of it. Even clergymen and actors are bitten with the desire to transform so many pounds of corn into so many pounds of spring chicken. The now successful manager, Mackaye, spent about a thousand dollars, in constructing hatching machines and artificial mothers in Connecticut, but he found that the stage paid better, and his expensive devices may now be bought for the value of old tin.

"Enthusiasts will tell you that by the new discovery chickens may be made out of corn with absolute certainty. In Paris this has been done; but the conditions are entirely different here. There the land is valuable, and they cannot devote large fields to a few hundred chickens; the French climate is so uniform that the markets of Paris cannot be supplied from the south with produce which ripens or matures before that of the neighborhood of Paris; the price of chickens is so high and labor so cheap that more care can be given with profit to one spring chicken than one of our poultry raisers could give to a dozen. Here we have plenty of land, the climate south of us is so far advanced in warmth that even with steam we cannot raise poultry ahead of the south, and the margin of profit is so small that one failure with a large batch of chickens sweeps away the profits from several successful experiments.

"When persons wanted me to go into the project I declined and was called an old fogy. One man spent a fortune on the enterprise in New Jersey, and at first was hailed as a public benefactor. What was the result of all his outlay and work? He managed to hatch quantities of young chickens every February, but although he could fatten them by placing them in boxes and forcing a fattening mixture down their throats, he could not make them grow; they had no exercise; they remained puny little things, and another defect soon appeared: though fat they were tough and stringy. The breeder sent lots of them to me, and they looked fat and tender; but my customers complained that they could not be young, for they were tough and tasteless, and that I must have sold them aged dwarfs under the name of spring chickens. It was found absolutely necessary to let them run out of doors as soon as the weather allowed it, and by the time that they were ready for market the southern chickens were here and could be sold for less than these. The upshot of the business is that this breeder has sold out, and another man has now taken hold of a small part of his old establishment to try other methods of making it a success.

"As to raising turkeys in that manner it will tail more disastrously than the chicken business. Size and weight are wanted in turkeys; and that reminds me," continued Mr. Knapp, "that the newspapers ought to impress the country people with the necessity of improving their poultry stock; breeding in and in is ruining poultry; every year the stock we receive is deteriorating, and this is the cause. I could give you some striking examples from my experience of forty years in the business. Some years ago we poulterers thought that ducks were going to disappear from bills of fare altogether; they were tasteless, worthless birds which people avoided. On Long Island a farmer made experiments in breeding with an old Muscovy drake, tough as an alligator, and the common duck. The result was superb and has changed the whole duck industry. If the farmers of Southern New Jersey, the sandy country best suited to turkeys, would bring from the West a few hundred wild turkeys we should have an immediate improvement. I see no such turkey now as we had twenty years ago. The breast is narrow and the body runs to length; it is all neck and legs, and can be bought by the yard. Rhode Island sends us the best turkeys, but they are not what they used to be. If, instead of attempting to beat nature at her own game, the rich men who have money to spend would devote it to better breeding, there would be an improvement. I do not yet despair of seeing immense farms wholly devoted to raising better poultry than we yet have."

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