HOW "POULTRY-BOOKS" ARE MADE.
Soon after this, I learned that one Asa Rugg, of Pennsylvania (a _nom de
guerre_), was in the possession of a breed of fowls that challenged all
comparison for size and weight. They were called the _Chittagong_ fowl,
and were thus described in the poultry-books published in 1850:
"The fowl thus alluded to has been imported, within the last two or
three years, into Pennsylvania, and ranks at the head of the list, in
that region, for all the good qualities desirable in a domestic bird.
The color is a _streaked grey_, rather than otherwise, and the portraits
below" (my birds) "are fine samples of this great stock. They are
designated as the GREY CHITTAGONGS."
"Asa Rugg," in his letter to me, described this stock as being at the
head of the races of poultry, having "the _largest_ blood in them of any
variety of fowl with which he was acquainted." The pair he first sent me
were light-grey and streaked, and "at less than seven months old weighed
over _nineteen_ pounds."
He said, in that insinuating and delicate manner so peculiar to the
habits of gentlemen who possess what another wishes to buy of them,--"I
did not intend, my dear Mr. B----, to part with these magnificent
specimens at _any_ figure whatever. I assure you I had much rather
retain them; for they are _very_ fine, as you would say, could you see
them. If, however, you are disposed to pay my price, I shall let you
have them. I really shall regret their absence from my yard, however.
Try and make up your mind to be satisfied with something else--won't
you? _These_ fowls I must keep, if possible," &c. &c.
Now, Asa _knew_ very well, if he had charged me two hundred (instead of
twenty) dollars for those grey fowls, I should have taken them from him.
Of course I sent for them at once; and, within ten days, they were in my
poultry-house, a new wonder for the hundreds who called to see my
"superb" and "extraordinary" fowls.
A competitor turned up, a few months after this, a notorious breeder in
P----, who, though a respectable man, otherwise, never knew a hen from a
stove-pipe, but who had more money at that time than I had, and who, in
the hen-trade, possessed the impudence of the devil, without the
accompanying graces to carry out his object.
This man chanced, while in Pennsylvania, to hear Asa speak of _me_, and
at once he stepped in to "head me" in that quarter. He bought all the
"_Grey_ Chittagongs" that Rugg had left (most of which, when they
reached P----, happened to be dark _red_ and _brown_), and forthwith set
up an establishment in _opposition_ to me; for what purpose I never
knew. I did not know him from a side of sole-leather, I had never spoken
to or of him, and I could not comprehend why this person should render
himself, as he did, my future "death's head" in the fowl-trade.
If he went into the traffic for the purpose of making money out of it,
he has found, by this time, I have no doubt, that he would have been, at
the very least calculation, five thousand dollars better off had he
never thrust himself into a business of which he did not know the first
rudiments.
If he embarked in it to interfere with or to injure me, personally, he
has now ascertained, I imagine, that it required a faster horse than
_he_ was in the habit of driving to keep in sight of _my_ team.
If his purpose was the gratification of his own petty spite or ambition
only, he has had to pay for the enjoyment of it,--ay, to his dear
cost!--and he is welcome to all he ever made out of his contemptible,
niggardly huckstering.
Soon after the first exhibition, it was announced by the publishers in
Boston that Dr. Bennett's new Treatise would be immediately issued by
them. The doctor had originally applied to the establishment in which I
was then a partner, to issue this work; but I recommended him to the
others, because our own facilities for getting it out were not so good
as I thought were theirs.
I furnished a considerable amount of the matter for that book, and had
already obtained, at my own individual expense, several of the
engravings which appear in the work spoken of. After the original cuts
were placed in the publishers' hands, they were reduced in size, and
injured (for my purposes), as I conceived, when they finally appeared in
print.
The doctor's book on poultry had been announced again and again; but it
did not make its appearance in the market, in consequence of his
tardiness. Week after week, and month after month, passed by, but still
no Dr. Bennett's book could be found. I saw some of the proof-sheets
finally, observed the fate of the illustrations of _my_ fowls, and made
up my mind what I would do. The book was at last announced positively to
appear in three weeks.
I immediately called at a stereotype foundery, and asked how much time
it would require to stereotype a work of one hundred and fifty pages for
me. I was told that it would occupy three to four weeks to complete it.
"Can't it be done in _one_ week?" I inquired. The proprietor smiled, and
said that this was impossible. I replied, "Well, sir, to-day is Tuesday.
I have engaged to deliver in New York city, on the morning of a week
from next Saturday, three thousand copies of a book _which I am about
to write_. Is there _no_ way that you can help me out?" The gentleman
looked at me incredulously.
I added, "Mr. ----, I have been in the newspaper business a good many
years, and I have had the message of the President of the United
States--a document occupying a dozen columns of solid brevier and
minion--set up and put to press within forty-two minutes from the time
it reached our office. _Anything_ can be accomplished, now-a-days, if we
but will it."
"But, you say you _are about_ to write it. When will the 'copy' be
ready?" said the stereotyper.
"I have thought of this," I replied, "but a few hours. The _title_,
even, is not yet decided upon. I will give you fifty pages of manuscript
to-morrow morning, the next day I will add another fifty, and you shall
have the whole in hand by Friday morning."
He kindly undertook to aid me. I engaged three engravers, who worked day
and night upon the drawings and transfers of the fowls for my
illustrations; the paper was wet down on Monday and Tuesday; I read the
final revised proof of my work on Wednesday night; the book went to
press on Thursday; the binders were ready for it as it came up, the
covers were put on on Friday morning, and I sent to the New York house
(who had bespoken them), by Harnden's Express, on Friday evening, three
thousand five hundred copies of the "NEW ENGLAND POULTRY-BREEDER,"
_illustrated with twenty-five correct engravings_ of _my_ choice,
magnificent, superb, unapproachable, pure-bred fowls.
This book had an extraordinary sale,--far beyond my own calculations,
certainly. I got it out for the purpose of "doing justice" to my own
stock, and calculated that it would prove a good advertising medium for
me,--which it _did_, by the way. But the demand for the "New England
Poultry-Breeder" was immense. And _thirteen_ different editions (varying
from three thousand five hundred to one thousand copies each) were
issued within as many weeks, and were sold, every copy of them. This is
the true history of the "New England Poultry-Breeder."
By and by Dr. Bennett's book appeared. The market was now glutted with
this kind of thing, and this work, though a good one, generally, dragged
on the hands of its originators. I doubt if a thousand copies of this
book ever found their way into the market, the author being too deeply
engrossed with his then thriving trade, to trouble himself about urging
the sale of his book, or of thinking about the interests of his
publishers.