PROGRESS OF THE MALADY.
Immediately after this second exhibition, the sales of poultry largely
increased. Everybody had now got fairly under weigh in the hen-trade;
and in every town, at every corner, the pedestrian tumbled over either a
fowl-raiser or some huge specimen of unnameable monster in chicken
shape.
I had been busy, and had added largely to my "superior" stock of
"pure-blooded" birds, by importations from Calcutta, Hong-Kong, Canton
and Shanghae, direct. In two instances I sent out for them expressly,
and in two or three other instances I had obtained them directly from on
shipboard, as vessels arrived into Boston and New York harbors.
I was then an officer in the Boston Custom-house,--a democrat under a
whig collector,--otherwise, a live skinned eel in a hot frying-pan. But
I found that my business had got to be such that I could not fulfil my
duty to Uncle Sam and attend appropriately to what had now got to be of
very much greater importance to me; and so I resigned my situation as
Permit Clerk at the public stores, very much to the regret of everybody
in and out of the Custom-house, and especially those who were applicants
for my place!
I had purchased a pretty estate in Melrose, and now I enlarged my
premises, added to my stock, and raised (during the summer and fall of
1851) over a thousand fowls, upon my premises. This did not begin to
supply the demands of my customers, however, or even approach it. And,
to give an idea of my trade at that period, I will here quote a letter
from one of my new patrons. It came from the interior of Louisiana, in
the fall of 1851.
"GEO. P. BURNHAM, ESQ., BOSTON.
"I am about to embark in the raising of poultry, and I hear of
yourself as an extensive breeder in this line. Do me the favor to
inform me, by return mail, what you can send me _one hundred pairs_
of Chinese fowls for, of the yellow, red, white, brown and black
varieties; the cocks to be not less than eight to ten months old,
and pullets ready to lay; say twenty pairs of each color. And also
state how I shall remit you, in case your price suits me, &c.
"---- ----."
I informed this gentleman that I had just what he wanted (of course),
and that if he would remit me a draft by mail for fifteen hundred
dollars--though this price was really too low for them--I would forward
him one hundred pairs of fowls "that would astonish him and his
neighbors." Within three weeks from the date of my reply to him, I
received a sight draft from the Bank of Louisiana upon the Merchants'
Bank, Boston, for fifteen hundred dollars. I sent him such an invoice of
fowls as pleased him, and I have no doubt he was (as he seemed to be)
perfectly satisfied that he had thus made the best trade he ever
consummated in the whole course of his life.
During the next spring I bred largely again, and supplied all the best
fanciers in New England and New York State with stock, from which _they_
bred continually during that and the succeeding year.
In the spring of 1852 the Mutual Admiration Society of hen-men got up
their _third_ show, at the Fitchburg Dépôt (in _May_, I think), where a
goodly exhibition came off, and where there were now fowls _for sale_ of
every conceivable color and description, good, bad, and indifferent. I
contributed as usual, and, as usual, carried away the palm for the
_best_ samples shown. And here was evinced some of the shifts to which
certain hucksters resorted, to make "the people" believe that white was
black, that they originally brought this subject before the public eye,
and that _they_ only possessed the pure stock then in the country.
Reverends, and doctors, and deacons, and laymen,--all were there, in
force. Every man cried down every other man's fowls, while he as
strenuously cried up his own. Upon one cage appeared a card vouching
for the fact that a certain _original_ Shanghae crower within it, all
the way from the land of the Celestials, weighed fourteen pounds and
three ounces, and that a hen, with him, drew nine pounds six ounces
(almost twenty-four pounds). When the birds were weighed, the first drew
ten and a half pounds, and the other eight and a quarter only. This
memorandum appeared upon the box of a _clergyman_ contributor, who had
understood that size and great weight only were to be the criterion of
merit and value thenceforward. Another contributor boldly declared
himself to be the original holder of the only good stock in America. A
third claimed to be the father of the current movement, and had a gilded
vane upon his boxes which he asserted he had had upon his poultry-house
for five years previously. Another stated that all my fowls (there
shown) were bred from _his_ stock. And still another proclaimed that the
identical birds which I contributed were purchased directly of him; he
knew every one of them. Finally, one competitor impudently hinted that
my birds actually then belonged to _him_, and had only been _loaned_ to
me (for a consideration) for exhibition on this occasion!
When the fair closed, however, the matter was all set right, as may be
gathered from the following extract from the official Report of the
third show, of the Committee of Judges, of which I was _not_ a member:
"At this third Boston Show," says the Committee, "the best and most
faultless descriptions of Red and Buff Shanghaes were shown by G.P.
Burnham, Esq., and others. And of the Cochin-Chinas, the specimens of
Geo. P. Burnham, etc., were each and all notable, and worthy of public
appreciation."
This was satisfactory to me, and I made the most of this "werry
fav'rable opinion" of the august Committee,--who added the following, in
their Report, in reference to the action of Southern purchasers:
"It seems, from reliable information received by members of the
Committee, that fowls raised in New England, and exported South,
attain to a much larger size, and are vastly more prolific, than in
our colder climate. This is specially so in reference to the
produce of stocks recently imported from the East, namely, the
Shanghaes, Cochin-China fowls, and others of larger varieties. _So
sensible have some of the most eminent Southern breeders become
that such is the case, that they are annually in the habit of
buying their young stock from the Northern States, and they find
the system profitable._ In this way, New England bids fair to
become the supply-market, in a great measure, for the South and
West."
This was beautiful! "_Annually_ in the habit." I liked _that_ portion
of it. And Southern buyers seemed to like it, too, judging from the
manner in which orders poured in upon us, after this gentle hint from
_such_ authority! I believe that the Chinese fowls really did better in
the South than they did with us, this way. At least, I _hope_ they did!