The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-11-28

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backducks have both legs and wings?
| see your Colonel Ingersoll says that
God made oysters without legs so that
the people Of the eastern shore would
not starve to death Somebody must
have been selling the colonel a slider
for genuine terrapin.
What is a slider? 1t is a turtle Gre
ated expressly to make stewed terrapin
go further; at least some of the cater
ers regard it so. 1t is somewhat larger
than the terrapin, and much inferior,
though the appearance of the flesh is
not unlike. 1t is about twenty times
cheaper than the terrapin. We sell a
great many of them from my county,
but sell them honestly for what they
are, and the retailer or the cook does
the rest The slider is never used alone
for making stewed terrapin; but if you
cook, say three real terrapin with three
or four sliders, few people can tell the
difference.
Yes, ! call my place terrapin
farm" the colonel continued, tbut I
think the public have an erroneous
idea about terrapin farms. 1t is natu-
raj that they should have, for the name,
is misleading. We do not raise terra
pin. No one has ever yet succeeded in
raising terrapin; and the price is so
high you may be sure 9, great many eff
forts have been made. A terrapin
farm is simply a pen where terrapin
are confined until the season for their
sale begins. There is no sale for them
in summer, none whatever, and in Win
ter, when they are wanted, they are
hard to get. The natural result Is that
we catch them in summer when they
are easiest caught, and keep them until
winter, when they are easiest sold,
The pen in which we keep them we call
the farm; and it must not be too large,
or they run themselves thin.
ooh, yes, a terrapin will work all the
flesh off his bones If you give him space
enough to walk in. He is never quiet a
moment. in warm weather, when he
finds himself in a pen The restless
ness of a Gagged tiger is nothing to the
restlessness of a. penned terrapin. He
explores every inch of the pen a thou
sand times over. If there is any posi-
BILE chance he will escape. A tight
pof'i igo ~ 80 nisi = i'oe
ST. ~ us o NNe " Oh iee.
- 9'ci.e ~ oi'.'ei tiiT heifNo' "
y W ~ =" uiiuei ~ - - . ooiii-
iiioii soy ing ~ 'iie, eiaue ehat tsifdpil
ooli e,ll'o 9 % GU
it. He Is good climber, for turtle
out l 'iiiiiA 'iia' ~ liieec EASES ne sen
iS soe' iihuei 'iie ieiiee 'iiei 1iie'ii
oVei y.
Does penning affect their value?
Yes, 1t does, In general Broadly
speaking a penned terrapin is not
worth as much as one freshly caught
But it depends upon circumstances. A
terrapin farmer who treats his turtles
properly soon makes a reputation, and
gets within fraction of the price Of
wild ones. The difference is in the pen,
and the mode of feeding. The pen
must be moderate sized and have a soft
bottom But the food is of still more
consequences. The common method is
to feed them on fish. the cheapest food
! to be had. This soon gives their flesh
fishy taste, and, of course, ueterio-
rates the quality and lowers the price.
| In the best pens they are fed upon
| nothing but hard crabs and clover, of
| which they are very fond, and terrapn
SO fed are worth almost as much as the
wild ones.
ANY dealer can tell in a moment
whether terrapin is penned or Wild and
| / suppose that most customers can.
! The penned terrapin walks UP and
| down till he wears his under shell
rough. You might think it would wear
smooth, but it wears rough. That is
the first sign. Then he wears little
sore spots on his hind legs, which we
call corns. No dealer can deceive a
customer who once knows these signs.
Bulls and cows both wear the under
shell rough.
Bulls and cows? Those are the
names we give the males and females
The bulls are much the smaller, rarely
more than three or four inches long
1t is only the cows that reach length