Question 4:
Can Turkeys Fly?
And the answer is... again...yes, and no.
Yesterday we dealt with the "yes", so today, with the no. For this turkey would find it exceeding difficult to fly. Compared with that card from yesterday, this bird is much fatter, disproportionately so, and the reason for this is that a lot of turkeys are bred with money in mind, and the more meat on the turkey, the bigger profit. Also a bird that cannot fly is easier to contain, they need less space to run around, and so the poor turkey lives but a shadow of their former existence.
We cannot blame the modern farmer, or today`s society, either, for the changing of the turkey into something more commercial has been going on for a long time. It started in the 1930s, conversely when consumers asked that their turkeys be a bit smaller, making storage and cooking easier, and also one which had more of the white meat than the brown. That led to a range of scientific experiments and interbreedings, using the wild turkey off yesterday`s card and several commercial breeds which it was thought might have the features required.
The research was abandoned during the Second World War, but resumed when peace arrived. What they came up with was the Beltsville Small White, and that hit the shops in 1951. It was amazingly popular with the post modern small families of the day, but it was then realised that there was less profit for restaurants and commercial users off of such a small turkey. Therefore the breeding programme started up again in the other direction, and led to the Broad Breasted White, a bird twice the size of the turkeys of the 1930s before all the messing about began.
This bird fulfilled every need except for its own, for they were incapable of flight and of breeding in the natural manner, and because they were unable to run about they became even fatter, which left them prone to heart disease, breathing difficulties, and also to increased wear and tear on joints which were never designed to support such a massive frame.
Now we have used a card from Jacquemaire before, but as a newsletter card (on Sunday, 25th August 2024 - the newsletter being published on the 24th of August, 2024) so this will become the home page for all their issues, and also for their biography.
If we start with that biography, the company is Jacquemaire Establishments, and it is named after Mr. Leon Jacquemaire. He was born in France, in 1894. The company was actually a partnership, between himself and a Maurice Miguet, and both men were pharmacists in Villefranche sur Saône, sixteen miles from Lyon - it is probably no coincidence, therefore, that most of their cards were printed by R. Fort in Lyon. Their most famous products were Blecao (a light food designed for restoring health and wellbeing), Bledine (a complete food to aid weight loss), though on this card Bledine is being advertised as the next best thing to mother`s milk, a follow on food for babies.
This set is titled "Animaux Domestique" or "Domestic Animals". It seems to either have been reissued several times or just issued with lots of different backs, some being pictorial and others just being text. In addition I have found several cards where the same image faces a different way - I am waiting for a scan of this second version of our card. which will then be added.
There was also a connected series called "Animaux Sauvages", or "Wild Animals", in a very similar style.
A quick trawl through the internet has discovered a few other cards in our set, namely
- Boeuf [bull]
- Cheval [horse]
- Coq [Cockerel]
- Dogue [Dog]
- Lapin Domestique [tame rabbit]
- Mouton Ecossais [Scottish Highland Sheep]
- Mulet [Mule]
- Pigeon Paon [Fantail Pigeon]
- Pintade [Guinea Fowl]
- Porc [pig]
- Renne [Reindeer]
- Vache [cow]
- Veau [calf]