Feeding Turkeys, Geese, and Ducks for the London Market. 533 



but if they have been " sent along " with Indian corn, barley-meal, 

 rice, and potatoes, they will make up to nearly 2 lbs. heavier. 

 The small Norfolk farmers generally keep a cock and three or 

 four hens, and consider fifteen an excellent brood. The best 

 broods are always hatched in April, and the second brood, which 

 never comes to the same maturity and is eaten at poult-estate, 

 follows in June or July. A September hatch too often realizes 

 the rustic prophecy, " they'll never be fit, they won't live long 

 enough." Cramp in the legs is very fatal to the broods ; but it 

 only kills them by lingering stages, and a disease in the head 

 very often effects " a highly successful elimination." Wet is the 

 young turkey's greatest foe. They are not let out of the coop 

 till they have been hatched two or three days, and they should 

 then be carefully watched and driven in from a shower. 



On the smaller fa,rms they are seldom finished off for market, 

 and middle-men go round about the end of August and buy them 

 up at an average of 4/. XQs. per score. They are then sold at a 

 small profit, of sometimes only Qd. per head, to the larger farmers 

 to "shack" upon the barley or oat stubbles, while the " swine well 

 ringled " are put upon the wheat ones. By the terms of some 

 leases the pigs and poultry are the only live stock which may be 

 depastured on the young grass seeds layer. A turkey-boy is 

 placed in daily attendance on the flock, to drive them home if it 

 is wet, and keep them away from the trees, to which, true to 

 their American forest origin, they are very partial. Nice bright 

 plumage and wattles like red sealing-wax are capital symptoms, 

 and if the cocks gobble, they are said to " talk healthy." Fighting 

 is also a true sign of vigour, and so is fly-catching, when they are 

 young. Besides what they get on the stubbles, they have abun- 

 dance of indoor relief. The system of cramming them at night 

 with force-balls is very much abandoned, and they are generally 

 well kept on potatoes, barley-tailings, and light wheat, ground 

 and mixed with milk. Common white turnips, which they eat 

 greedily without slicing, tend to make their flesh white and to 

 " cool their coppers ;" and brickdust to scour their maw is never 

 neglected. 



They are killed simply by breaking their necks, and the breast- 

 bone is always broken before they are sent off to the poultry- 

 salesman, in order to give the breast a plumper appearance. The 

 cocks, if sold out of their feathers to the neighbouring gentry, 

 will fetch Is. 2d. per lb. and the hens Is., or sometimes only 9^., 

 when a very plentiful season has knocked down prices, or they 

 are not fed up to the mark. The bigger they are the higher their 

 value per lb., on the same principle that salmon of 20 lbs. and 

 upwards fetch (Sd. more in the spring and early summer months 

 for the large West-end dinner parties. The great bulk of them 



VOL. III. — S. S. 2 N 



