TURKEYS. 625 



in the market. A successful breeder of these fowls in New England says in this connection: 

 &quot;One great secret in raising turkeys is to take care of them and take care of them all 

 summer- and even then you cannot always raise them, for sometimes they will not lay, or 

 they will not hatch, or something will befall them. Sometimes we raise turkeys without much 

 care, when the season is specially favorable, but generally the measure of care is the measure 

 of success. A boy ten or twelve years old, with a little direction from his father, can easily 

 take care of two or three hundred turkeys, and he cannot earn so much money on the farm 

 in any other way. It is an old maxim, that if a thing is worth doing at all it is worth doing 

 well. Some may think this constant care is too much trouble. If you know a better course, 

 by all means pursue it. 



This painstaking has made turkey raising about as sure as any other branch of farm 

 industry. I have usually kept from eight to eleven hen turkeys for breeders, and have raised 

 from ninety-nine to one hundred and thirty-seven in a summer. A few years ago I sold my 

 turkeys for 27 cents a pound; they amounted to $380.40. The next year I sold for 25 and 

 27 cents a pound; gross amount of sales, $386.18. That year I kept an account of expenses, 

 and calculated the net profit at $213.58. The year following I sold at 25 cents a pound; 

 amount of sales, $311.37. I would rather raise turkeys and sell at 15 cents a pound, than to 

 raise pork and sell at 10 cents a pound. Perhaps in fattening pork you can save the manure 

 better, but the turkey droppings, if gathered from under their roosts and saved every week 

 and kept dry, are worth half as much as guano, and are certainly worth a cent a pound.&quot; 



A gentleman from Rhode Island informed the writer that when a boy of sixteen 

 years of age his father told him if he would take care of the turkeys during the summer he 

 might have all the proceeds from them in the autumn. Stimulated by this prospect, he made 

 his plans accordingly, utilizing all the eggs for sitting that the small flock of turkeys laid, 

 and purchasing a number in the neighborhood, setting them under both hens and turkeys, 

 and so managing that two or three broods would come off about the same time, when the 

 young chicks would all be given to one mother, in which case the others would soon be laying 

 again. At the time of marketing the turkeys, out of four hundred and eighty-six young 

 poults that started in life, four hundred and eighty-four were sold, which was certainly rare 

 success. In considering the average weight and price of turkeys sold in the market, it will 

 readily be seen that this young man was well repaid for his summer s labor. When well 

 understood, and properly managed, we believe there is nothing that the farmer can raise that 

 for the outlay will bring a larger profit than turkeys. 



In fact, every department of poultry raising may be made quite profitable under suitable 

 management, and if the practical instructions given in this work relative to it were fully 

 carried out, success must inevitably follow, as a general result. &quot;We are indebted to the Editor 

 of the Poultry World of Hartford, Conn., for permission to copy a number of cuts in this 

 department from his excellent journal, a publication that has done much to awaken an 

 interest in improved breeds of fowls, as well as to instruct in the enterprise of practical and 

 profitable poultry raising in this country. 



