FORTY POUND TURKEY 33 



and fruitage were not in evidence. A mulch of weeds and straw 

 outside the hennery walls allowed the use of a dirt ash-strewn dusting 

 floor in winter. More than a dozen breeds, with separate yard for 

 each, battled to convince us that there was money to be made 

 from this branch of husbandry, but when the stock of hens num- 

 bered much over one hundred and the care devolved upon hired 

 help, we found little if any profit. In spite of incubators and 

 brooders, sunny and shaded chicken runs, close study of the dietetic 

 value of different poultry foods, including a goodly batch of sunflower 

 seeds grown in the hen yards, and seemingly the most devoted care, 

 both infant and adult mortality ran high, and roup competed with 

 hen-hawks, polecats and an occasional Sir Reynard, to fill the wrong 

 side of the ledger. The profit in the sale of breeding stock was more 

 than canceled by possible loss in egg and broiler.* 



Forty Pound Turkey. 



I recall with bucolic pride our forty pound prize bronze turkey 

 gobbler. To be accurate, he tipped the scales at thirty-eight pounds 

 eight ounces, but candor compels us to admit that he was "boughton, 

 not riz." Our pride had a setback when we read of a sixty-pounder 

 in the West. 



In self defense, we had to trap the mink, weasel, rat, and 

 sometimes a vagrant cat, who insisted upon joining issues with an 

 occasional polecat to poach in the chicken yard. 



Well, the chicken raising hobby -serves the beneficent purpose 

 of forcing pure country air into half expanded city lungs, and gives 

 new zest to living, even if financial results are sometimes disappointing. 



Among all the screechers on our farm, including quacking ducks 

 and hissing geese, our guinea fowl and a royal peacock, who strutted 

 proudly up and down the lawn, generally refusing to entertain guests 

 by an exhibition of his spreading tail w r ith its iridescent coloring, out- 

 screeched them all. 



The white fantails superciliously ignored the carrier pigeons that 

 dwelt in the dovecote, nesting in the big barn cupola. Perched on 

 ridges or strutting in the barn yard, they almost fell backward under 

 pride of carriage, and added to the domestic atmosphere of our farm 

 buildings. 



Husking Bee. 



The floor of the old barn was too uneven for dancing, but each 

 fall we had a jolly husking bee, and the finding of a red ear generally 

 prognosticated a reddened cheek. 



The way out for the amateur poultry keeper, whether a widow with children to sup- 

 port or a clerk seeking lost health, has been found. Let each municipaiity or. in lieu of a 

 generous public, the liberal minded individual owner, establish poultry experiment stations 

 in near-by suburbs, where up-to-date methods in sheltering, feeding, breeding, special care of 

 poultry, buying of stock and feed, and marketing poultry and eggs in the most profitable 

 manner, are taught. Plants of this character widely established would greatly shorten 

 the distance between producer and consumer, and could supply incubator chicks and market 

 the poultry. 



