THE BREEDS OF TURKEYS. 39 



wild blood. Crosses have much of the superior game flavor 

 of the wild, and command a higher price for the table. 

 The half or one-fourth wild are active, hardy, and unusually 

 heavy and firm in flesh. They may attain great size, but 

 will prove specially popular because they will produce poults 

 weighing ten to twelve pounds the first autumn after they 

 are hatched, and thus make a most popular market bird. 

 The Rhode Island Experiment Station has found this invest- 



FIG. 10. PURE WILD GOBBLER BRED IN CONFINEMENT. 



By courtesy of the Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment Station. Reproduced 

 from colored plates in Wright's Illustrated Book of Poultry. 



ment of wild blood so beneficial that it has obtained wild 

 stock and distributed half-wild gobblers all over the State. 

 This is having a most beneficial effect, unless the turkeys 

 are so bred as to make the proportion of wild blood greater 

 than one-fourth. In that case they are sometimes wilder 

 and smaller than is desired for practical purposes. Read 

 the experience in the latter part of this book, of Mr. Tucker 

 of Prudence Island with three-eighths wild turkeys, fully 

 confirming the above. These birds were not tame but 

 were managed all right* and of those hatched more lived 



