HISTORY, EXTENT OF THE INDUSTRY 



the damage they do to growing crops and little or noth- 

 ing about the good. As a matter of fact turkeys do 

 little damage to crops under ordinary conditions where 

 they can find an ample supply of the feed which they 

 love to glean in their own way. But the loss which 

 they prevent by the destruction of insects is often very 

 considerable. Recently attention was called to the fact 

 that in one farming community the only farmer who 

 was successful in securing a yield of clover seed was one 

 who had allowed a flock of turkeys to range in his clover 

 field. In the same locality another farmer had his oats 

 crop saved from grasshoppers by turning in a flock of 

 turkeys to prey on the grasshoppers. A brood of turkeys 

 when ranging through a field seeking their feed go about 

 their work in a very systematic manner, often advancing 

 in a line at distances apart just about great enough to 

 enable them to cover all of the ground between one an- 

 other as they advance. Not many grasshoppers get by 

 this advancing line. 



Raising Turkeys in Confinement 



Most efforts to raise turkeys in confinement have not 

 been very successful and it has generally been considered 

 that to hatch and rear the turkeys artificially and to keep 

 them under rather intensive conditions was impracticable 

 and unprofitable largely for the following reasons : First, 

 that exercise is essential to health and vigor. Second, 

 that brooding the young poults artificially requires too 



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