4 



NEW ENGLAND FAllMER. 



From Moubray's Practical Treatise on Domestic Poul-j meal kneaded with milk, and freqnently renew- 

 ed Willi clear watei, rather than milk, which 

 often scours them. In case of the chicks ap- 

 pearing sickly and the feathers ruffled, indicat- 

 ing a chill from severity or change of weather, 

 we generally allowed half-ground mall with the 

 barlov-meal, and hy way of a medicine, powder- 

 ed carraway or coriander sced«. Also artifi- 

 cial WORMS, or boiled meat pulled into strings, 

 in running after which the chicks have a salu- 

 tary exercise. It is to be noted, that the above 

 diet is beneficial for every other species of 

 chicks, equally with the turkey. Superfluous 

 moisture, whether external or internal, is death 

 to chickens, therefore all slop victuals should 



try. 

 THE TURKEY, — Breeding and Management. 

 The turkey-cock is sufficient for six hens, and 

 even more, under the management of some dis- 

 tricts, where one breeder keeps a cock for his 

 own, and for the use of his neighbors, who send 

 Iheir hens, and in that mode avoid the charge 

 of keeping a cock : but this practice is exposed 

 to uncertainty, and is scarcely worth following, 

 although whilst the hen is setting, the absence 

 of a cock is no loss, as he will sometimes find 

 the opportunity of tearing the hen from her nest, 

 and in the struggle, of destroying the eggs. 



The hen will cover, according to her size, 

 from nine to fifteen eggs, and unless attended to, 

 will perhaps steal a nest abroad, in some im- 

 proper and insecure place. The turkey hen 

 lays a considerable number of eggs in the spring, 

 to the amount of eighteen to twenty-tive and 

 upwards, and her term of incubation is thirty 

 days. She is a most steady sitter, and will some- 

 times continue upon her eggs until almost starv- 

 ed, rather than quit her nest: hence the neces- 

 sity of constant attendance with both victuals 

 and water. She is also a most affectionate mo- 

 ther ; and that most curious and accurate observ- 

 er, Butlon, remarks her soft and plaintive cry, 

 with her different tones and inflections of voice, 

 expressive of her feelings. These facts, how- 

 ever, are to be received with a due degree of 

 circumspection, since I have known unsteady 

 sitters among turkeys, and however affectionate, 

 the turkey hen, from her natural heedlessness 

 and stupidity, is the most careless of mothers, 

 and being a great traveller herself, will drag 

 her brood over field, heath, or bog, never cast- 

 ing a regard behind her to call in her straggling 

 thicks, nor stopping while she has one left to 

 follow her. She differs beside, in this particu- 

 lar, from the industrious common hen ; she never 

 scratches for her chicks, leaving them entirely 

 to their own instinct and their own industry. 

 On these accounts, where turkeys are bred to 

 any extent, and are permitted to range, it is ne- 

 cessary to allow them a keeper. The turkey 

 hen is nevertheless extremely vigilant and quick 

 in the discovery of any birds of prey in the air 

 which may endanger her brood, and has the fa- 

 culty, by a peculiar cry, of communicating her 

 alarm, on which the chicks immediately seek 

 shelter, or squat themselves upon the earth : 



the geese in gleaning the corn fields, or shack 

 ing, and the former forage over the woods anc 

 commons, in the autumnal season, after whicl' 

 they are put up to be completely fattened. ! 

 have heard of the Norfolk turkies fattened t( 

 weigh twenty, and even thirty pounds each 

 and Buffon relates that the wild turkey of Amer 

 ica, has been known to attain the weight of six 

 ty pounds; but 1 have never made any heavie 

 than fifteen pounds, ready for the spit. 



Turkies are the most tender and difficult ti 

 rear of any of our domestic fowls ; but with dui 

 care and attention, which, rightly considered 

 in all things, give the least trouble, they ma; 

 be produced and multiplied with little or n 



be rigorously avoided. The utmost cleanunkss loss, and the same may be averred with al 

 is necessary" and a dry gravelled layer is most truth, of the rest of our domestic fowls, an. 



animals in general : the losses and vexations an 



IS necessary, and a cry gravelled lay 

 proper. A fresh turf of short sweet grass dai- 

 ly cleared from snails and slugs, which will scour 

 young chicks, is very pleasing and comfortable 

 to them, and promotes their health. The above 

 substantial food was always our chief dependence 

 with this brood, nor did we ever find it necessa- 

 ry to waste time in collecting ants' eggs or net- 

 tle seed, or give clover, rue, or wormwood, ac- 

 cording to the directions of the elder house- 

 wives. Eggs boiled hard are equally proper 

 with curd, and generally nearer at hand; the 

 en-o-s being rotten, is said to be no objection, al- 

 though we never used such. 



Our first preference for ivater instead of milk 

 for turkey chicks, so much recommended by the 

 old writers, arose from the observation that 

 chickens at large, among the troughs of milk- 

 fed pigs, generally were sickly and scouring, 

 and rough in their feathers; and more particu- 

 larly so, when they had access to potatoe wash, 

 which not only purged them, but glued their 

 feathers together, keeping them in a comfortless 

 and unhealthy state. 



The weather being remarkably favourable, tract, that the hay seldom paid the labor c 

 we have usually kooped the hen abroad, about harvesting ; and except in dry summers its valu 

 two hours in the forenoon, in a moderately warm for pasture was trifling ;— besides, one quarte 



nually deplored, arising almost entirely fron 

 ignorance and carelessness united hand in ham 

 Turkies as well as geese, under a judicious sys 

 tem, may be rendered an object of a certain de 

 gree of consequence to the farmer. 



From the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository. 



WET UNPRODUCTIVE MEADOW RECLAIMEE 

 By S. W. Po.MERoY, Esq. Vice President of the Masi 

 chusetts Agricultural Society. 

 In compliance with the request of the Boar 

 of Trustees, I will endeavor to detail the mar 

 agement, in reclaiming a tract of twenty r.cre 

 of Woodcock-meadow, or swail, upon my farm 

 the contrast between its present and former af 

 pearance having attracted some attention. Th 

 soil is a light, black, vegetable mould, mixe 

 with tine white sand, upon thin, alternate strat 

 of blue, yellow-veined clay, .-uid the same kin 

 of fine sand. This sub-soil retaiped all the sui 

 face water, and so level and wet was the whol 



sun, whilst the chicks were only three or four 

 weeks old, great care being taken that they did 

 not stray far from the koop. Six weeks is their 

 longest period of confinement within doors, after 

 which it is more safe to koop the hen for ano- 

 ther fortnight, that the chicks may acquire 

 strength abroad sufficient to enable them to fol- 

 low the dam, they being naturally inclined to 



- -, - -^ stray too far, and to weaken themselves by fa- 



bult she will not, from her timid'nature, fight for j tigue. When lull half-grown and well featlier- 

 her brood as the common hen will. The do- ed, they become sufficiently hardy, and in a good 



mesticated, as well as the wild turkies, run vvitli 

 considerable speed. 



The chicks must be withdrawn from the nest 

 as soon as hatclied, and kept very warm. It is 

 a very old and very general custom, to plunge 

 them instantly into cold water, and then give 

 them each a whole pepper-corn, with a small tea 

 spoonful of milk. This baptism is \ised by way 

 of a prophylactic against catching cold, to which 

 young chicks are so peculiarly liable ; but it is a 

 practice which I have never used, and from 

 which, in severe weather, 1 should suspect dan- 

 ger ; however, their being instantly thereafter 

 wrapped in wool or flannel may secure them. 

 The turkey, from sitting so close and steadily, 

 hatches more regular and quickly than the com- 

 mon hen. 



The hen and brood must be housed during a 

 month or six weeks, dependent upon the state 

 of the weather. First food, curd and barley, 



rann-e will provide themselves throughout (he 

 day, requiring only to be fed at their out-letting 

 in the morning, and on their return at even; 

 the same in spacious farm-yards ; if ccnfined to 

 the poultry-yard, the food and treatment is sim- 

 ilar to that of the common cock and hen. Tur- 

 kies would prefer roosting abroad upon high 

 trees, in the summer season, could that be per- 

 mitted with a view to their safe keeping. 



To FATTEN. — Sodden barley, or barley and 

 wheat meal mixed, is the proper food for tur- 

 keys confined to feeding; generally their food 

 and treatment are the same with other iowls. 

 They may be fattened early, or may be caio.n- 

 izED, a practice not very common, but the bulk 

 of the turkies are fed for Christmas, or the 

 months immediately preceding and subsequent, 

 when the quantities fat, sent from Norfolk alone, 

 are immensely great; as also are previously the 

 droves of store turkies. Turkies share with 



was occupied by flag ponds and mounds, flu 

 produced nothing. No part, except four acre 

 of the upper end had been subdued, in any oti 

 er way, than by cutting the bushes and floating 

 the vestiges of a dam for that purpose now re 

 main — a ditch through the centre five feet widt 

 carried off, slowly, the wgter from the spring 

 winter floods of the neighboring high grounds 

 1 began at first with ten acres, and the nex 

 year the whole was under the plough — it wa 

 struck out into lands of from one to two rod 

 wide, as was found convenient, on account o 

 roots, mounds, &c. and in a direction to Ihi 

 ditch ; the lands were back-furrowed, as it i 

 called, and the water furrows were cleared ou 

 hy one or two extra bouts — as the tract wa 

 narrow, the ditch being incumbered with roots 

 and its sides unequal, it was found necessary ti 

 plough directly across, by which it was nearb 

 filled up. The first heavy rain its content 

 were of the consistence of mortar, and a sto] 

 was put to all operations. To have cleared 

 out with shovels would have been a heavy am 

 expensive job ; a plough was tried with ver 

 little advantage. A maple sapling, that h.it 

 been taken up with all its close and horizonta 

 roots, extending four feet, was cut six feet long 

 hitched to a strong team, and with a man mount 

 ed on it, was drawn several times through thi 

 middle of the ditch, completely scooping out i 

 passage for the water, throwing the mud or 



