THE TURKEY. 121 



cabbage-sprouts, or the outside leaves of greens well boiled 

 down. With these, potato-skins and an odd potato or two 

 itself, may be given. The meal of buckwheat, barley, beans, 

 oats, according to whichever is most plenty with you, will, 

 when incorporated as I have described with potatoes, fatten 

 the poults with great rapidity. You may also use the meal 

 of Indian corn with advantage, tut recollect that it requires 

 treble the boiling of oat-meal, and is more salutary when mixed 

 with an equal bulk of the latter. If you desire to meet the 

 market hastily, and with profit, you will be compelled to resort 

 to more expensive feeding than otherwise, but you will be 

 repaid by the result. When the poults are about five months 

 old, or earlier, if it be late in the season and cold weather 

 seems at hand, give them boiled potatoes mashed with meal, 

 and then chopped small, as I have described. Let this be given 

 fresh and fresh, and the vessel in which they are fed well 

 washed daily, as otherwise it will speedily contract a sour 

 smell, and become repulsive to the birds ; for turkeys are both 

 cleanly and nice in their appetite. After having persevered in. 

 this feeding, morning and evening, for about a month, during 

 which time the exercise of the poults should be greatly cur- 

 tailed, and they should likewise be kept much of their time 

 ( especially after meals) in the dark, they will be found fit for 

 use, and, if of a good kind, at least upwards of eighteen pounds' 

 weight. 



As damp or cold is fatal to turkey poults, so is intense 

 sunshine ; and hence they should not be led to pasture under a 

 scorching sun, unless, indeed, care be taken that the walk is 

 shaded. Should rain come, let them be at once housed. Poults 

 should also not be suffered to stray too far, for, independently 

 of the risk they incur, in case of a sudden shower, it must be 

 remembered that they are as yet incapable of encountering any 

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