FATTENING TURKEYS. 261 



wide and dry enough to keep the ground pure. In that 

 case these fine strains will do better kept away from the 

 house and yard, provided foxes are not preserved in the 

 neighbourhood (another point which Mr. Tegetmeier seems 

 to have forgotten). But our more domesticated breeds will 

 do best, on the whole, kept carefully out of the wet till nine 

 or ten weeks old, when they begin to " put out the red." 

 When this growth of the red on the neck is complete they 

 will be pretty fully fledged, and as regards the weather, may 

 be considered hardy: even in America, under the "wild" 

 system, most deaths are found to occur just before this crisis 

 in their growth. 



To finish or fatten for market different systems are 

 adopted. All agree that on very wide range little food is 

 needed during August and September, as they find a great 

 deal. In America they are usually fattened by giving them 

 after that what Indian corn they will eat, the white grain 

 being preferred, and care taken not to give much new corn 

 of the year, which causes diarrhoea. In Normandy, whence 

 several thousand tons are sometimes sent over to England 

 for Christmas, it is customary during the last three weeks to 

 cram them morning and evening with dough composed of 

 barley-meal, boiled potatoes, and some bran and minced 

 grass, which is made into boluses, each dipped in milk as 

 given ; but the birds are still driven out to pasture all day. 

 The best English birds are also left at liberty, but fed freely 

 for some weeks, mainly on soft food. But in parts of 

 Norfolk and other places they are often put up to fatten, in 

 stables or sheds, or pens made of wattles and furze, well 

 littered down with peat moss, raked over every other day, 

 and with a dust-bath in one corner, and perches about a 

 yard from the ground. They are mainly fed on oatmeal, 

 Indian meal, and barley-meal mixed equally, with the house 

 scraps and some boiled potatoes, and made up with skimmed 



