POULTRT'CRAFT. 221 



CHAPTER XV 



Turkeys. 



327. The Turkey the Farmers' Fowl. The turkey is peculiarly a 

 fowl for the general farm. Market conditions and the characteristics of the 

 fowl combine to confine profitable turkey growing on a business scale to 

 farms where the birds can have an extensive foraging ground. Turkeys can 

 be, and are, grown on small places, but in very limited numbers. The 

 turkeys produced elsewhere than on large farms hardly affect the trade either 

 in market or breeding stock. 



The heaviest demand and best prices for turkeys come seasonably for the 

 farm poultry keeper. The poults can be hatched at the " natural" season, 

 and grown to a salable maturity in time to get the best prices of the year. 

 This feature of turkey growing is one of its strongest recommendations to 

 farmers' wives and daughters, who are usually the poultry keepers. Though 

 it is open to question whether there is really as much to be made from turkeys 

 as from chickens on the farm, it seems plain that the women on farms 

 usually think turkey growing more profitable than any other branch of 

 poultry culture, and it is probably true that the income from turkeys comes 

 easier than that from chickens. There is greater satisfaction in producing 

 something that is marketable when the market is at its best, and will bring in 

 a large lump sum, as a flock of turkeys will. Then the receipts from the 

 turkeys are a distinct addition to receipts from other poultry products. Tur- 

 key growing need not interfere with or curtail operations with poultry. 

 Turkeys forage further than chickens, and thus the two kinds of fowl are 

 kept on the same farm with little interference, the turkeys ranging mostly 

 over an area outside of that used by the hens. In growing turkeys, as in 

 growing chickens on the farm, the flock can be of a size proportionate to the 

 foraging ground, and the turkeys may be, after the first few weeks, reared 

 and sometimes fattened for market on what they pick for themselves. 

 Even when they require regular feeding and heavy feeding to fatten, there is 

 at least as much profit in feeding grain to them as to any stock produced on 

 the farm. The production of exhibition and fine breeding stock is also limited 

 mostly to farmers who are fanciers, and to some special poultry breeders occu- 

 pying large farms. The few prominent turkey breeders located on quite small 

 farms farm out most of their stock. 



