TURKEYS AND HOW TO RAISE THEM 133 



to the corn cribs of the natives. The trees were their roofs to keep 

 the young dry, the leaves beneath them made it dry for them to 

 walk over, and the insects that had found their homes beneath the 

 leaves made their food. 



Now we are confronted with a different problem. The forests 

 are about gone, and during a wet season the turkeys must be kept 

 near home for protection from the rain. When they have outgrown 

 their baby feed, what shall we feed them? Corn as a steady diet is 

 out of the question ; as they will eat large quantities, their livers 



ROOT'S WHITE HOLLAND TURKEYS ON RANGE. 



will become congested from such highly concentrated food, and 

 you will notice that one goes a little slow. That will be the only 

 symptom of anything amiss ; it will walk a little slower, until it 

 turns up its toes to the blue sky, a silent protest against letting 

 them gorge themselves on the most highly concentrated food that 

 grows. 



Wheat, where it can be had, is the best and safest grain that 

 can be fed, but wheat here represents gold dollars and is too ex- 

 pensive to feed. Oats has too many hulls. This year, on account 

 of the high price of wheat, we could not get shorts. Shorts, mois- 

 tened with water or milk, can be safely fed to turkeys. The tur- 

 keys found that we had plenty of corn in the crib and they de- 

 veloped a great liking for it and only wanted to loaf around the 

 crib, until I lost two or three, and then I just turned them out and 

 made them get their living in the fields, and they are all right again. 

 Letting them live on corn is entirely against their way in their 

 wild state, and they have to suffer the penalty. It is like raising 

 children on rich pie, cake and preserves. Their digestive organs 

 get out of order, they become sick and often die. 



When turkeys find that they must stay out on the range and 

 get their living they are soon content. By instinct or by personal 

 investigation of the different fields they soon find where the largest 



