Popular Science Monthly 



The dressing plant into which the turkeys 

 from the surrounding farms are driven, 

 to emerge later crated for market 



Flocks composed of a thousand or more turkeys are sometimes driven miles to the community 

 dressing plant. Stops are made at nightfall near a grove of trees where the birds may roost- 



In most large turkey-growing districts, 

 however, dressing plants have been built to 

 handle the birds during November and 

 December. During other months of the 

 year the plants are used as clearing houses 

 for butter, eggs and other farm products. 

 Here the turkeys are 

 killed and dressed as 

 quickly as possible after 

 their arrival to prevent 

 shrinkage in weight. Of- 

 ten huskers in the vicin- 

 ity of a dressing plant 

 will go out through the 

 surrounding country and 

 buy up from the farmers 

 all the available turkeys, 

 driving them in to the 

 dressing plant in flocks 

 of sometimes a thousand 

 or more birds. 



At the dressing plants 

 the turkeys are driven 

 into cages arranged in 



An economical brooding pen in which 

 the motherbird is kept from straying 



long rows and leading through an alley into 

 a smaller inner cage. Not more than 

 twenty turkeys are allowed to remain in the 

 inner cage — or dressing room — at one time. 

 This is to prevent the pickers from choosing 

 the smallest and most easily picked birds 

 and leaving the large 

 ones for the last. 



Although it is consid- 

 ered best for all con- 

 cerned to ship the birds 

 already killed and dressed 

 to market, on account of 

 the heavy shrinkage of 

 live birds during trans- 

 portation, the rule is not 

 arbitrary. In fact, 

 there is a special 

 train, known as the 

 "turkey special" 

 which travels regu- 

 larly from Morristown, 

 Tenn., to New York 

 loaded with live turkeys. 



