2U THE FARM. 



marketa every winter, and feel sorry for tlie owner's loss. Tliey have re- 

 ceived a small price for their birds and a still poorer price for the food fed 

 ont. The average life of a turkey is ouly seven mouths, and the true econ- 

 omy of feeding is to give the chicks all they can digest from the shell to the 

 slaughter. If they get all they can eat on the range, that is ■well. Usually 

 this should be supplemented by regular rations whe^ they come from the 

 roost in the morning and two or three hours before they go to roost at night. 

 The food may be slack in the morning, so that they will go to the range with 

 good appetites, and fuller at night. They should be put upon a regulai 

 course of fattening food as early as the middle of October, when you propose 

 to kill the best birds at Thanksgiving. The younger and lighter birds should 

 bo reserved for the Christmas and New Year's markets. They continue 

 growing quite rapidly until midwiutcr, and you will be paid for the longer 

 feeding. There is nothing better for fattening than old corn, fed partly in 

 the kernel and partly in cooked meal mashed up with boiled potatoes. Feed 

 three times a day, giving the warm meal in the morning, and feeding in 

 troughs with plenty of room, so that all the flock may have a chance. North- 

 em corn has more oil in it than Southern, and is worth more for turkey food. 

 Use milk in fattening if you keep a dairy farm. Feed only so much as they 

 will eat up clean. Cultivate the acquaintance of your turkeys as you feed 

 them. No more charming sight greets your vision in the whole circle of a 

 year than a large flock of bronze turkeys coming at call fi'om their roosts on 

 8, frosty November morning. New corn is apt to make the bowels loose, and 

 this should be guarded against. There is usually green food enough in the 

 fields to meet their wants in the fall, and cabbage and turnips need not be 

 added until winter seta in. If the bowels get loose give them scalded mflk, 

 which will generally correct the evil. Well-fattened and well-dressed tur- 

 keys will bring two or three cents a pound more than smaller birds. It will 

 not only be better for the purse, but for your manhood, to send nothing but 

 finished products to the market. 



Preserving Eggs. — Several Practiced Method.'^. — Several ways of 

 preserving eggs are practiced. The object is to prevent evaporation from 

 the egg. Cutting ofl" the air from the contents of the egg preserves them 

 longer than with any other treatment. An egg which has lain in bran even 

 for a few days will smell aijd taste musty. Packed in lime eggs will be 

 stained. Covered with a coat of spirit varnish eggs have kept so perfectly 

 that after the lapse of two years chickens were hatched from them. A good 

 egg will sink in a body of water; if stale, a body of aii- inside the shell will 

 frequently cause it to float. When boiled, a fresh egg wOl adhere to the 

 shell, wliich will have a rough exterior; if stale, the outside will be smooth 

 and glassy. 



Looking through a paper tube directed toward the light, an egg held to 

 the end of the tube will appear translucent if fresh; but if stale it will be 

 dark — almost opaque. 



Spirit varnish for preserving eggs ia made by dissolving gum shellac in 

 enough alcohol to make a thin varnish. Coat each egg with this and pack, 

 little end down, so that they cannot move, in bran, sawdust, or sand; the 

 sand is best. Whatever is used for packing should be clean and dry. For 

 preserving in lime, a pickle is made of the best stone lime, fine, clean salt 

 '•'1 water enough to make a strong biiue, usually sixty or sixty-five gallons 

 ' ^vater, six or eight quarts of salt, and a bushel of lime are used. The 

 ,'imfc should be slacked with a portion «f the water, the salt and the re- 



