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While it may sometimes be possible to raise young turkeys 

 with a turkey or hen, or in common with the other poultry, 

 the losses attending these practices have often been so disas- 

 trous that turkey raising is no longer attempted in many 

 localities which formerly produced large numbers. 



It should not be supposed that isolation alone will insure 

 success. Small turkeys, like children, require intelligent care, 

 and probably this is one of the reasons why women have 

 succeeded to a degree in tiu'key raising. Turkeys grow rapidly, 

 so that they must be considered as babies until they are quite 

 large. Those who are fond of animals succeed best in raising 

 turkeys. Young turkeys that are ordinarily perfectly tame and 

 tractable, if placed in the care of certain individuals become 

 wild game birds, which become frantic with fear, and flutter 

 about or hide on the approach of a human being. On the 

 whole, however, their requirements are quite simple if only 

 understood. 



Various interesting beliefs have long existed concerning the 

 details of turkey raising. In 1674 one John Josselyn, Gent, 

 visited New England and gave the follow^ing account of the 

 turkey : — 



The turkie, which is in New-England a very large Bird, they breed 

 twice or thrice in a year, if you would preserve the young chickens alive, 

 you must give them no water, for if they come to have their fill of water 

 they will drop away strangely, and you will never be able to rear any of 

 them : they are excellent meat, especially a Turkie-Capon beyond that, 

 for which eight shillings was given, their eggs are very wholesome and re- 

 store decayed nature exceedingly. But the French say they breed the 

 Leprosie: the Indesses make coats of Turkie-feathers woven for their 

 children. 



At the present time some turkey raisers will not let young 

 turkeys out to range until the dew has dried off the grass. 

 Wetting young turkey's is universally considered bad, but we 

 have, nevertheless, succeeded in raising turkeys in a yard so 

 poorly drained that it practically becomes a duck pond with 

 each rainstorm. It is possible that there is something about 

 moisture that favors the ingestion of worm eggs from the 

 soil, — it is not improbable that the bird in loosening mud from 

 its feet with its beak may get worm eggs — but in so far as 



