MANAGEMENT. 95 



come sufficiently hardy, and in a good range, will 

 provide themselves throughout the day, requiring 

 only to be fed at their out-letting in the morning, 

 and on their return at evening : the same in spacious 

 farm-yards ; if confined to the poultry-yard, their 

 food and treatment is similar to that of the common 

 cock and hen. Turkeys would prefer roosting abroad 

 upon high trees, in the summer season, could that be 

 permitted with a view to their safe keeping. 



In the Sporting Magazine, August, 1824, there is 

 a letter signed Rusticus, giving an excellent 

 and obviously practical account of their breeding 

 and management, whence I have made the fol- 

 lowing extracts. " At two periods of their lives 

 turkeys are very apt to die ; viz. about the third day 

 after they are hatched, or when they throw out 

 what is called the red head, which they do at about 

 six or eight weeks old. At the latter period, a few 

 old beans split small, may be mixed with advantage 

 in their food. 



" If any notion is entertained of a second hatch, 

 the sooner one hen is turned away from her brood, 

 and the brood mixed with that of another which has 

 hatched about the same time, the better chance there 

 .is of rearing it; as the hen which is so turned away 

 will lay again in a fortnight or three weeks, and thus 

 hatch a second time before the month of July is out. 

 Even under these circumstances, the chance of rear- 

 ing the young ones is very uncertain, as they are 

 hardly strong enough to meet the cold nights in the 

 Autumn, when they often become what is called 

 club-footed, and die. I rather recommend letting 



