218 



THE AMERICAN POULTERER'S COMPANION. 



care and attention, which, rightly considered, in 

 all things gives the least trouble, they may be 

 produced or multiplied with little or no loss ; 

 and the same may be said with all truth of the 

 rest of our domestic fowls and animals in gen- 

 eral, the losses and vexations annually deplored 

 arising almost entirely from ignorance and care- 

 lessness united hand in hand. Turkeys as well 

 as geese, under a judicious system, may be ren- 

 dered an object of a certain degree of conse- 

 quence to the farmer. 



Of the fattening of Turkeys. It is only when 

 the cold comes, and when turkeys are about six 

 months old, that they should be fed with better 

 and more plentiful food, in order to increase 

 their size and plumpness for market. Indian 

 corn, ground barley, wheat, also rice and other 

 articles, used to fatten common fowls, are con- 

 sidered best for turkeys. Their weight, when 

 well fattened and carried to market, should av- 

 erage twelve pounds; their living and dead 

 weight is as eighteen to twelve pounds. 



Cobbett says, " As to fattening turkeys, the 

 best way is never to let them get poor. Barley 

 meal, mixed with skimmed milk, and given to 

 them fresh, will make them fat in a short time. 

 Boiled potatoes mixed with Indian meal, will 

 furnish a change of sweet food which they rel- 

 ish much, and of which they may eat as much as 

 they can. As with others, the food of this bird 

 must be kept clean, and the utmost care taken 

 not to give them on the morrow the remains of 

 the mixture of the preceding day ; because if 

 the weather is warm, it will sour, which might 

 displease them." 



In some sections, in order that they may all 

 get fat more expeditiously, some professional 

 poulterers cram their turkeys, which, with the 

 barbarous practice of depriving them of sight, 

 and light, and motion, by confining them in 

 narrow inclosures, is so revolting to humanity, 

 that it is to be hoped that the horrid custom is 

 but seldom practiced, in this country at least. 

 The very idea is enough to disgust and cloy the 

 appetite of the most consummate epicure ! 



There are said to be some advantages attend- 

 ing this mode of feeding turkeys ; but it is, to 

 say the least, unnatural and cruel; and thei'e- 

 fore, fattening in freedom, and as they naturally 



hoose, is a more certain way of procuring pure 

 and healthy birds, free from all plethoric dis- 

 ease. 



We give the following, which was published 

 in the National Recorder, more for its singularity 

 than in the belief of its usefulness : " In the win- 

 ter of 1818-19, a gentleman in this city made 

 the following experiment. He placed a turkey 

 in an inclosure about four feet long, two feet 

 wide, and three or four feet high. He exclud- 

 ed as much light as he could without preventing 

 a circulation of air, and fed the turkey with soft 

 brick broken to pieces, and with charcoal also 

 broken, and with ten grains of corn per day. 

 Fresh water was daily supplied. The box or 

 coop in which the turkey was placed he always 

 locked up with his own hands, and is perfectly 

 confident that no person interrupted the experi- 

 ment. At the end of one month he invited a 

 number of his neighbors, among others, two 

 physicians. The turkey, now very large and 

 heavy, was killed and opened by the physicians, 

 and was found to be filled up with fat. The 

 gizzard and entrails were dissected, and nothing 

 was found but a residuum of charcoal and brick. 

 To conclude the examination satisfactorily, the 

 turkey was eaten and found to be good. 



"The circumstance which induced him to 

 make the experiment is a very curious one. 

 One of his neighbors informed him, that being 

 driven from the city by the fever of 1793, his 

 family recollected that some fowls that had lived 

 in a kind of loft over his workshop had been 

 forgotten in the hurry of their removal, and 

 would certainly be starved. They were absent 

 six or eight weeks, and on the retiring of the 

 pestilence returned. To their great astonish- 

 ment, the fowls were not only alive, but very 

 fat, although there was nothing but charcoal and 

 shavings that they could have eaten, and some 

 water that had been left in the trough of a 

 grindstone, had supplied them with drink." 



Fattening Turkeys on Charcoal. Much has 

 been published of late in our agricultural jour- 

 nals in relation to the alimentary properties of 

 charcoal. It has been repeatedly asserted that 

 domestic fowls may be fattened on it without 

 any other food, and that, too, in a shorter time 

 than on the most nutritive grains. " I have re- 



