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1862. 



THE ILLIXOIS FAKMEE. 



245 



Raising Turkeys. — Why is it that at least 

 three out of four farmers do not succeed in rais- 

 ing turkeys ? With all other poultry they are 

 successful, but turkeys are abandoned by most 

 farmers as too uncertain and troublesome to 

 bother with. Now this is all wrong — for once a 

 person gets the knack of raising these fine fowls, 

 they can raise just as many as they please. So 

 far as I am concerned, I generally raise more 

 turkeys than I know what to do with, and I have 

 turkeys now left over from last year, that will be 

 eaten as we want them. Last winter we fairly 

 revelled in roast turkey — give quite a number 

 away — sold others, have some, beside the breed- 

 ert, still left. My plan of raising is simple, and 

 I will give it in as few words as possible. 



First, I never allow a turkey to set until about 

 the middle of May. They will commence to lay 

 early in April, but I take their eggs away as fast 

 as laid, and keep them until they lay their sec- 

 ond batch, which will be finished about the sec- 

 ond or third week in May. I then give her some 

 eighteen or twenty of the eggs and let her set. 

 Along about the middle of June she will be off. 

 T then take her, put her with her young on an 

 old barn floor, or other out-building that is dry, 

 and feed on curd and cracked corn. Curd is the 

 best for a continual feed when the farmer has 

 plenty, but cracked corn or coarse meal, mixed 

 with lobbered milk, will answer about equally as 

 well. After they have been in doors for two or 

 three days, or long enough to get fairly on their 

 legs — for the turkey is the weakest of all fowl 

 when young — I let them out, providing the wea- 

 ther is fine, and there is no dew on the grass 

 The great reason why people cannot or do not 

 raise turkeys is, because they turn them out as 

 soon as hatched, and about the first wetting they 

 get they keel over and die. To succeed in rais 

 ing turkeys, therefore, you must keep them dry 

 until at least ten weeks old, when they will stand 

 as much wbter as other fowls — geese and ducks 

 excepted. Of course, they must be driven in 

 every night, and on all occasions when a storm 

 is threatening. The reader will at once perceive 

 there is care in all this, but when Thanksgiving 

 an i Christmas come — to say nothing of all the 

 Sunday roasts during the winter, our care is lost 

 in enjoyment, and we come to the conclusion that 

 "turkeys are worth raising." — Dollar Newspaper. 



— The above will be valuable to those who are 



fond of Christmas turkey ; for ourself we like 

 the chicken better; they are more cheaply and 

 certainly raised, and for Sunday dinner equally 

 valuable. The rambling disposition of the tur- 

 key and his propensity for spring onions and 

 early cabbage, is against him ; but those who 

 prefer them to the chicken will find the above 

 valuable advice. Ed. 



The Cultivation of Grasses. 



It is a common complaint among intelligent 

 farmers; and the fact is verified by statistical re- 

 turns, that the average yield of medows as also 

 that of arable lands is less at the present day 

 than it was twelve or fifteen yeaas ago, and some 

 of the more scientific agriculturists hav attribu- 

 ted this deterioration to the prevailing ignorance 



in a great measure smong farmers in regard to 

 the nature, use and relative value in the T^ay of 

 nutriment of the various species of grass. The 

 best grasses even when natural to the soil under 

 culture, run out earlier than the coarser and less 

 valuable sorts, and this fact should be constant- 

 ly borne in mind. Of all the grasses timothy is 

 the most nutritive, but upon uplands, for home 

 consumption, the orchard grass will be found 

 most profitable. Lime, potash and the phos- 

 phates must be present in the soil in which grass- 

 es are grown, and in sufficient quantities to keep 

 the yield year after year up to tne highest acre- 

 able product ; but liquid manure, which contains 

 the fertilizing elements in a soluble state is also 

 of surpassing advantage when properly applied. 

 The true plan in seeding down to grass is to 

 stock the land, not with one sort of seed alone, 

 but with a variety, taking care however as far 

 as possible to sow only the seeds of such grasses 

 as come into flower about the same time. It has 

 been demonstrated that only a certain number of 

 seeds will grow on a given area ; that not more 

 than two seeds of blue grass for instance, will 

 upon a square inch of ground, whereas by seed- 

 ing the same space to timothy and multiplying 

 the kinds some five or six differrnt varieties will 

 fill up and mature upon the same space of 

 ground. Of course, all other things being eqnal, 

 the greater number of plants that can be made 

 to grow and flourish upon a given space the 

 heavier will be the product of hay to the acre. 



In preparing the land for grass it is essential 

 that it should be deeply plowed ; subsoiling be- 

 ing of infinite service ia increasing the supply 

 of soluble food, and also in guarding the grasses 

 against the deleterious effects of our summer 

 heats and drouths by keeping the soil cool and 

 yielding by evaporation a supply of moisture at 

 a time when it is most needed. A second condi- 

 tion is, that the soil should be reduced before 

 seeding to as fine a tilth as possible. After sow- 

 ing the seed, care must be taken that it shall not 

 be covered to to a greater depth than about one- 

 eighth of an inch — for if iT is covered to a depth 

 of half an inch, very many of the seeds will be 

 lost, and if to one inch they will not germinate 

 at all. The use of the harrow in covering ^rass 

 seed is very objectionable, but if it must be har- 

 rowed in, it should be done very lightly. The 

 best time for sowing grass seed is just before a 

 rain, for if the soil is sufficiently loose, the rain 

 in its action upon the finer particles of scil, will 

 furnish the seed with the necessary covering. — 

 In applying lime to grass lands, if the lime is 

 slacked with brine made from refuse salt, its 

 agricultural value will be greatly increased. In 

 seeding down to timothy not less than a peck of 

 seed should be used, and the fields if made rich, 

 should be suffered to remain in grass for a num- 

 ber of years ; taking care to keep the grass in 

 vigor by scarifying the soil in the autumn and by 

 occasional top-dressing of manipulated guano 

 and wood ashes — a hundred and fifty pounds to 

 the acre of the former and from fifteen to twenty 

 bushels of the latter. By pursuing this system 

 and by not pasturing the meadows in the fall of 

 the year, heavy crops of hay may be taken from 

 the lands for many successive seasons. — Rural 

 Register. 



