2i8 The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 



flesh upon them. The Turkey does not attain its maturity until the third year, and the largest, 

 strongest chicks can only be secured from mature parents. So common is the practice of selling 

 off everything at a year old or less, that it is almost impossible to get stock two and three years 

 old. In purchasing breeders, it is the best economy to buy the heaviest birds, even at fancy prices. 

 A ten months' cock, weighing thirty pounds, is cheaper at fifty dollars than a twenty-pound bird 

 at five. Young hens weighing sixteen to eighteen pounds are cheaper at twenty dollars than 

 twelve-pound birds at five. Large, well-formed birds, of perfect plumage, will leave their mark 

 upon their progeny." 



Another American journal, devoted to farming matters generally, in its issue for February, 

 1873, puts the matter very simply, forcibly, and practically ; and the article is so especially 

 valuable, as giving the results of actual experiment, that we extract nearly the whole. " The real 

 reason of breeding from young birds in most cases," says the writer, " is that the farmer grudges 

 the few extra pounds of poultry that he has to feed through the winter. The difference between a 

 dozen good birds fit for breeding and a dozen of the second litter is some sixty or seventy pounds 

 [in weight], worth twelve dollars or more. If he markets that poultry he is sure of the money. 

 The cost of keeping large birds in good condition is also more — so he tries to believe that the 

 keeping of the refuse of his flock is good policy. This we know to be a very bad practice. . . . 

 Turkeys do not reach their full size until their third year ; and we believe we can get larger and 

 stronger birds from full-grown stock than from yearlings. In the year 1871 we bred from a large 

 bronze gobbler, a late summer bird of the previous year, weighing twenty-five pounds, and from 

 yearling hens with few exceptions. The gobbler was from a very large pair, weighing sixty-two 

 pounds, and gave us a fine flock. We kept over the gobbler and most of the hens. He had in- 

 creased his weight to thirty-one and a half pounds without extra feed, and some of the hens reached 

 eighteen pounds. The result is a much larger flock of \_youHg\ turkeys, and they are heavier October 

 1st than the flock of last year November 1st. This would indicate an average difference oi three 

 pounds or more by Christmas in favour of breeding from three-year-old birds. Pairs weighing forty 

 pounds at seven months are much more numerous than pairs weighing thirty-five pounds were last 

 year at the same age. The turkeys have had the same care ; and the difference of growth seems to 

 be owing simply to the fact that the breeders were of larger size and more mature." 



Still more emphatic is the testimony of Mr. Hewitt upon the same subject, and no one has 

 had greater opportunities of knowing the truth in this matter. He writes to us as follows :— 



" It should be constantly borne in mind that in no other variety of poultry is excellence 

 of conformation and first-rate condition so all-important as in turkeys. As turkeys, when of 

 unusual weight and well-fed, are always certain to maintain a good price for table purposes, 

 so do malformations of any kind entail naught else but absolute loss on those who raise them. 

 The great cause leading to such vexations, I do not myself doubt for a moment, arises from the 

 ' penny wise and pound foolish ' system, of late too general, of selling off all the finest birds 

 at the close of the year to the poulterers, as they then sell for heavy sums, and retaining for 

 brood stock late-hatched poults, themselves immature, and greatly lacking in general constitution. 



" My own experience proves that strong, well-grown turkeys, of two or even more years 

 old, are the brood birds most to be depended upon for the realisation of profit, in raising stock 

 for the table or the exhibition-pen. Although I freely admit the temptation is great, when prices 

 are offered, as they frequently are, at approaching festive occasions for the best birds of the 

 flock, the most astute course for an owner is to retain the poults most remarkable for size, 

 constitution, and perfect conformation, as his future breeding stock. It should be known that 

 unusually large turkeys always sell at incomparably higher prices (even as sold by the pound) 



