292 PROFITS IN POULTRY. 
legged chickens. Boston has made the present taste in 
New England, which decidedly prefers yellow-legged 
chickens, and though the preference is not emphatic for 
the skin of White Hollands, yet, doubtless, it is because 
it is difficult to obtain them. The compiler of this book 
has sold yellow-legged and yellow-skinned poultry at 
fifty per cent advance on the price of dark-legged chick- 
ens, It may be a fancy, but if you get your money, 
what matters it? By persisting in raising white turkeys 
for the New England market for a series of years, a de- 
mand may be made forthem. Outside of New England, 
unless we may except the Philadelphia market, the color 
of the skin and legs of a fowl or turkey receives but 
little consideration. 
By ‘‘common” turkeys is meant mongrels,—all sorts 
of breeds mixed. Too many farmers have such flocks. 
Get a first-rate male of the variety you want and mate 
him with your hens. From their progeny select the 
best females, and mate them with a fine male of the same 
breed, but not related to their sire. Pursue this course, 
‘grading up,” for two or three years, and you will have 
as geod a flock as you need for market purposes. 
GETTING READY. 
Much depends upon the care of breeding stock, tur- 
keys being quite liable to disease when kept in confine- 
ment. The floor should be covered with litter, which 
should be renewed when badly soiled. Make them 
scratch for their grain im the litter. Dryness, cleanli- 
ness and a variety of food are important. Feed some 
meat. Furnish plenty of grit. Overfed turkeys will 
get too fat. Feed the old turkey hens clover and less 
starchy food in the latter part of winter, and they will 
give better satisfaction. Throw them some grain at 
noon. Then just before sundown, give them all the hot 
whole grain they can eat. Let them out as early as pos- 
sible in the spring. 
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