20 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 



gobblers in the spring. Some say the yearling 

 gobblers will answer every purpose. I say they 

 will not; they answer no purpose except to grow 

 and make gobblers for the next year. The hens 

 are all right — you need have no anxiety about 

 them; they can take care of themselves; pro- 

 vided you leave them a male bird that gobbles, 

 they will do the rest. Any suitable community 

 can have all the wild turkeys it wants if it will 

 obtain a few specimens and turn them into a 

 small woodland about the beginning of spring, 

 spreading grain of some sort for them daily. 

 The turkeys will stay where the food is abundant 

 and where there is a little brush in which to retire 

 and rest. 



Some hunters, or rather some writers, claim 

 that the only time the wild turkey should be 

 hunted is in the autumn and winter, and not in 

 the spring. I have a different idea altogether, 

 and claim that the turkey should not be hunted 

 before November, if then, December being 

 better. By the first of November the young 

 gobbler weighs from seven to nine pounds, the 

 hens from four to seven pounds; in December 



