678 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
October 27 
that can be taught. I see no reason why any farmer 
who can control chestnut land, cannot do just as we 
have done here. Of course, in this, as with every¬ 
thing else, it depends on the man rather than on the 
land." 
“ What are the drawbacks to the business ? ” 
“The most serious are failure to keep down the 
underbrush properly, the chestnut weevil and other 
insects and thieves." 
“You are not afraid of giving away your informa¬ 
tion ? ” 
“ Not at all. There is nothing to hide about it. I 
would be glad if we had 1,000 acres in improved chest¬ 
nuts in sight of where we stand. That would make 
us headquarters for the nuts, and buyers wouldicome 
to us. I have no doubt that the American markets 
can easily absorb all the chestnuts American farmers 
can grow. I am certain that these improved nuts will 
prove as salable as apples." 
This chestnut grove is but a side issue with Mr. 
Engle. He also does a large business in Paragon trees. 
These trees are grown like other nursery stock, and 
next week I hope to tell something about that side of 
the business, as well as other things about the farm. 
H. w. C. 
A TURKEY TALK. 
COST OF A POUND OF TURKEY. 
1. How much doesU cost to raise an aTeraKe brood of turkeys ? 
2. What is the best month for hatchlnK them—say for Kansas and 
Missouri 7 
8. With (rood ran(re and plenty of natural food, what proportion of 
youne turkeys are brought to maturity 7 
4. When should they be sold (what age) and what should they aver¬ 
age in weight 7 
6. Can you give us any estimate as to the cost of growing a pound of 
turkey 7 
From Nothing to Three Cents a Pound. 
1. An average brood does not specify any particular 
number. 2. May is the best month. Sooner than that 
the weather is too damp and cold. 3. It depends on 
the weather and lice. Only one-half of the young 
turkeys hatched, are raised. If kept dry, and free 
from the large head lice, the loss should not exceed 20 
per cent. Inbreeding is a great fault. 4. They should 
be sold at or after Thanksgiving. Small sizes are pre¬ 
ferred in market, say about 10 pounds each. Prom 
May to November, they should grow. Gobblers of the 
Bronze variety often weigh 25 pounds alive, when a 
year old, but this is far above the average. 5. They 
cost nothing if on a good range, but should be fattened 
before being sold. The cost of the food to produce a 
pound of turkey, for the whole year, if on a range, 
should not exceed three cents. p. h. Jacobs. 
Raising and Selling Turkeys in Kentucky. 
1. If each one of my hens raises 12 poults, I should 
praise them for doing good work, so we will call 12 an 
average brood. For the first two months of their lives, 
I feed them upon eggs, sweet milk and stale bread. I 
allow the poults but one egg a day, increasing the 
quantity of milk and stale bread as their appetites 
demand. As milk is plentiful, and as stale bread is 
taken little account of in a farmer’s household, I 
think that 75 cents a month would cover the cost of 
all the food the brood of 12 would consume while 
under two months of age. After this, turkeys on a 
good range can live without any extra feeding ; still, 
for best results, I allow them one good meal a day, in 
the evening, to bring them home, and to stimulate 
rapid growth. At present, wheat is about the cheap¬ 
est, most nutritious and most wholesome food we can 
give them. I boil the wheat until it is j ust about 
double in quantity ; at that stage the grain still re¬ 
mains whole, and it is eagerly devoured by the poults. 
The nutritive value of wheat is much increased by 
cooking, and it is also rendered easier of digestion. 
For the third and fourth months, in addition to table 
scraps, I allow three bushels of clean wheat, which, if 
boiled, will allow the poults a little over half a pint a 
day. The three bushels of wheat are worth $1.50, 
bread scraps about 50 cents, which, added to the $1.50 
for food furnished during the first and second months, 
brings our account to $3 50. 
For the fifth and sixth months they will need 
another three bushels of wheat, boiled as before, and 
about two bushels, say, of shelled corn to fatten and 
finish them off, the corn taking them on into the 
seventh month if desired. Corn is also 50 cents a 
bushel. Finally, our account against the brood of 12 
poults amounts to $6—that is 50 cents for each turkey. 
This is a liberal estimate, and may be easily reduced 
by substituting cheaper foods. Wheat bran and 
middlings in some parts of the country are sold aslow 
as 50 cents per 100 pounds. As part rations, these 
may be given. My fiock this year have preferred 
wheat bran to anything I could offer. Moisten it with 
skim-milk, and season with a pinch of salt. Still, for 
best results, there is nothing which will take the place 
of whole, sound wheat. Sorghum seed is also excellent 
poultry food, and many other things like potatoes, 
may be used to advantage. 
2. In southern Kentucky May is the best month 
for hatching, that is, if they do not happen to strike 
the cold spell in May, called by some, “Blackberry 
Winter,” from the fact that it usually comes while 
blackberries are in bloom. The weather at this time 
is cold, rainy and disagreeable, and woe betide all 
young fowls that are out in it. Still, my early tur¬ 
keys always grow so much faster than those which 
come later, that I feel tempted to get them out as 
early in May as possible. As far north as Kansas or 
Missouri, the first of June might be preferable. 3. It 
depends entirely upon the amount of good judgment 
and carefulness exercised by the person in charge of 
the turkeys. A lady told me not long ago that she 
thought raising turkeys much easier work than raising 
chickens. And if the parent stock be strong, healthy, 
and vigorous, I see no reason why, barring accidents, 
every poult hatched should not reach maturity. The 
little things have a wonderful amount of vitality. My 
hens frequently have raised every one I gave them, 
and would do it oftener if it were not for the hawks. 
This is not the experience, however, of every one in 
the community, and perhaps it would be no exaggera¬ 
tion to say that scarcely one-fourth of the poults 
hatched is brought to maturity. 
4. The best time for marketing turkeys depends 
somewhat upon the locality of the producers. Farmers 
living near large cities who can make special engage¬ 
ments for supplying hotels and boarding houses, find it 
best to dress their turkeys and send them in at inter¬ 
vals during the fall and winter. Others make engage¬ 
ments to supply dealers at Thanksgiving or Christmas. 
Others, again, ship to commission merchants in cities, 
taking their chances with an exceedingly fiuctuating 
A Homemade Corn Tie. Fig. 178. 
market. Like most other young stock on the place, 
the greatest profit arises from stimulating an early 
and vigorous growth, fattening to some extent, and 
getting them off before they reach maturity. Sell the 
turkeys, for instance, at Thanksgiving, when six or 
seven months old. Without being especially fattened, 
I have had gobblers weigh 27 pounds at seven months, 
and I believe I could make them weigh that much at 
six months if regularly fed as advised above. The 
young gobblers, however, far outweigh the hens. If 
you can get a hen to weigh 16 pounds at that age, it is 
doing extremely well. This would give a net weight, 
say, of 20 pounds for one and 10 for the other, an aver¬ 
age of 15 pounds. To attain these weights, one must 
get stock turkeys of one of the larger breeds. 
5. Allowing 50 cents each as the total cost of food 
for each poult, and taking 15 pounds as the average 
weight of poults, we have 3>^ cents as the approxi¬ 
mate cost of growing a pound of turkey. 
A farmer’s daughter. 
TREE PLANTING ON DRY KNOLLS. 
The best place for a house is often a poor place for 
a lawn. In building my house, 17 years ago, I chose 
for its site a large knoll, near the center of my 17-acre 
farm, which had once been heavily wooded, and still 
had a few pine stumps upon it. It was not far from 
the lake, and it sloped steeply on two sides to hollows 
that were almost ravines. I had found it too dry for 
crops, except in wet seasons; but it did not occur to 
me that, having once been forested, it would be diffi¬ 
cult to carry out my plan of making upon it a collec¬ 
tion of our native trees and shrubs. Such, however, 
proved to be the fact, so far as most of the deciduous 
trees were concerned. 
Though much care was used in taking up and trans¬ 
porting the trees, and they were freely watered, many 
of them refused to make growth, and most of them 
died outright within three years, or became so scrubby 
that they were cut off at the surface of the ground. 
One sugar maple, which neither died nor made growth, 
was left to ascertain what it would do with no further 
attention. It still lives, and leaves out well every 
year, but is not sensibly larger than at first. Another 
of the same species was heavily mulched every year. 
and is now a handsome tree, though it has not grown 
rapidly. 
Nearly all the trees that were cut off at the ground, 
threw up sprouts, and these grew very well, so that 
some of them are larger now than others of the same 
kind which were left, mulched, and got along pretty 
well. The only thoroughly successful deciduous 
species that, without mulching or other care, grew 
vigorously, is the Canoe birch. Such a dry place seems 
perfectly suited to it. The Yellow birch was cut off at 
the ground, and threw up a sprout which is now a 
pretty, though small tree. White maples grew well, 
but suffered badly with something like the bark blight 
which attacks some insufficiently hardy apple trees. 
Those which grew as sprouts have made the best 
trees. After the Canoe birches, the trees that have 
made largest growth have been the American larches. 
Arbor Vitaes, Red pines and White spruces. The lat¬ 
ter are very fine. The White elms and Slippery elms, 
as sprouts, have made a very free growth, and so have 
the Amelanchiers (Juneberry). The latter is a fine 
lawn tree, blooming freely in the early spring, and 
growing handsomely. Among the shrubs are Red 
osier. Tree cranberry. Hazel, Turkish honeysuckle, 
barberry, Shepherdia, and a number of species of lilac. 
But perhaps the most noteworthy of all the trees, is a 
group of butternuts. The butternut grows best, natur¬ 
ally, by the water, or on springy land ; but by mulch¬ 
ing freely, I have brought mine on this dry knoll to a 
good size and free productiveness. t. h. hoskins. 
HOMEMADE CORN TIE. 
In The R. N.-Y. of September 29, is described a home¬ 
made corn tie, made of bits of wood. It put an idea 
into my head that I could make some out of galvan¬ 
ized wire. I made six and they worked all right. I 
enclose one, and if you think it will be of any benefit 
to other farmers, explain it to them through The R. 
N.-Y. I have been in the habit of passing a rope with 
a pulley at one end of it around the shock and drawing 
it tight and then tying with twine. G. k. 
Bradshaw, Neb. 
R. N.-Y.—With the picture shown at Fig. 178 very 
little explanation is needed. This tie ought to work 
well. It is strong and easily made. 
TREATMENT OF AN OLD ORCHARD. 
About 12 years ago I undertook to bring into good 
bearing condition an old orchard that had been 
neglected until it had grown up to briers and apple 
sprouts. I first cleaned out the briers and sprouts, 
then trimmed the dead limbs from the trees. I also 
pruned a considerable so as to remove many sap 
sprouts, and also cut off limbs that were so low that 
the horses could not pass under in plowing. After the 
brush was removed, I applied a heavy coat of barn¬ 
yard manure, and plowed the orchard as shallow as 
possible without breaking the roots too much. I then 
planted sweet corn. After this was removed, I 
applied more barnyard manure and sowed oats and 
seeded to grass. This orchard has had heavy coats of 
manure since the trees began to bear, and the latter 
have borne quite fine apples. But the trees have not 
made much wood growth, and many have died alto¬ 
gether. I also kept the hogs in the orchard while it 
was in grass, so as to manure it and have them eat the 
wormy fruit. This orchard is about 50 or 60 years old. 
I think it had been neglected too long when it came 
into my possession. 
I asked an old nurseryman how he would plant 
young apple trees in an old orchard so as to make them 
grow successfully. He told me he was asked a straight 
question and he would give me a straight answer. He 
said that he would not plant young trees in an old 
orchard, but would select a new orchard site and plant 
all young trees. He said that the roots of the old 
trees had run all over the old orchard, hence would 
rob the young trees with their short roots, and one 
could never succeed by planting young trees in an 
old orchard. 
I also got a younger orchard with the same farm 
when I purchased it. This orchard had been planted 
17 years, and had borne several large crops of apples. 
This orchard had been neglected, and was on the 
wane. Some trees had died out, and some had rotten 
limbs broken off. I cleared up this orchard as I did 
the first. It had been cross-plowed with furrows be¬ 
tween each row and the cross so formed made a little 
pond for water between the trees. The first thing I 
did was to haul manure into this orchard, then plow 
it so as to draw off all the water from the little ponds 
and then I harrowed the ground until it was perfectly 
fine. I kept up the harrowing all summer. About 
the time that I thought the trees needed more manure 
to perfect the fruit, I applied it. The result was a 
fair crop of apples. I had a sorghum evaporator and 
when we were evaporating, the boys were made to 
haul the ashes to the apple trees. This was continued 
for about fi^e years with an occasional dressing of 
