St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1888-02-04
a TURKEY FOUNDRY.
q Maine Yankee Visits Hoosierdom and
Sees Some New Things.

| Sees Some New Things.
Turkey foundries are scattered
over tho entire State. Six double
mule teams collect turkeys from
within aradius of ten miles and bring
them to this foundry daily. No Hoosier
farmer thinks of dressing his own
birds for the market but sells them
on the hoof to the collectors, receiving
six cents pound for his flock. The
foundry, building 5Sx50 feet, with
out floor, in fact mammoth coop.
holding 1000 turkeys, is kept well
filled by these teams. At one end is a
smaller building, the dressing-room.
about 20xl0, where ten men, wading
| almost knee deep in feathers, pick
turkeys at five cents each, from
morning until night. Each man
dresses on the Az crage five an hour,
or fifty cents for the crew. Necks are
wrung for Boston, while throats are
stuck for the New York market. They
were dressing la New York to-day,
when visited by your correspondent.
Entering the dressing-room, attract
ed by tremendous gobbling from the
turks, there appeared ten men, each
with a bird suspended by the feet by
cord from beam overhead, pulling
feathers for dear life. Beside each
man stood two barrels. one for large.
tail feathers, and the broad, fiat wing
feathers that grow on the bend of the
wing next to the body. This grade
sells for feather busters. The second
barrel received all soft body feathers,
sold for many purposes. AS entered,
one picker fl nished his bird, and came
and sat beside me. In answer to in
quiry as to how long it required to
dress bird, he said: ''We are on the
last of penful now; Just wait a min
ute sid time us, you will see some
fun.''
Meanwhile fifty turkeys large and
small had been put into "the cage"
a pen about eight feet square, but no
picker, even if he had finished his last
bird of the previous lot. might select
one from this and go to work; each as
he finished must wait for the last.
Later developments showed the JUS
tice of this Conversation among the
pickers while waiting the last man.
turned on the number of good, fat
easy-picking hens among the new lot
in the cage, and one old twenty-five
pound bull" whom nobody wanted.
The moment the last man finished and
hung up his bird, all made a grand
rush for the pen, and in a moment re-
turned, each carrying large turkey
by the feet Arriving at this station,
each slipped both feet of his catch
through q moose i'll the cord, and
brings the bird down with force, then
grasps sharp pointed knife and runs
through the neck just back of the bill,
cutting all the arteries, then the bat.
tie with feathers begins.
One sweep of the hand takes every
tail feather into the barrel. Two
grabs do the same for broad feathers
Of the wings. With one downward
sweep space large as the picker's
hand is LAID bare from tail to neck.
This is kept up until the body is
thoroughly picked. Then the finger
is run into the vent, hooked around
the larger intestine, and the bird is
drawn. Not knife is used in the
whole operation, except in killing the
bird. The feet are now freed from
the moose, the head laid ON block.
and chopped off, the skin of the neck
drawn back about an inch and
chopped off again, letting the skin of
the neck cover over the end where it
IS tied, and your bird is ready for mar
ket. Do you wonder that they some
times acquire a faraway taste when
served up at the Eastp One
picker from the time he stuck his
bird until he hung himup finished, oecu-
pied just seven and one half minutes,
another. nine and one quarter min
utes. Finally be said he would tackle
the "twenty-fve-pound bull" did SO,
and finished him in just eight minutes
and twenty seconds.
! walked into the pen to see them
caught. In would come picker. cast
his critical eye over the lot in search
Of an easy one walk along, and with
never-failing swoop of the hand.
grab a turkey by the thigh, then hold
him up and blow the feathers away
from under the side of the wing and
rump. If no pin feathers, O. &, if
any, drop him and grab another, till a
satisfactory one is found. Conse-
quently the last ones of a lot of fifty
are very hard to pick, and as each
man finishes the last of the lot, he is
required to wait until all are done,
thus giving each fair chance to begin
with the easy ones. Cor. Lewiston
(Me.) Journal.
Famous Colored People,