Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1900-11-27

refrigerator cars. Each Of these cars VIII
hold about 1000 birds if packed closely
in barrels, so that at least 2,0OO cars are
required for transporting turkeys to their
! destination, If placed end to end' llhe
of these cars would be over twelve miles
long. Figuratively, therefore, sofa
phalanx of turkey twelve miles long, ave
feet wide and six feet high rushes along
in search of hungry diners. Nearly as
many men as there are turkeys are re-
quired to handle this immense amount OF
poultry, and the cubic contents of the
| mass is very nearly a foot to each bird,
or, more accurately, 1,900,SO0 feet. IL
piled together in the same proportion,
these turkeys would make column eight
times as high as the Washington monu-
ment, and pyramid made of them would
look well beside the ancient piles Of
Egypt. They would probably weigh up
ward of 100000 pounds.
To kill q few million turkeys and ship
them a thousand miles to market is no
light task, and the old-fashioned methods
of handling and marketing have had TO
give way to newer and more elaborate
arrangements.
The great majority of the turkeys con-
sumed by the American people are pick
ed up on the poultry farms by buyers
who give their whole time TO this work.
They are gathered at the nearest stations
and shipped in carload lots to the poultry
factory which the buyer represents. The
use of the word factory in connection
with poultry is apt to convey peculiar
idea, but in this case it refers only to
shed-like structure, half open on the
sides, in which the birds are prepared for
market.
The birds are stored in big shed from
which narrow passageway, just wide
enough to admit them in single file, leads
to the factory proper. A driver stationed
among the birds keeps a steady line
travelling along this chute and prevents
them from becoming wedged in by crowd
ing At the end of the passage, where
it opens into the factory, stands man
who holds in one hand a sharp knife that
looks like diminutivc ice pick As each
bird marches through it is seized by this
man, who quickly dispatches it by
single blow on the head. He throws the
dead birds in a heap at his side, and
thence they are carted away to the
scalding room. From the scalding tanks
the birds travel on to another room,
where deft hands and plenty Of cold run
ming water thoroughly cleanse them.
Next they are laid out on long blocks of
ice until thoroughly cooled, when they
are packed with ice in barrels: the bar
rels are covered with ordinary bagging
and as soon as weighed are ready for
shipping.
Though this is the ordinary proceeding,
the turkeys which travel to quick mar
kets are sometimes dry picked and do
not pass through the scalding tanks at
all. Under this treatment they will keep
longer. without icing, than when they
have been scalded.
From the factory the dressed turkeys
are shipped in refrigerator ears to their
destination in the big cities. Some idea
of the extent of the trade in dressed poul-
try may be gained from the statement
that for the eight or ten weeks Of the
holiday season the receipts in New York
CITY alone run as high as 10000 cases per
week. Each case or barrel contains
about 200 pounds, so that this means
something like 100000 pounds of poul-
try per week. When one comes to null
tiply this by the number Of big cities. he
realizes how capacious is the American
man for such deleacies as these.