Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1908-06-18
KING OF THE WOODS.

next in utility, Holland smaller but
gentler, the Buff and Slate only for
fancy. He sold his broad backed, full
breasted gobblers and best formed
hens and retained the leanest and
meanest for breeding. Thus his fam
lily circle breeding Of disease target"
stock laid turkey low, and the hills and
wales that echoed with "Gobble, COB
bler' and T'weet, t'weet" became
silent turkey graveyard.
Had the breeder only heard 'the call
Of the wild" as the sturdy king of the
woods came from his sylvan retreat
TO call back his half domesticated sub
jects and captured him for mating in
stead of shooting him for meat or had
he robbed the wild turkeys nest to
hatch for new blood, perhaps this obit-
uary had not been written. He was as
careless with lice, filth and feeding.
Mighty seldom We're old and young
birds treated ON head, between wing
quills, among vent feathers and on
thighs for vermin, and as lice increas-
ed turkey decreased.
Then some genius reversed nature
by discardlng mother turkey. with her
clean nest out on the fresh earth
among the tall grasses and fragrant
wild flowers, and substituted the mon
grel hen with her foul, lousy nest.
The scabby legged cluck scratched
for them in the manure piles, and the
sweet voiced little poults never saw
the green hill and field afar, where
turkey food abounded, and you don't
wonder they died. They were home
sick for nature.
The feeding was a corner on corn.
Without waiting forty hours for the
yolk to digest the poults were stuffed
with soaked Cornmeal, curd and red
pepper. They We're already weak be-
cause their parents We're corn fat
When the birds We're brought from
range unmindful that their life afield
was all activity pure air and water
and 4 variety of hard earned food, the
breeder punched breeding and market
stock in insanitary environment and
proceeded to stuff them with corn, an
unusual ration, and it was often green
corn at that No turkeys had grit.
Then came "blackhead," "ulcerated
dropsical liver" and the high price
philosophers began to rake the earth
for microbes with fine tooth comb.
The diarrhca might have been stop
ped by a return to natural diet ana Il
/ fourth ounce of copperas to the quart
NOf water, but that wouldn't stop fat
breeders throwing sicllly poults.
An equal three part ration of wheat,
oats and corn, with charcoal, grit,
waste apples and no cabbage, brings
turkeys through the winter in fine
shape for spring work. Microbe or no
microbe the blackhead has made the
:s!lls and valleys of the east baldhead-
ed of turkeys.
The east will again have a place on
the turkey map when entirely new
stock and methods are introduced, and
the west should profit lest she cut her
own pretty turkey throat.
ERANDPAP's TURKEY GoeRLER.
or all the sights on grandpaps farm
His gobbler took the charm:
Whene'er he'd strut across the green
Our infant fears to alarm
How he would puff his chest way out
To make himself look stout!
He'd shake the noodle on his nose
AS If to say, cit out!'
His head would turn red, white and
blue
AS IL the Fourth was due.
His tail was Ike a rainbow spread,
His wide wings sweeping too.
Then, "Gobble! Gobble!" mad, went he
And "Gobble" loud yelled we.
And then he'd swing himself around
And make jump for me.