The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-01
From the LouIsvllle courler-Journal

A WRITER for the San Antonio Ex-
 "A press suggests that there should \ be a Texas law to prohibit the years, to give the birds a chance to re- cover their losses. "In Texas, one of it's last abiding places,n he says, the wild turkey is fast disappearing.
 To quote further:
 "Places where he once gobbled gar ruIously in the sunshine or moonlight now know him no more; he is so easy to lure by ealling-so heavy and cumbersome that the shotgun does deadly execution when trained upon him.
 "It is only in the past few years that the big bronze bird has been getting less in numbers. In the memory of young men the days when the wild turkey could be chased on foot and killed with stick are still fresh. Not so long ago wild turkey was common in San Antonio meat mar kets Yenison and wild turkey-ye epi- cures. Those were the days when the best Of living was the cheapest.
 1T. Clifton Lane, deer and turkey
 hunter of repute, remembers seeing a sight that perhaps has now passed away forever; 300 turkeys in a roost-big, plump fellows, the majority weighing at least 4C pounds As a boy-and that was not so long ago-on his fathers ranch at Millett,
 in La Salle county, he played with the gobblers that were running around. We boys used to run them down, he relates, and, keeping them in eontin- 4i.. l,aIf 1o 1a4 them at our mercy. They were so fat they
 couldn't rise and the running did to them what such exercise would do to fat man Lit winded and tired them. To our young minds, we were great hunters when we would dispatch them with sticks
 Twenty years ago wild turkeys were everywhere, in the forests, the brush, on
 the prairies. Up to dozen years ago
 they were easy to get Today they are
 disappearing rapidly, though there are
 many along the larger rivers, the Llamo
 the Nueces and Eric, and in the cedar brake country above the Medina dam.'
 Wild turkeys were fairly plentiful in some of the heavily wooded counties in eastern and western Kentucky 25 years ago, but no effort was made to protect them, and they went the way of all big game in the settled portions of North America, or at least the settled portions south of the Canada line, and beyond the pale of English law.
 1t is probable that the hunter of re' puteo quoted by the San Antonio FIX press draws upon his imagination when he speaks of having played with the gob-
 blers, but perhaps 1t is true that fai
 wild gobbler might be chased upon the
 wing by boys and wearied out. At any
 rate the wild turkey bears the same re-
 lation to other birds that the buffalo did to other kinds of wild animals, in that Lit is too heavy to have much chance of escape in a tail on end chase in ar open country. In the Kentucky woods turkeys could get away by short flight and a short run into heavy underbrush and as long as there was good deal oi prirnevai forest they had a fair show foi continued existence. But as forest areas were reduced the turkeys vanished before | the advance of population.
 l Nests were robbed by boys and young | turkeys were shot in the summer and early fall. Turkey pens were builded fl the woods in winter when turkeys wert 1 hungry and thousands of birds were l trapped. shotguns brought them dowr 1 form the roost by moonlight, and in ths spring devices to initiate the call of thu | hen were used to call the strutting gob l bier to the hunter at daybreak.> He wal
 showy and easy target, and only thos' who had turkey ague' failed to bring down a fat gobbler with a charge o 1 turkey shot. The turkey hunters, lik'
 the buffalo runners, were well repaid fol i their ammunition and were ruthless ii l strengthening. As result there are yer, i few wild turkeys in Kentucky. Perhaps ] there are none at all in the western coun ties. where generation ago it was n' uncommon sight to see them followins corn rows after planting time looking fo a square meal and entailing upon th' | farmer a certain amount of replantins The remoter and still heavily timpere' mountain counties may boost few sur i yivors, but not many.
 | Ii is regrettable Aat so handsome blr' AS the wild turkey has been exterminate' I in so many states. and that it survive only where the original growth of timbe has not been cut or where poverty or sol has permitted the forest to reclaim It own. The state forestry propaganda tha l is now abroad, and is resulting In tn reservation of considerable areas, will giy