St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1912-11-06
PRESS COMMENT
Where the Turkey TrOts

the announcement with suspicion,
and rightly so, for there are COM
paratively few turkeys raised in
Vermont nowadays. Time was when
nearly every Vermont farmer or
farmers wife raised flock of tur-
keys every summer and there are
men still living who can remember
when in the fall of the year humid
reds of thousands of Vermont grown
turkeys were bought by spectators
and driven on foot to the city mar
kets.
All this has been gradually chang
ing for many years. The decrease of
the farming population in this state
and the decreases which have proved
fatal to young turkeys have COM
bined to drive the business of turkey
raising out of the state, and the bulk
j.. of turkeys, which supply the markets
nowadays, come from the middle and
far west. A few years ago Michigan
was the center of the business, but
of late California has become one
of the principal turkey producing
states.
There still remains, however, one
section of the state of Vermont
where turkeys are raised to a con-
siderable extent, and that is in the
central part of Orange county, in and
around the town of Chelsea. A good
many thousand turkeys are still rails
ed in this vicinity and, while the bus
mess is still precarious, there is a
good margin of profit when the birds
escape disease, and the foxes which
form one of the greatest menances to
the turkey crop.
I was a guest ever last Sunday at
- A In Of
Chelsea and had a chance to see
something of turkey farming at first
hand. Mr.. Corwin was a member of
the legislature of 1910 and one of
the leading members of that body.
He lives in the village of Chelsea,
where he conducts a large general
store and buys farm produce for
shipment to Boston. Chelsea is only
rs miles from Montpelier by road,
but to get there by regular lines of
transportation means to go to South
Royalton, by rail 46 miles, and then
ride IA miles by stage to Chelsea,
Williamstown, distant ten miles, is
nearer railroad point, but the train
service from WilIiamstown is very
limited.
Sunday afternoon Mr.. Corwin and
myself enjoyed a ride over the hills
in the western part of the town of
Chelesa, and it is in this part of the
town that the most turkeys are rails
ed. We saw fiocks ranging in size
from a half dozen up to over 200.
Inasmuch as these turkeys will be
worth from $3.50 to "a each during
the coming month, it can be readily
seen that farmer who has hun
dred turkeys to market has very
considerable addition to his income,
especially as the turkeys range the
woods and pastures and pick up the
greater part of this living, after the
first of July. One of their principal
articles of diet is grasshoppers, so
that they do an additional good in
clearing farms of these pests, which
if undisturbed, eat more grass than
all the stock in the pastures.
This part of Orange county con-
sists largely of high rounded hills
with large areas of fairly level land
and in many cases the hills are cul-
tivated to their very tops. The |
landscape is vastly different from |
that of Bennington county, where |
the hills are practically all covered |
with forest. There is no timber to |
speak Of in this section except hard |
wood, and the hard wood is largely |
maple, and maple sugar is one of
the leading products of the section.
The farms in this vicinity are from
1900 to 1000 feet above the sea lev
ell, but the land is rich and much
freer from stones than are the up
lands in the south part of the state.
Turkeys seem to do best on the
higher lands, but of those Matched
a man is fortunate if he raises
half to maturity. Dysentery and a
disease known as "blackhead" are
exceedingly fatal to the young tur-
keys until they are nearly half grown
and often wipe out entire focks.
These are not the only troubles
though, for the worst drawback of h
all is the foxes, which are numerous
these big round hills, and
foxes have been known to take as
many as 40 turkeys out of flock in
! single day. Farmers in this part
Of the state do not think much of
the law providing a close season :
IN foxes, and would much prefer a ,
bounty on the animals. Fox skins !
are valuable, but it takes time and
skill to kill foxes when their pelts
ire good, while bounty encourages !
he farmers boys to dig out the I
young foxes in the summer when r
heir skins are of no value. /
The turkeys from this section are +
argely sold on special order at a r
ancy price, and comparatively few
20 into the open market. There q
ire farmers in this section whose p
turkeys have gone to the same buy i
RS for more than a generation. i
There are also large quantities of h
,ther poultry raised in this section. +
1orwin and Son each fall ship sever q
i tons of dressed chickens to the D
session market and they are only one n
f several buyers of poultry here. o
twenty-five or so years ago Mr.. n
,orwin's father, who then conducted
he business, used to ship annually d
rom 20 to 80 tons of poultry each a
all From that quantity there was a
constant drop for twenty years, O.
ut now the shipments are increas- n
1g again and poultry growing seems n
kelly to regain its old important n