The turkey is commonly considered the best of birds for the table, the most desirable for any festive occasion, and quite indispensable on Thanksgiving Day. It is the largest bird grown for its flesh. As usually found in the markets, geese and turkeys are of about the same weight, because most people, when buying a large bird for the table, want those that, when dressed, weigh about ten or twelve pounds; but the largest turkeys are considerably heavier than the largest geese, and the proportion of extra large birds is much greater among turkeys.

Description. A dressed turkey and a dressed fowl are quite strikingly alike in shape. The most noticeable difference is in the breast, which is usually deeper and fuller in a turkey. The living birds are distinctly unlike in appearance, the carriage of the body and the character and expression of the head of the turkey being very different from those of the fowl. The head and upper part of the neck are bare, with a few bristly hairs. The bare skin is a little loose on the head and very much looser on the neck, forming many small folds, some of which are sac-like. It varies in color from a livid bluish-gray to brilliant scarlet. An elongated, trunklike extension of the skin at the juncture of the beak with the head takes the place of the comb in the fowl. There is a single wattle under the throat, not pendent from the jaw, as in the fowl, but attached to the skin of the neck. The feathers on the lower part of the neck are short, and the plumage of the whole body is closer and harder than that of most fowls. The wings are large. The tail spreads vertically and is usually carried in a drooping position. This, with the shortness of the feathers of the neck, makes the back of the turkey convex. The usual gait of the bird is a very deliberate walk.

The male and female differ conspicuously in so many points that the sex of an adult bird is distinguished without difficulty. As a rule the males are much larger than the females of the same stock. In colored varieties the males are more strongly pigmented, and the shades of color in them are more pronounced. The head characters of the male are much more prominent in size and more brilliant in color. Both sexes have the power of inflating the loose appendages of the head and neck. In the male this is highly developed; in the female only perceptible. The male has a brushlike tuft of coarse hair growing from the upper part of the breast. This tuft, called the beard, is black in all varieties. The female is usually shy and has a low, plaintive call. The male challenges attention and often struts about with his tail elevated and spread in a circle like a fan, wings trailing on the ground, the feathers all over the body erected until he looks twice his natural size, and at frequent intervals vociferously uttering his peculiar "gobble-gobble-gobble." The male turkey has short spurs like those of the male fowl.

The name turkey was erroneously given in England when the birds were first known there and it was supposed that they came from Turkey. The adult male is called a turkey cock, also a tom-turkey (sometimes simply tom) and a gobbler. The adult female is called a turkey hen, or a hen turkey, the order of the terms being immaterial. Young turkeys before the sex can be distinguished are variously called young turkeys, turkey chicks, and poults, the latter being considered by poultrymen the proper technical name. After the sex can be distinguished, the terms cockerel and pullet are applied to turkeys in the same way as to fowls.

Origin. The turkey is a native of North America. Although not as widely distributed as before the country was settled, it is still found wild in many places. It was domesticated in Mexico and Central America long before the discovery of the New World. Domesticated stock from these places was taken to Spain and England early in the sixteenth century, and was soon spread all over Europe. The domestic stock of the colonists in the United States and Canada came from Europe with the other kinds of domestic poultry. It is probable that from early colonial times the domestic stock was occasionally crossed by wild stock, but we have no information about such crosses until after the Revolutionary War. From the earliest published statements in regard to the matter it would appear that such crosses had long been common, and that the benefits of vigorous wild blood were appreciated by the farmers of that time. The wild turkey is about as large as a medium-sized domestic turkey but, being very close-feathered, looks smaller. It is nearly black, and the bare head and neck are darker in color than in most domestic birds.

Fig. 154. Common turkeys on a New England farm

Common turkeys. The turkey is not so well adapted to domestication as the fowl, duck, and goose. Under the conditions to which they have usually been subjected domestic turkeys have lost much of the vigor of the wild stock. As far as is known, the birds taken to Europe after the discovery of America were black or nearly black. In Europe white sports appeared and were preserved, and the colors became mixed—black, white, gray of various shades, brown, and buff. That has been the character of most flocks in this country until quite recent times, and many such flocks are still found.

Improved varieties. The development of the domestic turkey is unique in that the most marked improvement in domestic stocks has been due to extensive introductions of the blood of the wild race. The reason for this is indicated in the statement in the preceding paragraph, in regard to the lack of adaptation of the turkey to the ordinary conditions of life in domestication. The turkey deteriorates where the other kinds of poultry mentioned would improve. So, while in Europe a few color varieties were made, and in some localities both there and in America local breeds of special merit arose, on the whole the domestic stocks were degenerate. The distinct color varieties were the Black, the White, and the Gray, but by no means all turkeys of these colors were well-bred birds. The color varieties were crudely made by the preference of breeders in a certain locality for a particular color. They were impure and often produced specimens of other colors because of the occasional use of breeding birds unlike the flock. In early times it was the almost universal opinion that crossbred stock had more vitality than pure-bred stock. Hence farmers, although preferring a certain type of animal, would often make an outcross to an entirely different type, and then by selection go back to the type of their preference. When this mode of breeding is adopted, undesirable colors may appear for many years after a bird of a foreign variety has been used in breeding.

The local European breeds that gained a wide reputation were the Black Norfolk, the Cambridgeshire Bronze, and the White Holland. Black and White turkeys were perhaps quite as popular and as well established in other places as in those mentioned. Black turkeys were the most common kind in Spain and in some parts of France. In some other parts of France, and in parts of Germany and Austria, White turkeys were the most numerous, but in general the turkeys of Europe and America were of various colors, with gray predominating.

In the United States a local breed of very good quality was developed in Rhode Island about the middle of the last century. It appears to have been known at first as the Point Judith Bronze Turkey, and also as the Narragansett Turkey, but the first name was soon dropped and has long been forgotten by all but those familiar with the early literature. The Narragansett Turkey was not bronze as the term is now applied to turkeys; it was a dark, brownish-gray, which is doubtless the reason why the name was changed after the distinctly bronze turkeys became well known. Although the Narragansett Turkey is described in the American Standard, and prizes are still offered for it at some shows, the type has almost disappeared.

Bronze turkeys. The accidental crossing of wild with tame turkeys produced, in the domestic flocks where such crosses occurred, many specimens of exceptional size and vigor, in which the blending of the colors of the wild turkey with the gray of the domestic birds gave rise to a very beautiful type of coloration. It was neither black nor brown nor gray, but contained all these shades and had an iridescent bronze sheen. As the crosses which produced these were only occasional, the wild blood being reduced in each generation removed from it, the bronze type was usually soon merged with and lost in the common type. As the wild birds became scarce, crosses were rare, and what improvement had been accidentally made was in danger of being lost, when the awakening of interest in all kinds of poultry stirred turkey growers to more systematic efforts for the improvement of domestic stock by crossing with the wild stock. Those who were able to do so captured wild birds and bred them in captivity, producing both pure wild and half-wild stock. They also secured the eggs of wild birds and hatched and reared the young with tame hens. With wild stock under control, they were able to use as much wild blood as they desired in their flocks, and soon fixed and improved the bronze type until they had a variety of turkeys that were extremely hardy, larger than the wild race or any domestic stock that had hitherto been produced, and also more attractive in color. The name "Bronze" was soon applied exclusively to this type of turkey in America. In England they are called American Bronze, to distinguish them from the Cambridge Bronze, which seems to be very nearly a duplicate of the Narragansett.

Fig. 155. White Holland Turkey cock. (Photograph by E. J. Hall)

The evolution of the Bronze Turkey in America is one of the most interesting things in poultry culture. The work was done on a very large scale. It was not just a few breeders that engaged in grading up domestic turkeys with wild blood, but a great many scattered all over the country. Many, remote from places where wild turkeys ranged, paid high prices for full-blooded wild males, and also for grades with a large proportion of wild blood. In this way the wild blood was very widely distributed. As the superiority of the bronze type became established, turkey growers everywhere bought Bronze males to head their flocks, and so in a remarkably short time Bronze Turkeys of a type much superior to the old domestic stock became the common turkeys in many districts.

Fig. 156. Flock of White Holland Turkeys

Interest in the American Bronze Turkey arose in England at a very early stage of this development. In fact, there is some reason to believe that the publicity given to several early shipments of small lots of wild turkeys to France and England did more than anything else to direct the attention of breeders in this country to the value of systematic breeding to fix the characters which wild blood introduced. The most celebrated of these shipments was one taken to France by Lafayette on his return from his last visit to the United States in 1825. About this time, or earlier, an English nobleman, who had some American wild turkeys, presented his sovereign with a very fine horse. The king, instead of expressing pleasure with the gift, intimated that he would prefer some of the wild turkeys, and was accordingly presented with a pair. The use of wild blood to give greater vigor to domestic stock continues, though it gives no better results now than the use of vigorous Bronze Turkeys many generations removed from wild ancestry.

Fig. 157. Bronze Turkey cock. (Photograph by E. J. Hall)

Influence of the Bronze Turkey on other varieties. Although White turkeys have long been very popular in some parts of Europe, in this country they were, until recently, considered too weak to be desirable for any but those who kept them as a hobby. By chance mixtures of Bronze and White turkeys, and in some instances by systematic breeding, white turkeys that were large and vigorous were produced. Some of these were large enough to be called mammoths, as the largest Bronze Turkeys were. A few breeders who had these big white turkeys advertised them as Mammoth White Turkeys produced by Mammoth Bronze Turkeys as sports and in no way related to the old, weakly white birds. But whatever may have been the case at the outset, in a few years the Mammoth Whites were so mixed with others that the distinction was lost, for the best buyers of superior white turkeys were those who liked the color and had inferior stock which they wished to improve. All white turkeys in America now go by the old name, "White Holland Turkeys."

Yellow or buff turkeys were often seen among the old common turkeys. They were usually small and very poor in color. The mixture of bronze turkeys with these birds occasionally produced larger birds of a darker, more reddish buff but very uneven in color, with the tail and wings nearly white. From such birds, by careful breeding, a dark red race with white wings and tail was made. This variety is called the Bourbon Red, from Bourbon County, Kentucky, where it originated.

Other varieties of the turkey. The only other variety worthy of mention here is the Slate Turkey. Birds of this color are often seen in mixed flocks. Some of very good size and color have been bred for exhibition, and the Slate Turkey in America is classed as a distinct variety.

Fig. 158. Bourbon Red Turkeys. (Photograph from owner, C. W. Jones, Holmdel, New Jersey)

Place of the turkey in domestication. In discussing the history of the turkey in domestication much has been said of the influence of conditions on the type and on the vitality of this bird. The case of the turkey is peculiar, because it seems as capable of being tamed as the fowl, the goose, or the duck, yet does not thrive under the conditions in which it would grow tame. It is peculiarly sensitive to the effects of soil which has been contaminated by the excrement of animals, and so instinctively avoids feeding places on which other animals are numerous. Thus it requires a large range and, if permitted to follow its inclination, spends most of its time at a distance from the homestead. The successful growing of turkeys depends upon the watchfulness of the caretaker and the absence of their natural enemies. This will appear more clearly when the methods of managing them are described in the next chapter. Turkey culture is not well adapted to the more intensive methods of farming which become necessary after the first fertility of the land has been exhausted. Hence the turkey has almost disappeared from many places where turkey growing was once an industry of considerable importance. The farms of the Central West and the mountain regions of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee have for many years produced most of the turkeys consumed in this country, but the changing conditions in these regions seem unfavorable to the increase of turkey culture. Attempts to grow turkeys on a large scale have been made on the Pacific coast. While these may succeed for a time, turkey culture in this country is likely to decline rapidly unless changes in economic conditions afford cheaper labor on farms, or unless the natural enemies of poultry are so reduced that flocks of turkeys may be kept in a half-wild state.