Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 128, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1912 — Mud Turtles are Served as Terrapin [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Mud Turtles are Served as Terrapin

ST. PAUL, Minn.—Mississippi river fishermen in Wisconsin have developed a handsome trade in shipping turtles to the east, where they are sold in competition with the famous terrapin of the Baltimore region. Especially in Lent has the shipment of the common snapping turtle been a prosperous business. A typical shipment was that sent recently by W. T. Allen to Philadelphia for distribution in coast cities to compete with the most famous delicacy of Baltimore. The shipment contained 125 live snapping turtles and weighed 1,229 pounds. It netted Allen $l5O. Despite the fact that the turtles had been in a cellar without food or drink or dare of any kind since last October, they were game enough as they were put aboard the train |o snap and bite with considerable belligerence. It is expected they still will be alive when they reach Philadelphia. Some of the turtles weighed twentyfive pounds each. They were caught in one of the stagnant sloughs of the Mississippi. At the ice-forming time in the fall it is the habit of turtles to seek some sheltered spot near a bunch of weeds or a sunken log and burrow

in the mud beside it until their bodies are about half covered and their heads wholly so. There they stay until the ice goes out in the spring, a scpre or more of them sometimes together. After the ice in the slough is strong enough to bear his weight Mr. Allen goes over it, finds the half burled turtles, breaks through the ice, hooks them up through the hole, slings them into a sack over his shouldeV and takes them home to his cellar. The cellar has a moist, sandy floor. As soon as the turtles are deposited on it they burrow in the sand just as they did in their native habitat and there remain through the long winter without requiring further attention. When the price sos turtle flesh reaches high mark, Mr. Allen takes them out of their hibernating quarters and has marketed them as high as eighteen cents a pound, live weight