Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 278, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1919 — TURKEY TO BE AN ABSENT DISH ON MANY TABLES. [ARTICLE]

TURKEY TO BE AN ABSENT DISH ON MANY TABLES.

Dallas, Tex., Nov. 17.—-Unless “turkey trotting” shows more jazz within the next few days, many thousands of American Thanksgiving dinners will be gobbled up without the annual gobbler’s presence. That was 'the opinion today of Ben Ablon, poultry wholesaler—and when it’s time to talk turkey, tolks go to Ablon. He handles approximately 55,000 of the state’s 90,000 crop that goes east. With only two weeks remaining until the great bronze bird, basted and baked, sits enthroned, center of the nation’s Thanksgiving interest, not more than half the normal receipts were being recorded in Texas markets, Ablon said. He was paying wholesale twenty-five and twenty-six cents a pound for live tilrkeys today, but he would not hazard a guess what they -might -cost in two. weeks, dressed and retailed, he said. Christmas was even farther away. Since Texas ships more of the festal fowl than any other state, the leisurely movement of the crop to market was taken here as an indication that producers believe, with Ablon, that the market will be higher toward Christmas. Bad roads, delayed by cotton harvest, labor scarcity that is keeping the farmers in the fields and a general tendency to keep the poultry until it is fully matured and fattened, and other conditions that it was believed might put a goose on the platter throne of King Gobbler on

“turkey” day. “But there’s more strutting in 1 Texas barnyards this year than. ever, according to F. W. Kazmeyeir, | poultry expert for the Texas A. and M. college, and practically ’ every farmer,” he said, “has a flock or two of gobblers picking grasshoppers for him.” The year’s production, indeed, was expected to help some southern Texas towns revive the old “turkey trops”—market days when farmers drive herds of thousands to a central place to meet 'foreign buyers. Bryan already has had its day, and Cuero was planning one just before Thanksgiving. Texas has the turkeys, but it takes some jazz time marketing to supply the eastern demand, as usual, it (was admitted.