Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1907 — ONE OF THE GREATEST TURKEY COUNTIES IN THE COUNTRY. [ARTICLE]

ONE OF THE GREATEST TURKEY COUNTIES IN THE COUNTRY.

Inland Poultry Journal. We read so often of the art of rearing turkeys being a lost art, and that turkeys are becoming a bird of the past and the writer had begun to believe it, judging from the turkeys raised in Ohio, and from the small classes seen at the largest shows. But having occasion to visit a poultry show at Rensselaer, Jasper county, Ind., last month has come to the conclusion that Indiana is doing as well as she ever could in the turkey industry and certainly believe Jasper couhty to be really the center of the market turkey, for the West at least. At this show there were exhibited about a hundred turkeys, mostly bronze. Two long aisles of turkeys with more scattered anywhere, where there might be room, is a sight that is not seen at many shows. In fact, the exhibit in this little town excelled that at the St. Louis exposition, both in numbers and in quality, though not in variety, there being only three varieties —Bronze, White and Bourbon Reds —both the latter classes being small. The bustler of the show and its secretary, B. S. Fendig, whose whole interest in poultry is in the market side of it, but he wants pure-bred. Mr. Fendig is a large poultry shipper, having bought and shipped in December of last year $30,000 worth of turkeys alone. He says he realizes the value of pure-bred over mongrel stuff, and that he is willing to and does pay more money for purebred stock, and therefore is willing to do everything possible to interest more people in good poultry. He certainly made a success of last year’s show, especially the turkey side of it. B. J. Hill.