HOME STOCK FOR THE TABLE. 



107 



larger breeds begin to be fit for roasting and 

 boiling, and such breeds, if room allows, are most 

 profitable that way. Fed as a fancier feeds 

 his birds, they will be amply plump 

 Natura!ly-fed enough for the table, and need no 

 Chickens. special penning or fattening, nothing, 

 in fact, beyond eighteen hours' fast- 

 ing. We have killed many Brahma cockerels at 

 four months old which weighed six pounds, and 

 been told repeatedly that both in quality and 

 quantity of flesh they excelled any that could be 

 purchased in the ordinary way. Many English 

 palates prefer chickens which, by high feeding 

 from the shell, are thus well furnished with firm 

 flesh, to fatted fowls ; and from three to si.x 

 months old the mistress of any establishment 

 will gladly welcome as many birds for the table 

 as the ordinary breeder of prize poultry is at all 

 likely to supply. If any of them do appear 

 somewhat poor, ten days or a fortnight in a 

 sparred coop, in a place neither hot nor cold, 

 and which can be darkened, during which time 

 they are fed in troughs until "half-fat" in the 

 way presently described, will suffice. Care 

 should be taken to place two or three together 

 in the coop, to see they are quite free from 

 vermin, and to fast them for some hours before 

 giving any food at all, in order to ensure good 

 appetite from the start. All other details 

 necessary will be found a few pages farther on, 

 but we emphasise these as apt to be forgotten 

 by the unprofessional amateurs whom we have 

 here in view. 



There is one more thing to consider before we 

 leave the case of people with amall numbers of 

 fowls. It is that of old fowls — too old to sell 

 for any real price, or to cook in the ordinary 



way. Such birds may be cooked in 

 Aged various ways so as to be tender, 



Fowls. though almost beyond mastication if 



treated in the ordinary way. Sup- 

 posing the bird is to be boiled, the simple rule 

 is to boil sloivly for about as many hours as the 

 bird is in years of age. If it is to be roasted 

 there are two expedients. One is to gently 

 simmer it for nearly as many hours as above, 

 and only after that, roast as usual till browned, 

 well basting : it will be quite tender. Or the 

 fowl may be wrapped in large clean dry leaves 

 such as vine leaves (cabbage leaves will not do) 

 and buried in sweet clean earth for nearly 

 twenty-four hours, when it will generally be 

 found tender. Hanging in a wet cellar might 

 probably make it as tender, but it might not 

 keep : the sweet earth keeps away any harm. 

 Or the fowl may be simmered a few hours, and 

 then cut up and baked in a pie. Or finally, if 

 the cook knows how to do it, it can be boned, 



and then stewed into deliciously tender dishes 

 in all sorts of ways. Thus every bird, of any 

 age, is worth fair value for the domestic table. 



It is different when we come to consider the 

 supply of the public market, or the production 

 and sale of table poultry as a business. Here 

 fatted chickens alone command the 

 Fatted best prices, and by fatted fowls we 



Poultry. mean crammed fowls. Pliny men- 



tions the inhabitants of Delos as the 

 first to prepare fowls artificially for the table, by 

 which no doubt cramming is intended, and in 

 his time there is no doubt that the luxurious 

 Romans patronised crammed poultry exten- 

 sively. The market supply of the best table 

 poultry depends, therefore, upon two main 

 factors, viz. the adoption of the best methods in 

 feeding and fattening, and secondly, the breeding 

 of the most suitable fowls, whether pure breeds 

 or crosses, both in form, and aptitude for laying 

 on flesh. 



As to methods of feeding, these are several, 

 and differ in different countries. The chief 

 English poultry-feeders have gradually made 

 eclectic selection of the best elements from all 

 quarters, and the fowls shown at recent Smith- 

 field Club exhibitions of table poultry, have 

 been pronounced by good foreign and English 

 judges equal to any in the world. For the 

 following practical article, descriptive and ex- 

 planatory of this branch of the subject, we are 

 nidebted to Mr. Edward Brown, F.L.S., 

 honorary secretary of the National Poultry 

 Organisation Society: — 



" The system known as fattening is almost 

 universal wherever poultry have been brought 

 to a considerable state of perfection as food for 

 man, although there yet remains considerable 

 prejudice against it, probably due to the term 

 rather than to the system itself, though possibly 

 the methods adopted account for 

 Fattening some of the antagonism with which 

 Practice^"' it is regarded. Nor is the practice 

 a modem one. In ancient times it 

 was followed by the Egyptians in connection 

 with geese, as evidenced by tablets found in the 

 Pyramid of Sakkara, which was erected about 

 4,000 years ago. References are also made by 

 ancient Roman writers, notably Columella, 

 showing that feeding off domestic poultry before 

 slaughter was extensively adopted in Italy 

 nearly two thousand years ago. So far as our 

 own country is concerned, it is impossible to 

 say how long the fattening of poultry has been 

 carried out, but we are justified in saying, from 

 evidence which it would take too long to quote 

 here, that it was understood to some extent at 



