35 -i Home Production of Poultry. 



altogether during' the last three or four weeks, when he fattens 

 them upon j)()tat()es, Indian meal, pollard, and other grain. The 

 flesh is quite white, remarkably firm, and of excellent flavour. 

 If the animal food be continued too long the birds suffer : thej 

 contract disease, and the quills of their feathers become charged 



with blood The horses are bought when alive, but unfit 



for service. They are killed on the premises, in slaughter- 

 houses constructed for the purpose. The blood is carefully 

 collected, and sold to chemical manufacturers at a good price. 

 The skin is sold to the tanner. The head and hoofs go to make 

 Prussian blue ; the large bones are made into buttons ; the small 

 ones are ground for manure. The marrow is bought by per- 

 fumers, who sell it for bear's grease. Nothing is lost : economy 

 is so well managed that the flesh costs nothing ; the cost of the 

 horse is covered by the sale of the offal. The flesh cut from the 

 bones is cooked in immense boilers, chopped when cold in 

 a sausage-machine. Before being given to the fowls it is 

 seasoned with salt and pepper, which keeps it sweet and whole- 

 some, and contributes to the health of the fowls. Experience 

 has proved that for poultry a vegetable nutriment is insufficient. 

 The reason they do not lay in winter is that they cannot obtain 

 the worms and insects necessary to maintain their health and 

 strength. By giving the birds meat, they can be made to lay 

 nearly all the year round. Next winter I hope to be able to send 

 40,000 dozen eggs to market. I reckon that every good hen 

 brings me in lbs. a year, deducting failures. They continue 

 laying four years, and at the end of that time, after three weeks' 

 fattening, are fit for market. A very curious fact is, that the 



hens which are constantly laying never want to sit The 



dung produced in my poultry-yard is a very important item of 

 profit ; it is much sought after by market-gardeners as one of the 

 best manures known, and its action is favourable to every kind 

 of vegetable," 



The whole of this account may be ideal, seeing that^ no 

 authentication is afforded by name and address ; and, indeed, 

 from the fact of another " correspondent " having " obtained 

 a cock and hen from Calais," from the book giving promi- 

 nence to French breeds, talking about " poulets " and recom- 

 mending the incubator of M. Carbonnier, and from the entire 

 silence of the title-page as to authorship or authenticity, we 

 should judge this work to be mainly a translation from some- 

 thing very sanguine published in the gallinaceous empire across 

 the Channel. But though smiling at this edition of ' De Soras ' 

 over again, we may regard it as illustrating, at any rate, 

 some of the ideas which may be embodied in a large estab- 

 lishment 



