Book II. FEEDING FOR EXTRAORDINARY PURPOSES. 305 



must after a time render it nauseous. For this reason hay should lie as short a time as 

 possible in lofts, but when practicable be given direct from the rick. Poultry of dif- 

 ferent kinds are often crowded together without any regard to the comfort of the parti- 

 cular kinds by attending to their peculiarities, such as the web feet of the duck tribe, 

 the proper size of roosting sticks for the toed feet of the other tribes. Even the crowing 

 of the cock must cause some degree of irritation, and consequently impede health and 

 fattening by disturbing the repose of quiet fowls, such as the turkey or goose. Various 

 other instances will occur to a reflecting mind ; and surely it must be a duty as agree- 

 able as it is conducive to our own interest to promote as much as possible the comfort 

 of those animals whose lives are shortly to be sacrificed for ours. 



2036. Health. A good state of health will, in general, be the result of the mode of 

 feeding and treatment which we have described ; but in proportion as our treatment, 

 either of ourselves or other animals, is refined and artificial, in the same proportion 

 are the functions of nature liable to derangement or interruption from atmospherical 

 changes, and various accidental causes. When this takes place recourse must be had to 

 art for relief. This is an obvious, natural, and reasonable practice ; though some 

 contend that as every disease is only an effort of nature to relieve the being {roTS0. some 

 evil, it ought to be left to itself. To treat animals when in health artificially, and the 

 moment when they become diseased to abandon them to nature, is a proposition so in- 

 congruous and absurd, that one would suppose it would be rejected by the common sense 

 of mankind. There are, however, some solitary instances of medical men having 

 adopted this opinion ; but the melancholy result of their acting on it in the human 

 species, as well as its utter rejection by all rational professors, and men in general, has 

 reduced it to its intrinsic value. There may be much of quackery in medicine ; and un- 

 questionably there is a great deal in the art as applied to the brute creation by common 

 practitioners ; but to reject the medical art altogether, becomes on the other hand a 

 species of quackery just as despisable as the other, and not less dangerous ; for it 

 cannot be much better for a patient to be left to die through neglect, than to be killed by 

 over-much care. 



2037. Farriery, as applied to cattle and sheep, is a department of medicine in which 

 perhaps greater ignorance prevails than in any other. The subject as applied to horses 

 has, since the establishment of veterinary schools in this country, and in France, be- 

 come better understood ; but the pupils from these establishments are so thinly scattered, 

 that as Laurence (veterinary surgeon, and author of a Treatise on Horses) observes, it 

 were desirable that country surgeons should in their different localities give instructions 

 to the empirical local practitioners in the country, and to intelligent bailiflfs; and that 

 gentlemen of property might have such a sense of their own interest as to call in a sur- 

 geon in all cases of the least difficulty. All that we can here do is to repeat our advice 

 of studying the art of prevention rather than of cure ; to suggest that, in general, an 

 analogy subsists between the constitution and diseases of the human and brute creation ; 

 to avoid recipes and specific cures, rarely to bleed animals, unless by regular advice ; 

 and to confine as much as possible the operations of cow doctors and smiths to giving 

 warm drinks, gentle" purges, and glysters, which can seldom do any harm. Proprietors 

 who can afford to employ intelligent bailiffs, or rather who give such men considerable 

 salaries, should ascertain previously to hiring them, by means of general questions, or 

 by reference to a professor, whether they know any thing of the subject. By thus creat- 

 ing a demand for this species of knowledge, it would soon be produced in abund- 

 ance. 



Sect. III. Of Feeding for Extraordinary Purposes. 



2038. The extraordinary purjyoses of feeding may comprehend, promoting the growth, 

 naturity, or obesity of particular parts of the body ; promoting the produce of milk 

 or eggs ; or, for fitting an animal for hard labor or long journeys, fasting, and other 

 privations. 



2039. Feeding for extraordinari/ jmrposes, such as promoting the growth of the liver 

 in geese ; the heart in turkeys ; producing excessively fat poultry, &c. seems to us utterly 

 unjustifiable on principles of humanity, and unworthy of enlightened men. The prac- 

 tice of pulling out the animal's eyes, nailing them to the spot, and cramming or forcing 

 the food down their throats, is surely as repugnant to good taste and feeling, as the food 

 so produced must be tasteless and unwholesome. Putting out the eyes of certain singing 

 birds to improve their voice ; and some practices in the rearing of game cocks, and 

 fancy pigeons, (at least the two first) seem equally reprehensible. 



2040. The fattening qf fowls for the London market is a considerable branch of rural ocoraony in some 

 convenient situations. " They are put up in a darlc place, and crammed with a paste made of barley meal, 

 mutton suet, and some treacle or coarse sugar, mixed with milk, and are found to be completely ripe in a 

 fortnight. If kept longer, the fever that is induced by this continued state of repletion renders them red 

 and unsaleable, and frequently kills them." {Agricultural Report of Berkshire, by William Mavor, L.L.D. 

 8vo. London, 1813.) But fowls brought to this state of artificial obesity are never so well flavored in 



