1 70 FARMING FOR LADIES. [chap. vii. 



that those persons have never seen it in use, 

 for there is nothing uncleanly in cramming a 

 fowl vi^ith the finger, and it is a far better 

 mode, both as to ease and expedition, than by 

 the funnel. The coqs vierges de Normandie 

 are fattened in that manner at Caen, with a 

 paste made chiefly of buckwheat flour, ground 

 rice, and the raspings of bread, mixed up with 

 curds, and well moistened with milk, into 

 which there is also put a little salt : the quan- 

 tity of paste being at first moderate, but gra- 

 dually increased until it fills the crop, and 

 time enough allowed between each feeding 

 to secure digestion. 



These young birds are in such high esteem 

 at Paris, that — as we learn from Madame 

 Gacon Dufour and the ' Manuel du Zoophile^ 

 — their usual price there is twelve francs each. 

 Chicks are also fattened in the same way for 

 the Paris market at six weeks old, and sent 

 there, in the month of April, plucked, trussed, 

 and separately wrapped in paper as poidets a la 

 reine. They are sent as far as twenty to twenty- 

 five post leagues, by carts used to convey 

 poultry, and travelling by relays of horses in 

 the same manner as the post. Such, indeed, 



