English Methods 313 



who have become accustomed to other methods of 

 dressing and marketing fowls. The English method 

 of preparing young fowls for market, which have been 

 fattened by the cramming process and which affords 

 a most delicate flesh, is to kill them without bleeding. 

 While in the United States great stress is laid on 

 removing as much blood as possible from the body, 

 the English prefer not to have the fowl bled at all. 

 The operator holds the fowl with his left hand and 

 grasps the head with his right. He gives a forcible, 

 forward pull with his right hand, holding the head 

 at right angles to the neck. He uses enough force 

 to dislocate the neck just below the head. This 

 kills the fowl at once and frequently causes consid- 

 erable blood to settle in the neck, although no blood 

 leaves the body. When dry-picking is practiced the 

 fowls are picked at once after the neck is dislocated. 

 Pickers become very expert in dry-picking fowls. As 

 the hand moves back and forth over the body the 

 feathers gradually disappear, and in less time than 

 it requires to describe the operation properly an 

 expert picker will have the feathers removed from a 

 good specimen. While the English do not meet 

 our requirements as regards the drawing of blood, 

 yet in some respects they take more pains in pre- 

 paring the bids for market than Americans do. 

 As soon as the birds are picked, they are fre- 

 quently placed on what is known as a "forming 

 machine/ 7 prepared for the purpose and weighted, 



