Publication Offiice No. 45 Nortb §ixl;Ii street, above Arch. 



THE FAUMERS' CABLNET, 



DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY. 



Vol. 11.— No. 10.1 



PhiladelpHia, December 15, 1837. 



[Wliole No. 34, 



Fur tlie Fariiurs' Cal/iiiet. 



Raising Cliickens. 



Auburn, Frederick Co. Md , Nov. 23d, 1837. 



I very much fear you will begin to think 

 me either an epicure or the son of an epicure, 

 it bein<f only a short time since that I served 

 you up a mess of bacon, and now come with 

 a dish of fowl. It has been said it is not good 

 for man to be alone. Bacon, althouj^h good 

 alone, is very much better when accompanied 

 with a good round fat pullet. But it is not a 

 pullet that I am about to serve up to you at pres- 

 ent, but her brother, though in an altered form, 

 as you will learn in the sequel. It is a fact 

 known to every traveler, that there is no dish 

 presented before him half so often as that of 

 chicken, served up in every form of which it 

 is capable, broiled, fryed, stewed, baked, or 

 boiled, and it is a fact equally well known that 

 there is no dish so often turned away untasted, 

 in consequence of its disgusting- appearance 

 or bad culinary preparations. 1 allude of course 

 to such as we too frequently meet with on 

 our public tables and watering places, (Bedford 

 itself not excepted.) How often is the ears 

 of the hungry and weary traveler assailed 

 the moment the stage draws up to the inn, 

 by the dieing shrieks of the rooster that had 

 but the moment before been picking a scanty 

 Bubsistence from the dunghill, and in a few 

 moments more graces the head of the table, 

 looking more like that well known waterfowl 

 vulgarly called a fly-up-the-creek, who is in- 

 debted alone to the length of his legs and 

 neck for a subsistence, than what it really is. 

 But I have promised to give you something 

 even better than a fat pullet, and 1 shall now 

 proceed to serve it up ; I mean then that fa- 

 vorite dish of the ancient Romans, the " Gal- 

 las Spads or Capon," or more plainly the cock 

 altered by castration, and in such high repute 

 was it that it generally graced the board of 

 Cab.— Vol. II.— No. 10. 14.5 



that most excellent judge of good eating, 

 Lucullus, and if Shakspeare is to be believed, 

 it was a tit bit not only with Jack Falstaff, but 

 with the Justice who is represented — " In fair 

 round body with good capon lin'd." In Eng- 

 land, at the present day, at every respectable 

 sating house the first thing that greets the eye 

 of the traveler and heads the bill of fare, is a 

 capon, either boiled or baked. In France they 

 are made doubly useful, not only as an article 

 of food, but a means of production ; if I may 

 be allowed the expression they are used as a 

 foster mother for raising chickens, which they 

 do much better than the hen, owing to the 

 large size and thick coat of feathers. The 

 poulterers use a considerablenumber of them 

 for this purpose, — the moment the hen has 

 hatched her brood they are given to the capon 

 who rears them with all the care of the mo- 

 ther, the hen is cooped and well fed until she 

 gains her flesh and strength and then turned 

 out to lay and set again ; in this way the 

 poulterer is enabled to raise a large number 

 of chickens from half the number of hens. — 

 The capon at market sells higher than any 

 of our domestic fowls. What is the reason 

 then in our country where good living is 60 

 highly prized, the capon is seldom or never 

 seen 1 Should you travel from Maine to 

 New Orleans, you would probably never have 

 this question put to you at table, '^ Sir, shall 

 I help you to a fine piece of capon." I would 

 by no means attribute this neglect of one of 

 the finest dishes in the world to obtuseness of 

 palate, but rather to a want of the necessary 

 information as to the manner of performing 

 the operation on the cock. To obviate this I 

 will subjoin directions, by the observance of 

 which a man of common adroitness ca i make 

 two dozen capons in an hour. Lay the chick- 

 en before you on his left side, with his head 

 towards your right hand, let an assistant hold 



