QUALITY OP TABLE-FOWL8. 55 



good food constantly changed, including wheat and boiled rice 

 (the latter tends to make white flesh) ; and the French prefer 

 to " finish off" with buckwheat and milk. 



If extra weight and fat is wanted, the birds may be 

 crammed during the last ten days of the fattening period, but 

 not before. The meal is to be rolled up the thickness of a 

 finger, and then cut into pellets an inch and a half long. Each 

 morsel must be dipped in water before it is put into the bird's 

 throat, when there will be no difficulty in swallowing. The 

 quantity given can only be learnt by experience. 



For home use, however, nothing can equal a chicken never 

 fattened at all, but just taken out of the yard. If well fed 

 there will be plenty of good meat, and the fat of a fowl is to 

 most persons no particular delicacy. In any case, however, 

 let the chicken be fasted twelve hours before it is killed. 



In raising poultry for the market, whatever crosses may be 

 employed, great judgment in selecting the birds is required to 

 produce a really good table fowl. Though not quite every- 

 thing, a good and well-developed breast is the chief object to 

 aim at; and it may be well to point out in what a good breast 

 consists; for this does not always seem well understood, 

 embracing as it does at least three distinct qualities. 



1. A good breast must be deep, especially in front. On this 

 depends the breadth of the slices cut from it. Internally, this 

 quality depends upon depth of the keel of the breast-bone; 

 externally, it is marked by the fowl appearing, when looked at 

 sideways, as deep through the body at the shoulders as behind. 

 This is true, although the contour may be widely different. 

 For instance, in the ideal contour of a Dorking, the equal 

 depth at shoulders is seen at once, in the general resemblance 

 of the body to a parallelogram. No such square form can be 

 seen in a Game fowl, whose breast shows a beautiful curve. 

 But it will be seen that a well-shaped Game fowl's body is 

 much like a fir-cone in figure, the thick end representing the 



