AGE PREMIUM FOR REARING. 59 



as soon as the hen shall have quitted her charge, 

 and so to speak, before they have run off their suck- 

 ing flesh. For generally, when well kept and in 

 health, they will be in fine condition and full of 

 flesh, at that period, which flesh is afterwards ex- 

 pended in the exercise of foraging for food, and in 

 the increase of stature, and it may be a work of 

 some time afterwards to recover it, and more espe- 

 cially in young cocks, and all those which stand 

 high upon the leg. In fact, all those that appear 

 to have long legs, should be fattened from the hen, 

 to make the best of them ; it being extremely diffi- 

 cult, and often impossible, to fatten long-legged 

 fowls in coops, which, however, are brought to a 

 good weight at the barn-door. 



In the year 1779, says one of those small publi- 

 cations, which are circulated through the country, 

 for the instruction of our housewives, a gentleman 

 in London presented to a learned body, a newly- 

 invented method of rearing chickens for the spit, 

 quicker than was ever before discovered, for which 

 the learned society honoured him with a gold medal. 

 The method is as follows : the chickens are to be 

 taken from the hen, the night after they are hatched, 

 and fed with eggs boiled hard, chopped, and mixed 

 with crumbs of bread, as larks and other birds are 

 fed, for the first fortnight ; after which, give them 

 oatmeal and treacle, mixed so as to crumble, of 

 which the chickens are very fond, and thrive so fast 

 that at two month's end, they will be as large as full 

 grown fowls. On this sagacious project, I shall 

 only remark, that, however learned the public body 



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