FATTENING FOWLS. 207 



Mr. Mellendy, the extensive fowl breeder, of Mount Healthy, 

 Ohio, writes me : 



I feed my old fowls, corn, wheat, oats, barley, and broom-corn seed. 

 I feed them but once a day. I give them all they can eat of the 

 grain. I have in boxes in each department, old mortar, oyster shells, 

 bones and sand. I water twice a day in. summer, and once in winter. 

 I give them cabbage, lettuce, and grass, twice a week. In winter, I 

 feed once a week on red pepper. Fowls fed in this way, will lay, if 

 they are of the right breed. 



Mr. Miner, The following method will be found a good one. Once 

 a clay in summer, feed on a mixture of corn and barley, or corn and 

 oat?. This will be sufficient, if your fowls have a large enclosure 

 where they can obtain gravel, insects, worms, and green food. If they 

 are confined to a small space, these substances must be supplied them, 

 liberally. In winter, keep corn, mixed sometimes with barley, and 

 sometimes with oats, constantly before them, as well as pounded 

 oyster shells, burnt bones, and a plenty of gravel. Occasionally, give 

 boiled potatoes, mashed, and mixed with Indian meal, or bran warm, 

 but not hot. Twice or three times a week, give them scraps from the 

 tallow chandler's, or fresh meat. Let them have wood ashes to dust 

 themselves in, and an abundance of .clean water, fresh every day ; in 

 freezing weather, the water should be warmed. Chickens require no 

 food for the first twenty-four hours after they are hatched ; I have, 

 however, been in the habit of giving them water in about twelve 

 hours from the time they leave the shell. After the first twenty-four 

 hours, for about two months, I give them coarse meal, or cracked 

 corn, moistened a very little, and sometimes dry, three or four times 

 a day; occasionally vary their food, by giving sometimes cooked 

 meat, chopped fine, and sometimes crumbs of bread. I also prefer to 

 feed damaged wheat, that is to say, wheat that has grown. This can 

 often be procured at low rates, and is the very best of food for fowls. 

 An abundance of clean water should be constantly before them. It 

 will not answer to feed fowls wholly upon any one variety of food. 

 Fowls require a mixture of green food with hard food, fully as much 

 ns horses o-r cattle do. When fowls have sufficient range, they will 

 find this for themselves in summer ; when they do not possess such on 

 advantage, you must provide green food for them. 



A. A. HUDSOX. 



FATTENING FOWLS. 



The process of fattening fowls should be a speedy one. Two 

 weeks is about the extent of time that they should be cooped, 

 in my opinion. They should be kept in a place where, there is 

 but little light just enough to allow them to eat and drink 

 by which they remain quiet, and take on fat rapidly. They 

 should be supplied with pounded charcoal and gravel. Some 



