FOWLS, TABLE AND MARKET. 185 



hens, food upon which they will thrive and grow, but not 

 fatten: barley, buckwheat, oats, wheat screenings, etc., and 

 some scrap-cake, never giving all they will eat; and at 

 evening, just before they go to roost, and at this time only, 

 hard grain. We must not forget the young roosters which 

 we have corralled, but will return to the pullets in Januar}', 

 or after their brothers are marketed. 



FATTENING. 



When attempting to fatten young fowls, it will be found 

 that some take on flesh and fat much more rapidly than 

 others ; and when fat, and no longer showing that they gain 

 from day to day, it is time to dispose of these, and go on 

 fattening the others. This is true of capons, as it is of vir- 

 gin cocks, and it is particularly true of the latter. After a 

 fowl is well fattened, if not killed, it will soon begin to fall 

 ofi", and will never be so fat again, or certainly not for sev- 

 eral years. 



The feed of the young fowls in the fattening coop should 

 consist of a reasonable variety, for the sake of tempting 

 their appetites, and at evening some hard grain should 

 always be fed. This is in order that their crops may remain 

 full nearly or quite all night, and that the fowls may remain 

 longer upon the roosts. A fattening fowl's only business is 

 to eat, drink and sleep. If they are hungry at four o'clock, 

 and are watchino- for the first streaks of mornino- lio^ht so 

 that they may be out foraging, and if, in the frosty autumn 

 mornings, they are hunting about for an hour or two before 

 they are fed, for something to appease their hunger, they 

 will not take on flesh very fast. 



In England, and on the Continent, poulterers buy up 

 country poultry, and put them up to fatten in establishments 

 of their own. In these, fowls are fed according to the secret 

 rules and notions of the proprietors. Barley and oat-meal, 

 rice, Indian-corn meal, cooked, wet with milk, and occasion- 

 ally mingled, Avhile hot, with beef or mutton tallow, are the 

 chief articles of diet. Chopped carrots and parsley roots 

 and leaves, cabbage, celery leaves, etc., are given occasion- 

 ally, and regular doses of pepper-corns or cayenne pepper to 

 stimulate their appetites. 



