FOWLS, TABLE AND MARKET. 187 



prevent disease, and to promote fattening, indirectly. The 

 effect, however, is so direct, that is, immediate, that it is 

 difficult to believe the fact that the charcoal has not really 

 nutritive value. 



The feed of fottening poultry must be such as can be 

 economically obtained. On a Yankee farm, Indian meal 

 suofoests itself at once as the most fattening and the most 

 economical feed ; so it probably is : certainly there are few 

 better forms of food than scalded Indian meal. However, 

 corn-meal is very concentrated nourishment, and it is more 

 economical to feed it somewhat extended than pure. Small 

 potatoes, washed and boiled and mashed, while hot, with 

 meal, or even with meal and bran (wheat or rye), or mid- 

 dlings mixed half and half, make excellent and very fatten- 

 ing feed. If to this we add some mutton tallow or any other 

 cheap fat, the fattening eiiect will be greatly increased. 



Pork-scrap cake soaked, chopped up, and mixed with this 

 feed is an excellent addition, but must not be fed too freely. 

 A pound of scrap to a dozen fowls every second or third day 

 is enough. 



In the winter, cabbage leaves, carrots, beets, celery and 

 parsley leaves are relished, and give no unpleasant flavor to 

 the flesh, but probably the contrary. Onions are highly 

 relished, but should not be fed within several days of kill- 

 ing lime, and never to laying hens. 



In a fattening house the roosts should be low, to prevent 

 the fowls bruising themselves when they fly down ; an inch 

 and a half broad, to prevent the breast being dented or 

 bent ; and stiflT, to prevent sagging under the weight of many 

 fowls, or swaying or teetering. The house or coop itself 

 should be warm, well ventilated, and roomy enough to per- 

 mit a person to go all around among the fowls to lift and 

 handle them. This they will submit to with good grace, 

 after two or three times ; and it is the only good way to get 

 a thorough knowledge of the condition of the flock, and to 

 select those fit for market. 



Fowls well fed will fatten in aliout three or four weeks in 

 September and October. After cold weather they require 

 more food to hold their own than would fatten them earlier. 

 However, if closely confined in feeding-coops, — which 



