FEEDING MODES. 63 



SECTION VIII. 



On feeding and fattening Chickens and Fowls. 



THE points for consideration on this branch of the 

 subject are -7- the local CONVENIENCES, the modes, 

 common or extraordinary, the variety and quality of 

 the FOOD, and the length of TIME necessary for com- 

 pletion of the object. 



The well-known common methods are, to give 

 fowls the run of the farm -yard, where they thrive 

 upon the offals of the stable, and other refuse, with 

 perhaps some small regular daily feeds ; but at thresh- 

 ing time they become fat, and are thence styled 

 BARN-DOOR FOWLS, probably the most delicate and 

 high-flavoured of all others, both from their full al- 

 lowance of the finest corn, and the constant health in 

 which they are kept, by living in the natural state, 

 and having the full enjoyment of air and exercise; or 

 they are confined during a certain number of weeks 

 in coops, those fowls which are soonest ready being 

 drawn as wanted. It is a common practice with some 

 housewives, to coop their barn-door fowls for a week 

 or two, under the notion of improving them for the 

 table and increasing their fat ; a practice which, how- 

 ever, seldom succeeds, since the fowls generally pine 

 for their loss of liberty, and, slighting their food, lose 

 instead of gam additional flesh. Such a period, in 



