66 AGE PREMIUM FOR REARING. 



as soon as the hen shall have quitted her charge, and, 

 so to speak, before they have run off their sucking 

 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 expended 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 especially 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 difficult, and often impossible, 

 to fatten long-legged fowls in coops, which, how- 

 ever, 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 metal. 

 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 months' end, they will be as large as full 

 grown fowls. On this sagacious project, I shall 

 only remark, that however learned the public body 



