e: 



Cramming with Solid Food. 79 



is poured into a liole made in the heap of flour, and mixed up little by little with a wooden 

 spoon so long as it is taken up ; the dough is then kneaded by the hands till it no longer 

 adheres to them. 



" Some say that barley or even oatmeal is a good substitute for buckwheat meal, but Mdlle. 

 Robinet is not of that opinion. Indian corn, the white variety, may do, but it is dear, and makes 

 "short" paste, unless mixed with buckwheat, when it answers well if cheap enough; but buckwheat 

 is a hardy plant, which may be grown anywhere at small cost. 



" The food is thus administered : — The attendant puts on an apron which will stand being 

 soiled or torn, and takes the pellets on a board, with a bowl of clear water. She takes the first 

 fowl from its cage gently and carefully, not by the wings or the legs, but with both hands under 

 the breast. She then seats herself with the fowl upon her knees, putting its rump under her left 

 arm, by which she supports it ; the left hand then opens its mouth (a little practice makes this 

 very easy), and the right hand takes up a pellet, soaks it well in the water (this is essential), shakes 

 it on its way to the open mouth, puts it straight down, and carefully crams it with the forefinger 

 well into the gullet. When it is so far settled down that the fowl cannot eject it, she presses it 

 down gently with thumb and forefinger into the crop, taking care not to fracture the pellet ; for if 

 some scraps of it remained in the gullet they might cause inflammation. 



" Other pellets follow the first, till the feeding is finished in less time than one would imagine. 

 It sometimes happens, particularly in the early stage of fatting, that the tracheal artery is com- 

 pressed together with the gullet ; this makes the creature cough, but is not of any serious 

 consequence, and with a little experience this mishap is easily avoided. The fowl when fed is 

 again held with both hands under its breast, and replaced in its cage \\itliout flutlcring it ; and 

 so on with each fowl. 



" The chicken should have two meals in twenty-four hours, twelve hours apart, provided with 

 the utmost punctuality ; if it has to wait it becomes uneasy, if fed too soon it has an indigestion, 

 and in either case loses weight. On the first day of cramming only t\\'o or three pellets are given 

 at each meal ; the allowance is daily increased by one at a time till it reaches twelve to fifteen 

 pellets. The stomach may he filled, but at each meal you must make sure that the last is duly 

 digested, which is easily ascertained by gently handling the crop. If there be any dough in it, 

 digestion has not gone on properly ; the fowl must miss a meal, and have rather a smaller 

 allowance next time^if too much food be forced upon the animal at first it will get out of 

 health and have to be set at liberty. 



" The fatting process ought to be complete in two or three weeks, but for extra fat poultry 

 twent}'-fivc or t\vent)--six days are required ; with good management you maj- go on for thirty 

 daj's, after which the creature becomes choked with accumulated fat, wastes away, and dies. 



"When' a fowl is to be killed, it should first be fasted for twelve to fifteen hours, and then held 

 carefully (not hung up by the heels, which would suft'ocate it), the mouth opened, and either the 

 under side of the tongue cut with sharp scissors, or the pointed blade of a knife thrust into the 

 palate till it pierces the brain ; or, thirdly, a few feathers may be plucked from the left side of the 

 head just below the ear, and a good incision made at the spot. In any case it must be fastened 

 up by the heels immediately afterwards, that it may bleed freely, for on this the whiteness of th« 

 flesh depends ; but during the death-struggle let it be held by the head. The chicken is then 

 bandaged till cold to mould its form ; and if the weather is warm it is plunged for a moment into 

 very cold water. The fat of fowls so managed is of a delicate white colour ; their flesh is as it 

 were seen transparent beneath a delicate skin. An average fowl takes about one and one-tenth 

 of a peck of buck-wheat to fatten it." 



