FATTKNING FOWLS IN FRANCE. 75 



of produce brought in to market by farmers and their 

 wives. I have visited the market of Louhans (Sa6ne- 

 et-Loire), when there were upwards of one thousand 

 people standing with produce of one kind and another. 

 True, it was a special occasion, being about ten days 

 prior to Christmas, and the market was consequently 

 much larger than usual, upwards of ten thousand fowls 

 being offered for sale, but at ordinary periods the same 

 state of things prevails to a proportionate extent. 



It hag already been shown that fattening in this 

 country is almost entirely a separate industry, the 

 birds being reared by farmers and cottagers, and sold 

 to higglers, who scour the countryside on behalf of the 

 fatteners. To some extent the same plan is adopted 

 in Prance, though it is by no means so universal. In 

 the districts of La Bresse, La Heche, and Le Mans, 

 I have visited establishments where this system is 

 followed, though in only one case on the same scale as 

 carried out by Mr. Oliver at Heathfield in Sussex, for 

 he, during the season, markets 2,000 chickens per 

 week. French women in the district named above 

 especially, but elsewhere to a lesser extent, understand 

 the fattening of poultry, and my observations show 

 that the finest specimens are produced by those who 

 do not market more than 50 to 200 per annum, the 

 entire work of hatching, rearing, fattening, killing, and 

 shaping, taking place at the same farm. When this 

 is so they are taken dead into market and there sold, 

 either to dealers or consumers, the former purchasing 

 for the Paris and other great markets. It wiU be seen 

 that where this plan is adopted the profits of middle- 

 men are reduced to the minimum, and whatever 



