Fa/t'm Poultry, 
chickens intended for tlie table is only practicable in farms of 
some considerable size. In every case it will be found desirable 
to sell off the cockerels, and those pullets that it is not desired 
to keep for stock, at an early period of their lives, or else to put 
them up to fatten in the ordinary manner. If fattened in coops, 
the cockerels should be shut up as soon as the central tail 
feathers are noticed as curving over the others, and they should 
be fed upon meal and milk until they have obtained the desired 
fatness. 
Fowls cannot, however, be fatted without care and attention. 
They should be shut up in coops raised from the ground on 
legs, the bottom bars being about an inch and a half apart, so 
as to ensure cleanliness. Not more than a dozen fowls at a time 
should be put up together in one coop. In front a wedge-shaped 
trough should be placed. This should be filled three times a 
day with coarse fresh oatmeal mixed with milk. No more food 
should be given at once than will be eaten up at the time, 
before a fresh meal is given. The troughs should be kept 
thoroughly clean. It is best to have two sets, so that each can 
be scalded with boiling water every other day after use. At 
one end of the coop water should be given, and on the ledge 
supporting the trough a small supply of fresh clean gravel ; a 
green turf may occasionally be put in the coop. 
It is necessary to give these fatted fowls their first meal in 
the morniag, at sunrise. If this meal is delayed until about 
eight o'clock, the fowls have been hungry and restless for hours, 
during which time the fat of the previous day has been wasted 
in useless exercise. About a fortnight is generally sufficient to 
fatten fowls, if these precautions are attended to. If the fowls 
are wanted fatter, they may be kept up a week longer, during 
which time they may be given a little hai'd mutton fat, such 
as the parings of the loin, which may be put in the scaldiiig 
milk with which the oatmeal is mixed. 
If fowls are wanted exceedingly fat, they must be crammed. 
On a large scale this is done by the aid of a cramming machine, 
of which Hearson's is the best that I have seen, but a small 
number may be crammed by hand, selecting those that have 
been put up to fat for a fortnight. In cramming, the oat- 
meal is mixed with boiling milk (to which a little mutton 
fat may be added, if thought desirable), sufficiently stiff" to roll 
into sausage-shaped masses about two inches long and the size 
of the finger. Each fowl is taken out in succession, held in the 
lap, the beak kept open with the thumb and finger of the left 
hand ; the sausage-shaped mass of meal should be dipped into 
milk, and placed at the back of the throat and pushed down 
