298 
Some Minor Rural Industries. 
mixture of 1 barley meal and Spratt’s food in the morning, boiled 
rice with oatmeal or bone meal at mid-day, and wheat in the 
evening. At ages varying from four to seven months the young 
birds are sent into the fattening house, after three weeks in 
which place they are ready for killing. The house is a rectangular 
apartment, kept sweet and clean by whitewash and other means, 
and lighted from the roof only. All round the interior the 
fatting boxes or coops are arranged side by side in horizontal 
tiers, one over another, and when the house is full it contains 
632 birds. The cages or coops are made of wood and have 
vertical bars in front ; each cage is large enough to permit its 
inmate to turn round, but no more. As each bird has a cage to 
itself there is no loss of muscle or of energy, such as might arise 
were the birds placed in a common pen, in which disagreements 
might constantly occur. 
There are two stages of feeding in the fattening house. 
For the first week the food — a thick mixture of ground oats 
and water — is delivered from a wooden spoon into a trough 
which extends along in front of the cages. Each bird gets 
a spoonful, which it devours by thrusting its head between 
the bars of its cage. For the remaining two weeks the birds 
are fed exclusively by cramming, and on a richer diet. The 
food in this final period consists of a mixture of barley meal, 
ground oats, and skim milk, to which is added the best beef and 
mutton fat obtainable, the proportion of fat being increased day 
by day. The cramming operation is easily effected. The 
cramming machine containing its soft mess is wheeled along in 
front of the coops. To feed a bird the attendant takes it out of 
its coop by its wings, and passes the fingers of his left hand 
beneath the bird’s crop. With his right hand he directs 
the end of a flexible tube coming from the reservoir of the 
machine through the fowl’s mouth into its crop. With his 
right foot he presses the treadle of the machine, and thereby 
drives a mass of food into the crop, judging by his left hand 
when this cavity is sufficiently filled, and regulating the pressure 
on the treadle accordingly. A careless attendant, or a beginner, 
might burst the bird’s crop by over-distension, but an experi- 
enced man is capable of feeding 100 birds from the machine in 
the space of about twenty minutes. All the birds in the cram- 
ming house are fed twice a day, at 7 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. A 
small quantity of ground oyster shell is added to the food of the 
birds in the cramming house to promote digestion. As soon as 
the morning or evening meal has been administered, the blinds 
of the skylights are drawn down and the birds are left in quiet 
and semi-darkness to digest the food they have received and to 
