82 
The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 
the main pait of the machine consists of a large cylinder, which is filled with food, and furnished 
with a mouth or nozzle at one end, whilst the contents are forced out by means of a piston. In 
the French machines this is usually worked by a treadle, and the whole method of management is 
veiy clearly shown in Fig. 45, one person managing the machine, and another removing the birds 
from and to the pens. 
Vaiious minor improvements as regards the management of fowls thus treated have 
been made from time to time, but the most perfect system yet developed appears to be that 
carried on at the town of Cusset, by M. Martin, whose method of procedure is so superior that the 
Fig- 45- 
Agricultural Society of Allier published in 1870 an official report upon the plan and apparatus 
of his establishment. 
The food employed by M. Martin consists of fine maize and barley-meal, mixed in about 
equal quantities ; to this is added a portion of lard, and the whole is then mixed smoothly 
with milk, so thin as to be almost liquid. The feeding-house is a large airy building on the summit 
of a hill, and is furnished with three revolving octagonal stands, which, as they turn on their upright 
axes, present each side in succession to the operator, precisely in the same manner as the revolving 
show-stands so often seen in shop-windows. Each side of the stand contains five perches for 
the fowls ; and as each perch roosts five birds, the stand accommodates 200 fattening birds. The 
perches are arranged over each other, and under each perch is a board sloping backwards, which 
throws all the droppings into the centre of the machine, and effectually prevents them falling on 
the birds below. Every morning a little straw chaff is thrown upon them, and the whole taken 
away in a barrow running under, by which means the fowls are kept perfectly clean. 
i 
