ILI.USTILYTEI) STOCK DOCTOR. 
447 
As a cross for early plump table breeds, a Dorking cock crossed on . 
Brahma or Cochin hens will give fast growing, plump chickens of early 
maturity. In this, however, fancy has much to do. 
The Asiatics are not great layers, but by using judgment, fully as 
many eggs can be got from either Brahmas or Cochins in Winter as from 
any other breed, and Winter eggs are what bring money. Give them 
warm and roomy quarters, with plenty of range for exercise, with liberal 
feeding, including green vegetables, and they will bring you money 
in eggs. 
Egg Producers. 
The Poland, the Leghorn and the Houdan are inveterate layers, and 
i*heir eggs are good. The Hamburg.-? are good layers, but like the black 
Spanish, tender, and more tit for the amateur than the practical man. 
For eggs, there is little doubt that the Polands should carry the palm. 
For young chickens for market, Brahmas and Cochins, and for home 
liable use, the Dorkings are best. Why. then, asks the reader, have you 
described so many fowls? The answer is, so that the table being well 
filled, you may take your clioico of breeds. 
How to Fatten. 
When ready to fatten, poultry should be always confined in a small 
$pace ; the smaller the better. Two weeks should make them fat. If 
kept after they are fat, or when they cease to increase, they again imme- 
diately lose flesh. The best food in the West is corn-meal, boiled into a 
very thick mush, and then made as thick as possible, while scalding hot, 
by mixing in all the meal that can be worked. The fowls may be kept 
in well-ventilated coops, feeding them three times a day with the feed 
warm, and allowing them plenty of water and gravel all the time, except 
for the last week, when the gravel may bo omitted. The coops must of 
course be kept clean, and should be small enough so the fowls cannot 
turn around ; should be littered with clean straw, and never allowed to 
get foul. If, instead of water, their drink is skimmed milk, they will 
become extra fat. 
How to Kill and Dress Fowls. 
Never kill your fowls until they have fasted twenty-four hours. No 
tnan ever made any money by selling his fowls with their crops stuffed to 
make them weigh. The petty fraud is too appareut. To kill and dress, 
tie their legs together, hang the fowl up, open the beak and pass a sharp 
pointed, narrow bladed knife into the mouth and up into the roof, divid- 
ing the membrane. Death will be instant. Immediately cut the throat 
by dividing the arteries of the neck and the bird will bleed thoroughly. 
