Farm and Garden.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 423, 2 June 1904, Page 2

Farm and Garden.

ORIGINAL A.BTIOLES,

FATTENING POULTBY FOB MARKET SZpfiHE standard weights of Barred jkMd Plymouth Bocks ate, cook, nine js& and a half pounds, hen, seven and a half pounds, cockerel, eight pounds, and pullet, Bix and a half pounds. As & breed the Plymouth Bocks are hardy, healthy, and do well in any climate. They are the most popular of all fowls in the estimation of most breeders. The fattening or furnishing of poultry by any special process, and feeding with that end in view, is practically a new idea. Bat the advisability and importance of either the producer or a middleman putting a finish on thin birds is demanding atten- | tion from those concerned. A very large per centage of stock is of such poor quality that it frequently has to be sold at greatly reduced prices; oftentimes chickens, with their frames practically grown and carrying about twenty-eight per cent of edible meat, whereas the same bird could by proper feeding for about four weedß be made to carry forty ounces or three times as much edible meat. The Importance of special feeding and a better selection of suitable breeds would secure an almost unlimited demand and less of the unprofitable kind, It is difficult to understand why the farmer who has every facility for properly finishing his fowls should waste such opportunity. The farmer sticks to corn, which perhaps above all other cereals produces the most unsatisfactory quality of meat. As it produces weight and is the cheapest and most available grain,' he supplies it, and where the supply is unlimited the weight is gained. Corn has a special tendency to deposit a soft oily fat in layers under the skin and in masses in the abdominal cavity, instead of depositing that fat in globules throughout the tissue, where it Bhould btj. If. oats, barley, or a Buitable mixture of these aad other grains, ground, were used as a base those globuleß of fat would not waste, but would soften in cooking,' thereby rendering the tissues soft and juicy. Where the. demand has been for the yellow skinned plump bird there seemed to poultry keepers only one course open, and that was to use corn in unlimited quantity; but very often in such cases, without any safeguard, bowel trouble follows, and not much advance is made in that direction of increased edible meat. But there are some peoplo who give the matter proper attention by having suitable coops, as recently described in this paper, and fattening them in a proper manner, obtaining top prices by doing so.*