Morning journal and courier., 1890-03-04

to make experiments in, and it is said that the experiments were all successful. It is two-story frame building perpetually locked, and no one is ever seen going Tn or ont except the watchman or occasionally an officer of the company. A Sun reporter went drought the place the other day. The little hallway was profusely decorated with signs, which read, Positively no admittance to the fattening room.' The place resem- bled @ barn and smelled like Q hennery. The fattening room and feed store room took up the whole first floor. The stock of poul- try which had been experimented on had al- ready been served on the tables of hotels in this city, and only the strong smell remained. There were four windows in the fattening room. but they were all darkened by broad shutters, and the place was as dark as pitch.
 The stuffing process was looked iuto by the reporter with the aid of candle. There were four revolving cylinders in the room filled with little boxes built in tiers. Each box represented seating or roasting capacity for one fowl There were twenty five boxes in tier and fourteen tiers on cylinder, making total of 1, 450 roos.s on the four cylinders. Each box was seven inches wide, eighteen inches high and two feet long. The boxes alanted toward the center of the cylin- der, and in the rear of each was 8 wire net work. There is room enough in a box for 8 fowl to get in or out, but not room enough to turn around, and the reason the place is kept dark is to deceive the fowls into believ- ing it is night and thus make them contented with their Ioosts.
 In front of each cylinder is zinc trough about three feet long, and in that is the ma chinery by which the fowl is forced to take its food whether it wants 10 or not. The trough is arranged between two poles, and can be hoisted from the lowest to the highest tier by means of rope and cog pulley that enables it to rest at any tier. There is 8 platform below the trough just large enough for man to stand on and operate the ma chine. The machinery itself consists of suction pump, three inches in diameter, get solid in the bottom of the trough. It ia op- erated with 8 pedal, like the machines the harness makers have for driving rivets into leather. A tin pipe extends from the suc- tion up to the top of the trough, and on the end of this is-fastened 8 piece of rubber hose about as big as cigarette and about six inches long. This just reaches from the trough to the entrance of the box in the cyl finder, and as the cylinder revolves each box is brought in front of the trough.
 The food is put into the trough in liquid form. As the box is brought in front of the trough the man who operates the machine catches the occupant just behind the bill with the thumb and forsinger of one hand. A little pinch makes the fowl open it's mouth, and the rubber hose is forced down its throat with the other hand. One step of and hose, and down again into the fowls stomach, filling it chock full. The whole op- eration takes exactly ten seconds, and an ex- perienced handler can pump full of food three hundred and forty fowls an hour.
 When asked whether the fowls enjoyed having their food fired into them in such an unceremonious manner, the man who was explaining the operation to the reporter said he thought they did after they got used to it. ''For the first two or three days after they are put into boxes," he said, sit makes them kind of sick to their stomach, and they don't like it. The machine throws 1t too far down though for them to get rid of it, and they have to stand it. They get three square meals a day forced into them, and with a little practice they get along all right. After @ week or two there is no question about their liking it, and the handler has to take care, or when he is filling the fowls on one tier those on the tier above will peck his eyes out in their anxiety to get at the food. "
 The food room is a store room fitted with patent food mixer, which works on the principle of an egg beater. The food the
 first week consists of buttermilk and water thickened little with buckwheat or corn meal. The second week the water is dropped and cream is put in in place of it. More cream Is added the third week, and the mixture is then half cream, half buttermilk, and twice the quantity of meal as was used the 6rst week. Into each trough of food is dumped three-quarters of a bucketfu1 of some preparation which MT. Williams mixes in his private office up stairs. What it cons tains no one at the hennery ever found out. It looks like water. It makes the fowls he intimated that it served the purpose of making them fat.
 When experiments were being made, out of fourteen hundred fowls fourteen died the first day under the treatment, and after that an average of three day. This average is considered very low by those interested in the method, and the enormous profit which is made on those that live good deal more than makes up for the loss by death. One hundred pounds of chickens after three weeks' treatment weighed one hundred and forty ponnds. The chickens cost seven cents pound in the west, and fraction more than that delivered in Jersey City. They sold at wholesale in the market at ff- teen cents pound, making 8 total profit of about twelve cents pound without allow ing, Of course, for the cost of the food, kill ing and preparing for the market. Allowing for that there was net profit of from eight to ten cents per pound.
 The meat of a chicken that has been treat ed is said to be well favored and nearly all white. The bones are tender and can be easily broken between the fingers. Not hav- ing any chance to exercise, uo fat is run of, and the meat is bound to get soft if treated long enough. Weak fowls, 1t is said, cannot stand the treatment, and effort is always made to pick them out and sell them with out being treated. The company will build another hennery, or stufing factory, on the block bounded by Provost, Fourteenth, Eff teenth and Barnum streets, adjoining the present place, and if successful will establish branches in Boston, Chicago and other large cities. A meeting will be held the latter part of the week, and then the stufing house will be filled with chickens and pumping will be begun