Arizona republican., 1895-02-03
FED BY MACHINERY.
An Expe ditious Method of Fatten-
 ing Fowls for Market.
A French Process by Which Chickens and Ducks Are Speedily BrougtA to High State of Perfection for
 the Table.

ment in Baltimore county at which all the modern appliances for matching and rearing chickens are in practical operation, says the Baltimore Sun, and where the ''stufing" process of feeding known for many years in France as en- graiSsement, is used in fattening both chickens and ducks for the market. About five thousand chickens and as many ducks are annually fattened by this process at this place. The owner of this establishment is an American who has spent many years of his life abroad, especially in France, and he has made thorough study of the meth ods followed in the land where gastron- omy has been reduced to science and where the inner. man is more assidu- ously considered than anything else in the world. And it is because years of experimenting in France have proved that poultry fed by the process de Fen graissement are more toothsome and less expensive to the grower than poul- try fattened by the ordinary processes of nature that he has esta ablished this place in Baltimore county upon an al- most French basis. Incubators are now by no means the curiosities they were a few years ago, when the public paid an admission fee for the privilege of seeing one in operation. Many farmers have improved upon the old time more or less careless methods of raising chicks or ducklings, but there is no other place in Maryland where the ''stuffing' process is in vogue with all its modern. humane and economical ap- pliances. The process is based upon the simple principle that a fowl will grow fat most rapidly when it is given the maximum of food and allowed the min mum of exercise. Fowls fed by Zen graissement" are not only given all the food they can eat but all they can hold, and they are not given any exercise.
 When the work of feeding fowls in this manner is being put in practice which is not the case at this season of the year-the interior of the feeding house is an interesting place. It looks like large prison on a small scale, with tier upon tier of tiny cells reach ing from the floor to the ceiling. Ip each of these cells is bird being pre- pared for market. Its quarters are rather confning, for it hasn't room to turn around in and scarcely room to rise to it's feet. Running along in front of these cages, which fit their occu- pants as if they had been made to order, is a trolley track, high up near the cell ing, and from this is suspended the feeding apparatus proper. It may, by means of weights, be put at any height, and may be moved along the trolley track from one end of the building to the other, thus enabling the feeder to put his machine in front of any cell he may wish.
 The feed, in the form of soft mush, is put in reservoir holding gallon or more. From the bottom of the reser- voir the food runs through a rubber tube into another receptacle, the ca pacity of which is regulated by a screw, according to the extent of the meal to be given to the fowls at that special feeding. From the second receptacle protrudes g tin tube about four inches long and as thick as lead pencil. and this tube is thrust down the fowls throat and into the craw. This done the pressure of lever empties the con- tents of the receptacle into the fowl and it settles down to rest, digest and grow fat until meal time comes again. The fowls do not take kindly to this method of feeding at first, but after a day or two of it they seem to relish it's novelty and luxury, and begin to crow and cackle in anticipation as soon as the feeding apparatus is brought into use.
 L'engraissement has been practiced in France for many years. Before the improved appliances were invented the operation was carried on in several ways. One of these, called engraisse- ment aux patons, consisted of insert ing little cakes of dough into the fowls mouth, and forcing them down with the finger. In another case, engraissement dlentonnair, the food. in liquid form, was poured into the bird through a funnel. A third meth od, still more primitive, called gavage la bouche, consisted in the feeders filling his mouth with the food and blowing it down the fowls throat. As soon after the matching as they are able to determine, the sexes are sep arated, and when they are three and one-half months old they are put in the pens of plenty" Fowls thus treated have been known to double in weight during their confinement in the pens. Their meat is far tenderer and sweeter than that of fowls raised in the ordi- nary manner;, and is devoid of all ob- jectionable stringiness. They are, the owner of the Baltimore county estab- lishment ayers, more suitable for table