Page:Husbandman and Housewife 1820.djvu/63



CORN given to fowls should be crushed and soaked in water; this helps digestion, and hens will lay in winter that are so fed that would not otherwise.

Feed your fowls in winter with bones, pounded fine; and they will need less corn, and will lay as plentifully as at any season of the year. The bones supply the carbonate of lime, which is necessary for the production of the shell, and a part of the yolk of the egg. — Egg shells, oyster shells, chalk or unburnt lime answer a similar purpose.

THE fowl being trussed, incisions are made in every part, the same as when a fowl is about to be carved, but without severing the joints. The breast is cut as for taking out slices, and the legs scored across. The whole fowl, inside and out, is then rubbed well with pepper and salt, and a little Cayenne pepper, so as to be very highly seasoned. After this, it is enclosed in a good thick paste, composed of flour, milk and butter; one end of which is left open to fill it with water; this being done, it is closed up, put into a cloth, and boiled 3 or 4 hours ; when it becomes a rich and most relishing dish.

TAKE the fat of a dung-hill fowl, and rub the place or places affected with it, morning and evening over a warm fire; at the same time wrapping a piece of woollen cloth, well greased with the same fat, round the frost-bitten parts In two or three days they will feel no pain, and in five or six days will be quite cured.