In fattening poultry, "the well-known common methods," Mowbray observes, "are, first, to give fowls the run of the farmyard, where they thrive upon the offals of the stables and other refuse, with perhaps some small regular feeds; but at threshing time they become fat, and are thence styled barn-door fowls, probably the most delicate and high-flavoured of all others, both from their full allowance of the finest corn and from the constant health in which they are kept, by living in the natural state, and having the full enjoyment of air and exercise; or secondly, they are confined during a certain number of weeks in coops; those fowls which are soonest ready being drawn as wanted." "The former method," says Mr. Dickson, "is immeasurably the best as regards the flavour and even wholesomeness of the fowls as food, and though the latter mode may, in some cases, make the fowls fatter, it is only when they have been always accustomed to confinement; for when barn-door fowls are cooped up for a week or two under the notion of improving them for the table, and increasing their fat, it rarely succeeds, since the fowls generally pine for their liberty, and, slighting their food, lose instead of gaining additional flesh." To fatten fowls that have not the advantage of a barn-door, Mowbray recommends fattening-houses large enough to contain twenty or thirty fowls, warm and airy, with well-raised earth floors, slightly littered down with straw, which should be often changed, and the whole place kept perfectly clean. "Sandy gravel," he says, "should be placed in several different layers, and often changed. A sufficient number of troughs for both water and food should be placed around, that the stock may feed with as little interruption as possible from each other, and perches in the same proportion should be furnished for those birds which are inclined to perch, which few of them will desire after they have begun to fatten, but it helps to keep them easy and contented until that period. In this manner fowls may be fattened to the highest pitch, and yet preserved in a healthy state, their flesh being nearly equal in quality to the barn-door fowl. To suffer fattening fowls to perch is contrary to the general practice, since it is supposed to bend and deform the backbone; but as soon as they become heavy and indolent from feeding, they will rather incline to roost in the straw, and the liberty of perching has a tendency to accelerate the period when they wish for rest."