Fowls that have been kept without food and water for twelve hours before being killed will keep much better than if they had been recently fed, as the food is apt to ferment in the crop and bowels, which often causes the fowl to turn green in a few hours in warm weather. If empty they should not be drawn, and they will keep much better. Fowls are easiest plucked at once, while warm; they should afterwards be scalded by dipping them for a moment in boiling water, which will give a plump appearance to any good fowl. Fowls should not be packed for market before they are quite cold. Old fowls should not be roasted, but boiled, and they will then prove tolerably good eating. The feathers are valuable and should be preserved, which is very easily managed. "Strip the plumage," says Mr. Wright, "from the quills of the larger feathers, and mix with the small ones, putting the whole loosely in paper bags, which should be hung up in the kitchen, or some other warm place, for a few days to dry. Then let the bags be baked three or four times for half an hour each time, in a cool oven, drying for two days between each baking, and the process will be completed. Less trouble than this will do, and is often made to suffice; but the feathers are inferior in crispness to those so treated, and may occasionally become offensive." CHAPTER VIII. STOCK, BREEDING, AND CROSSING. Keep only good, healthy, vigorous, well-bred fowls, whether you keep them to produce eggs or chickens, or both. The ill-bred mongrel fowls which are so commonly kept, are the most voracious, and consume larger quantities of food, without turning it to any account; while well-bred fowls eat less, and quickly convert that into fat, flesh, and eggs. "Large, well-bred fowls," says Mr. Edwards, "do not consume more food than ravenous, mongrel breeds. It is the same with fowls as with other stock. I have at this moment two store pigs, one highly bred, the other a rough, ill-bred animal. They have, since they left their mothers, been fed together and upon the same food. The former, I am confident (from observation), ate considerably less than the latter, which was particularly ravenous. The former pig, however, is in excellent condition, kind, and in a measure fat; whereas the latter looks hard, starved, and thin, and I am sure she will require one-third more food to make bacon of." For the amateur who is content with eggs and chickens, and does not long for prize cups, excellent birds possessing nearly all the best characteristics of their breeds, but rendered imperfect by a few blemishes, may be purchased at a small cost, and will be as good layers or chicken-producers, and answer his purpose as well as the most expensive that can be bought.