Almost in front of this large conservatory you see a building, which is intended for the mechanical fattening of fowls (a system not to be encouraged). Here is to be seen on a big scale M. Martin’s system. The fowls are placed in a huge circular cylinder, three metres high and turning on a pivot, which allows the man to cram all the fowls (which are placed in the boxes ranged in tiers one above another) in this fattening apparatus without changing his position. A car on an elevating rail allows the man easily to reach those birds placed on the highest part of the apparatus, for, by turning a handle, the car rises or descends in front of the boxes. Holding them by the head, he introduces an indiarubber tube into their beaks, and forces the food down their throats by pressing with his foot a pedal, which starts a machine worked by a piston. The play of this pedal is regulated by a dial-plate, which shows the operator the amount of food introduced. This varies according to the strength of the bird to be fattened, and also to its state of fatness. In eighteen days a fowl will go up to more than double its weight, and will be perhaps a pound more at the finish. M. Martin, the inventor of this ingenious system, which allows a man by himself to cram 400 fowls in an hour, had already used it in the department of Allier, at Cusset, near Vichy, and his products, under the name of ‘Phœnix fowls,’ have acquired notoriety. He then asked the Society of the Jardin d’Acclimatation to allow him to construct at his own expense in the Garden a model of his fattening establishment, which he started at his own risk. Visitors can now procure at this establishment fat fowls all ready for the table.