Boo-Yah!! Sussex Rule!!
General View of the Agriculture of the County of Sussex .
Drawn Up For The Board of Agriculture and Internal Improvement .
By the Rev. Arthur Young - 1808
Pages 391 and 392
http://tinyurl.com/m4xyede ( choose page 392 and scroll back to Page 391 ,
SECT. VI.-rPOULTRY.
"North Chappel, Kindford, &c. are famous for their fowls. They are fattened here to a
size and perfection unknown elsewhere. The food given them is ground oats made
into gruel, mixed with hogs'-grease, sugar, pot-liquor(1), and milk; or ground
oats, treacle (2), and suet; also sheep's plucks (3), &c.; and they are kept very warm:
they are always crammed in the morning and at night. They mix the pot-liquor with
a few handfuls of oatmeal; boil it: it is then taken off the fire, and the meal is
wetted, so as to be made to roll into pieces of a sufficient size for cramming:
the fowls are put into the coop two or three days before they begin to cram them,
which is done for a fortnight, and then sold to the higglers. They will weigh, when
full grown, 71b. each, and are sold at 4s. 6d. and 5*.; the average weight, 51b.;
but there are instances of these fowls weighing double this. Mr. Turner, of North
Chappel, a tenant of Lord Egrcmont's, crams 200 in a year. Many fat capons are
fed in this manner; good ones always look pale, and waste away: great art and
attention is requisite to cut them, and numbers are destroyed in the operation,
The Sussex breed are too long in their body, to cut them with much success,
which is done at three quarters old. The Darking fowls (4), as they are called, are
all raised in the Weald of Sussex; but the finest market for them is Horsham.
The five-clawed breed have been considered as the best sort: this however is
a great mistake, and it took its origin in some fowls with this peculiarity, that
happened to be very large and fine, which laid the foundation of what have been
since called the Darking, or Jive-clawed fowl, and considered in other parts of
England as the prime stock; but such a thing is hardly known in Sussex; it is a
b-a-s-t-a-r-d breed. The fowls at Lord Egremont's table, of the Sussex breed,
have very frequently astonished, the company by their size."
Definitions from around the Net:
(1) pot liquor : liquor in which meat, fish, or vegetables have been boiled; stock.
(2) treacle : a blend of molasses, invert sugar, and corn syrup used as
syrup —called also golden syrup
(3) Sheep Pluck is a collection of Sheep organs, usually consisting of the heart,
liver and kidney, but may also include other internal organs.
(4) Dorking fowls . Note the reference above predates Brown by 98 yrs. and
Moubray by 7 yrs..
Races of domestic poultry (1906)
Author: Brown, Edward, 1851-1939
https://archive.org/details/racesofdomesticp00brow
Page 25:
History. — The first definite description of the
Dorking, or Darking, as it was then called, with
details enabling us to recognise it, is found in Mou-
bray's ' Practical Treatise,' which was first published
in 1815.*
' The Darking Fowl, so called from a town in SuiTey,
where probably the variety was first bred, and where,
and in its vicinity, they are to be found in great plenty
and perfection, is, in the third degree, the largest of our
fowls, well shaped, having a long, capacious body and
short legs, and is a plentiful layer.