When and how to Sparr your Game-Cock.
And now let them be lustily Sparred, and long Stived, especially if they are Fat, and full of Flesh. But if a Cock be poor and low in case, you must then be more moderate, and not Stive, and Sparr so hard, least you over do him, and perhaps quite Kill him, or at least worst him so far, that he may not recover it again of many Days, and therefore besure strictly to examine what plight your Cock is in before you either Sparr or Stive him, and see that after you have hutted your Cocks, and by that means secured their Heels, forthwith then give to each Cock a Pill, or Roll as big as a Walnut made up in two or three Parts, and prepared in the following manner.
To make the Scowering Pill.
Take of white Sugar-candy, Rosemary, Fetherfew, Ground-Ivy bruised, mingle these with Sweet Butter, let the Sugar-candy be finely Powdered, and let these be well incorporated together, and just before you give the Cocks these Pills, put them into warm Urine; and these will cleanse a Cock of Grease, add to his Strength, and lengthen his Wind.
When and how to Stive your Game-Cocks.
And after the Cocks have been Sparred (as aforesaid) let them take a Diaphoretic, or Sweating after this manner: First take off their Hutts, and then immediately Stive them very close in some warm Room, where no penetrating Air can come to annoy the heated Cocks; for otherwise they will loose the benefit of their Sparring, and in these Stoves you must leave the Cocks for three or four, six, eight or ten hours together, according as the Cocks are in Strength and Flesh; for a poor weak Cock will not bear long Stiving: And now in the Cock’s absence let their Pens be cleaned, and fresh Straw be put into them, and if need be, you may then alter their Perches higher, or lower, or remove them to another side of the Pen, as you see cause for it.
And when you take the Cocks out of the Bags or Stives, lick with your Tongue the Eyes and Heads of them, and so put them into their Pens, and so fill their Troughs with Cock-bread cut into small square bits, and steept in Urine, that so the Cocks may feed whilst ’tis warm; for this will cause their Scowering Pills to work and greatly cleanse, and purify both the Head and Body of your Cock.
Of the several Ways of making Cock-bread.
Now to make Cock-bread aright, and at the same time, to have it suit with every Feeder’s humour, is a thing altogether impossible; seeing we are quot Homines tot Sententiæ.