Answer:

Have three tubs of water, one quite warm, another lukewarm and another with the chill taken off it.

Place the bird in the tub of warm water and have an assistant to hold it on its sides. Open the fluff and other parts of the plumage consisting of short, soft feathers, and gently work the water into the plumage thoroughly.

Press the long, stiff feathers in wings and tail between the hands under the water until they are well soaked through.

After the entire plumage is well soaked, apply Ivory soap or other good white soap and rub it well into the feathers, rubbing only one way, and that the way the web of the feather runs. The soft feathers can be handled more carelessly without injury. The plumage will stand much more rubbing than one would imagine.

After the fowl has been well washed in the first tub, remove it and rinse well in the second tub of lukewarm water, pressing as much of the soapy water out of the feathers as possible. If the soap is not thoroughly removed the feathers will split and cling together when dry.

After the soap has been rinsed out into the second tub of water, immerse the fowl in the third tub, in which there should be dissolved beforehand a small quantity of "wash blue" sufficient to blue the water as required for clothes.

After working the blue water well into the plumage, hold the fowls above the tub and press as much water as possible out of the feathers, then allow it to stand on a clean table or other convenient place and dry with a towel, rubbing the right way of the feathers.

The bird should then be placed in a coop deeply littered with clean straw and placed in front of a fire, but not so close as to blister the comb or plumage.

After the feathers are fairly dry on the outside and commence to assume their natural position, remove the bird from in front of the fire and confine it in a clean coop, where it can plume itself and properly arrange the feathers as they dry.

The operation is comparatively easy and one becomes very skillful after a few attempts.