subs. (common).—1. An establishment where pauper children were lodged and fed at so much a head; also for illegitimate children. Also verbally = to contract to feed and lodge pauper or illegitimate children.
1838. DICKENS, Oliver Twist, ch. ii. The parish authorities magnanimously and humanely resolved, that Oliver should be FARMED, or, in other words, that he should be despatched to a branch workhouse some three miles off, where twenty or thirty other juvenile offenders against the poor-laws, rolled about the floor all day, without the inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing, under the parental superintendence of an elderly female, who received the culprits at and for the consideration of sevenpence-halfpenny per small head per week.
1869. GREENWOOD, The Seven Curses of London. There can be no question that he has a better chance … though his treacherous ‘adopter’ deserts him on a doorstep, than if he were so kindly cruel as to tolerate his existence at the FARM.
2. (prison).—The prison infirmary. TO FETCH THE FARM = to be ordered infirmary diet and treatment.—See FETCH.
