rebrnary 29, 1872. ] 



JOURNAL OF HOKTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



The Hamburgh chickens will require to he attended to a 

 little longer, but if the weather is fine they wiU soon be inde- 

 jjendent also. 



Nothing is so essential to the well-being of chickens as 

 warmth, cleanliness, and freedom from damji. Each sitting- 

 house must be provided with a dustheap, composed of fine 

 ashes, as the hens are often troubled with vermin, and theii' 

 feathers should be dusted with sulphur, both as a preventive 

 and a cure. The neglect of this simple precaution often causes 

 the hen great annoyance, neither is it to be expected that she 

 can sit her eggs well when restless and disturbed. 



Should a hen not show a disposition to sit when required to 

 do so, she must be placed in her nest with a few eggs, and 

 kept very warm ; her food must consist of buckwheat, hemp- 

 seed, a little raw chopped liver, and Indian corn. She must 

 also be kept dark, and she will probably soon manifest a desire 

 to sit. — Vincent Fkasee. 



POULTRY EXPEEIENCE PURCHASED.— No. 4. 



" Don't put them in the pens," I said, " put them back into 

 the hampers, and let my people run back home with them ; 

 I won't allow them to disgrace your show." " Nay, Madam," 

 was the reply, " there is nothing amiss with your Brahma 

 eliickens, except that they are rather dirty." " Pray allow them 

 to remain," said one of the managers of the poultry show 

 held annually in our little country town," and remain they did, 

 with what success I will tell you; but "your special corre- 

 spondent " walked her short distance homeward certainly a 

 sadder if not a wiser woman. I remembered eight months 

 back how cheerfuUy I had parted with a piece of gold large 

 enough to have satisfied the longing of my "bairns" for a 

 donkey, yet I only received in exchange a polite acknowledg- 

 ment and thii-teeu eggs. How skilfully they were packed for 

 theu' long journey, to be sure ; tissue paper, hay, soft wool, and 

 softer moss, were all enlisted to insure their safety. They 

 were at once entrusted to the motherly attentions of our most 

 intelligent hen, and I need not tell how horrified I was to find 

 four broken the next morning. Then I had to wait that in- 

 terminable three weeks before I could count four, five — yes, six 

 little grey chicks that must be fed on eggs, rice pudding, and 

 groats, and carefully tended till they reached cockerel's and 

 pullet's estate ; also to exterminate that objectionable crooked 

 comb and vulture hock, that undesh-able brown or yeUow 

 tinge, and various other lUs that Brahma flesh is heir to. 

 When you have waded through all this "poultry experience," 

 to discover at a glance that lots of people can get better birds 

 than yoiu-s, is very hard. 



At noon we went to the show, I to study " points," and the 

 " bairns " to see how mamma's big " Charley " behaved himself 

 m company and a cage (I thmk I have previously mentioned 

 the sad fact of the head of the family being a heretic and an 

 infidel where Dark Brahmas were concerned). 



*' Oh, -trad some power the giftie gie us." 

 I quoted to a friend, " to Icuow how those wonderful men 

 breed such wonderful bu'ds," as brimming over with admha- 

 tion I stood among the prize pens with a keen sense of en- 

 joyment none but a true lover of the species could either 

 pardon or comprehend. Somebody says, " Show me your 

 amusements, and I will tell you what you are." For my "part 

 I confess to perfect happiness among my feathered pets, and I 

 am sure the affection is mutual ; let a stranger walk through 

 the yard, they run away in all directions. If I go among them 

 they keep so close, I have to push them on one side with my 

 foot. " Would you be surprised to hear they have highly 

 commended your pens ? and had there been prizes, yours would 

 certainly have been first." I grasped my friend's hand with a 

 fervour that cost me 4s. Gd. on the spot, for my glove became 

 a total wi'eck. If I could only have invited those nice men, 

 judge, committee, and stewards to dinner, and let them toast 

 my pets in Veuve CUcquot and '34 port ! I promised myself, 

 however, that I would relieve my feelings by telling " our 

 Jom-nal " all about it, for I felt certain that you would be 

 pleased to hear I had been at last highly commended, and you 

 ■null no doubt share my joy when I take the Crystal Palace cup. 

 I have always closed my letters with a moral, and now do so 

 from habit, " Blessed are they who expect nothing at a poultiy 

 show, but more blessed ai-e they that get what thev expect." — 

 J. K. L. 



Granville, Lord Warden, and the County and Borough Mem- 

 bers, have become patrons. The guarantee fund list is now 

 closed, and Bubscriptions are solicited towards the funds. 



Dover and Cinque Poets Pofltey and Pigeon Show. — We 

 are informed that his Eoyal Highness Prince Arthur, Earl 



A VISIT TO MR. E. PULTON'S PIGEONS, 

 NEW CROSS, DEPTFOED. 



Me. Fulton, whose acquaintance I made some years since 

 at Glasgow, and renewed it at various shows, is well known as 

 one of the most successful exhibitors and best Pigeon-fanciers 

 in Britain. His practical knowledge is very great, no man 

 living knows a Pigeon better than Robert Fulton. I knew 

 also that he had a large collection of high-class Pigeons. All 

 these were suflicient reasons to make me accept his invitation 

 to inspect his birds. But there was another and further rea- 

 son. Those upper-class fanciers whom I know, and who know 

 him, are accustomed to say, " Fulton's an honest man, and 

 one whose word we can rely upon ; if he sells you a prize bird, 

 and it wo'n't breed, he tells you so. Then he not only asks a 

 good price for a good bu-d, which, of course, he is quite right 

 in doing, but he will give a good price for a good bii'd." These 

 latter reasons were those which specially induced me to go to 

 Deptford. 



Deptford of ship-building fame, thought I. Why, John 

 Evelj-n, the author of " Sylva, or a Discourse on Forest Trees," 

 lived there at his seat, Sayes Court, which he, unfortunately 

 for himself, let to Peter the Great, when he came to Deptford 

 to learn ship-building. Of Sayes Court, says chatty Mr. Pepys, 

 " We walked in Mi-. Evelyn's garden, and a lovely noble ground 

 he hath indeed. And among other rarities, a hive of bees, so 

 as being hived in glass, you may see the bees making their 

 honey and combs mighty pleasantly." Unfortunately, the 

 Czar had no taste for gardening or neatness, and trampled on 

 good Mr. Evelyn's flowers, destroyed his choice shrubs, and 

 used to amuse himself (the savage !) by being wheeled in a 

 wheelbarrow through a neat-cUpped hedge which Mr. Evelyn 

 had raised with much care and cost. No wonder Mr. Evelyn's 

 old servant said, " The Russians were right nasty." 



I have talked of trees, flowers, and gardens, so giving the 

 readers of the beginning of " our Joiu'nal " a turn ; and of bees, 

 giving the readers of the tail end a turn ; of Pigeons presently. 

 Perhaps these good gardening and bee people will read this, 

 and get improved — that is, learn to love and keep fancy 

 Pigeons. 



But Mr. Fulton has recently left Deptford, and lives at New 

 Cross. Deptford I knew well enough on the map — the Dept- 

 ford of Dibden's son", " Wapping Old Stairs," in which he 

 tells us — 



" Of Susan from Deptford, and likewise of Sal," 



and of the faithful Molly who to her sailor husband (of the 

 future) says — 



"Still your trousers 111 wash, and your grog I will make." 

 Deptford I knew, then, very well; it lies on the Thames 

 and joins Greenwich. But " Where's New Cross ? " saidltoa 

 hardened Londoner, who actually walks by St. Paul's and the 

 Monument, and does not look at either, and knows all the short 

 cuts of the very city itself. "Where's New Cross?" said I. 

 " New Cross is one of the first stations from London Bridge, 

 or, to save your legs, take a ticket from Cannon Street, cost 

 you a few pence, trains every ten minutes. There, go, and 

 meet me at Lake's, Gracechurch Street, at lunch at one o'clock 

 sharp, not a minute after. There — good morning." My in- 

 formant ha^ving hurriedly jerked out these directions, was in a 

 few moments one of the crowd of men moving eastward from 

 the Mansion House Station. How quick these Londoners are t 

 I wonder they can find time to breathe. Well, I prefer ccmutry 

 ways. 



Sure enough, I soon get to New Cross ; it is just in the 

 parish of Deptford, and just, and only just, in Kent. New- 

 enough it is ; roads — not streets yet — roads worn this horrid 

 wet winter into ruts as deep as in Wiltshii-e lanes. Planks are 

 along the future footways, on which I trip carefuUyto avoid 

 falling into the mud boKide me, passing by masons chipping at 

 the stone balustrades of new houses. New Cross ! I see it 

 all exactly — a new creation to meet the wants of the middle- 

 class London workers, who spend the day in the city, but prefer 

 sleeping in better air. Here are homes by hundreds of city 

 clerks who have married on small means, and have set up here 

 a neat, new, humble home. There's the baby at the window, 

 soon to be perambulated by the little maid. There's the 

 pretty young wife and mother, who -mil look out of the window 



