432 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ November 27, 1873. 



rooBtinp and laying hocaes. This will enable you to make a very comfortable 

 ran for your fowls. However large a space may be, it is always advisable ty 

 take as little as possible from it for the houses. The house may be large 

 enough; the ran cannot be too largo. You will (ilo well, for this reason, to 



3 



ti 



Fig. 2. 



Fig. 1. 



diminieh your sitting house two-thirds. We advise you to put some laying 

 boxes on the ground in your roosting house. Most hens prefer to lay there, 

 and it is seldom you can persuade them to go to the place provided for 

 the purpose. If you close the roosting place, they lay about and you lose 

 the eggs. We do not by any means advise a brick building — we are always 

 opposed to such. You have a wall ; we 

 advise you to put against it a timber 

 house. We generally use elm boards and 

 keep them well tarred. We have such 

 houses now that have stood tweaty years. 

 Cover the roof with slate or Bridgewater 

 tiles. Let the door open in the corner. 

 Have one window, and free ventilation. 

 Cover the floor with gi'avel 3 inches thick. 

 In the ground plan [figA), which we have 

 given, you will see a represents the door: 

 this should be where we have marked 

 it ; being there, no draught can come 

 on the fowls when at roost, b Repre- 

 sents a wipdow to be placed as high up 

 as can be iu the house. The size may 

 be as deshed. It should open in the 

 summer, but close iu the winter, c, c, c. 

 Are the perches, to be put within 2 feet 

 of the ground. It is well to make 

 them moveable for the sake of wash- 

 ing, d, d, Laying boxes. The sitting house Ifig. 2), needs no exolanation 

 beyond that a represents the door, and b the laying boxes. This house should 

 also have a window, as the door must be constantly shut. You will And this 

 very inexpensive, and, we assure you, you will lind it all you req^uire. Half 

 the people who start with poultry are discouraged and deterred by the first 

 expenses. Two-thirds of them are waste. 

 Breeding-eok for Canaries {J. P.,j»n.).— Nest week. 

 Goldfinch Mule with Canary Hen U. L. H.).—lt is useless to pair a 

 Goldfinch Mule cock with a hen Canary. They will pair, but the result.is nil. 

 — W. A,. Blakston. 



Taming a Goldpinch (An Old Subscriber). — Kindness will tame almost 

 any animal ; but there are animals, including specimens of the genus homo, 

 which are strangely opposed to kindly influences. With such a happy little 

 fellow as a Goldfinch the thing is very easy of accomplishment. At first he 

 will ba constantly on the move, jumping about in an agitated way, and trying 

 every opening which seems to offer any mode of egress. But after being placed 

 in a position where he will see many faces, all of which wish him well, and by 

 occasionally speaking to him without coming so near the cage as to cause 

 him any distraction, he will soon quiet down. Frequent handling has great 

 effect, taking care to catch the bird neatly. Wild as it is, if it be laid on its 

 back on the table with the head stretched out, it will make no effort to 

 escape, though the hand must be ready to secure it at any moment. An y 

 delicacy in the way of food, such as a little chopped egg and a pinch of maw 

 (poppy) seed, will be appreciated, and the little fellow will soon reciprocate 

 Bucb attentions. It is only mean animals that turn and bite the hand which 

 has fad thttm. — W. A. Blakston. 



Management of Canaries in a Boom (J^ovisir).— Canaries may safely 

 be wintered in a room without a fire. They are easily acclimatised, and wiU 

 stand extremes of heat and cold, even to wintering out of doors in an open 

 aviary, with no more protection than the covered-in roof of the building and 

 a screen of matting to break the severity of prevailing winds and snowstorms. 

 If Ilichard Avis says that to keep them in a room without a fire is to insure 

 disease, Richard Avis talks nonsense. Ordinary white seed is the best staple 

 food, but I have never known rape to set up any inflammatory action. Manv 

 breeders give the light brown small summer rape largely. One-fourth rape is 

 a very fair proportion. The failures " Novice " adv£:rts to will most probably 

 be caused by the birds living in a vitiated atmosphere. If turned loose in a 

 room as proposed there will not be much sickness, though from long-con- 

 tinued pampering the Canary has lost much of the robust constitution of a 

 wild bird. The "Erect" Belgian is a cognomen quite unknown beyond the 

 covers of treatises on cage birds. If "Novice" will visit any of the shows 

 in Birmingham he will surely see good representatives of the true Belgian. 

 The green Canary referred to is bred more in the north than by southern 

 fanciers, and is a long slim bird of a pure green colour as opposed to the 

 brjiizy green of the Norwich variety, which, af 'er all, is not green, but simply 

 a deep shade of orange, bearing the same relation to yellow as undilute i gam- 

 boge does to the pale yellow obtained by mixing it with water, — W. A. Blakston. 

 Feeding Bees {A MonmouUishire Lady Bee-keeper). — Your bees have been 

 •well fed and your hives well covered and protected for the winter. Nothing 

 more will they require till about the end of March, when the floor boards 

 shuuld be cleaned and the winter coverings removed. Boos never suffer from 

 ■waTit of ventilation when their doors are open. After anoth-^r year's expe- 

 rience your fears of mismanaging your bees will be greatly dimiuirfhed. 



Ee-aurangino Bee-stand3 (il/e/ma).— The hives in your bee-shed maybe 

 put on new floor-boards at once without injury; and if the now bee-shed be 

 placed where the uld is btEinding all the hives may be put into it at the same 

 time ; but if you let the uld shi^d stand in its present position with one hive 

 in it, and remove two hives into the new shed in another position, there would 



be great danger of the bees in the new shed going back to the old and there get- 

 ting bewildered and lost. The safer way will be to remove the old shed, place 

 the new one near to where it stands, and put all the hives into it; and if yon 

 wish to place it in another part of your garden, to remove it by short stages 

 from time to time. Let the hives bo placed in the new shod as they stand to 

 one another in the old one. 



Spring-feeding Bees (Eupsete). — About the middle of February is soon 

 enough in ordinaiy seasons to begin feeding with a view to stimulate bees to 

 breed, and thus become stronger in numbers. We have often very severe 

 frosts in February, and frost often chills brood that has been produced by 

 artificial feeding. Hives with chilled or fuul bmod in them never prosper. 



Bees Deserting their Hive {John Bla7iehe).—We can only conjectiure 

 as to the reason why your bees deserted the hive with honey in it. This is a 

 rare event in June, but probably it was owing to the death of the queen in the 

 previous winter or early spring, in which case the bees would die-off one by 

 one. Then" bodies, if they died at home, would be carried out by the survivors, 

 otherwise they must have swarmed away, taking some dislike to their hive. 

 We do not think you would get half a pound of wax out of both your hives if 

 the comb is " very black;" but if you think it worth while to extract it, cut 

 up the comb into small pieces, put it into a coai-se bag made of stuff such as 

 is used for knife cloths, dip it into boiling water till it melts, then take it out 

 and rest the bag against a smooth board, the lower end of which is made to 

 rest in a basin of water. While the mass within is still hot and melted, 

 press upon it downwards firmly with a wooden roller or other piece of wood. 

 Do this agdin and again if necessaiy till the waxen particles are all extracted. 

 Then clarify the wax in the bowl by boiling the water, and skimming ofiE 

 impurities. 



Rabbits Burrowing (C. E. A.). — We have known Rabbits make burrows 

 through a bank at angles much nearer the perpendicular than is shown by the 

 dotted lines in your sketch. 



METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS, 



Camden Square, London. 



Lat. 51° 32' 40" N. ; Long. 0° 8' 0" W. ; Altitude 111 feet. 



REMARKS. 

 19fch. — A dark dull day, but not any rain that could be measured. 

 20th. — Fine morning and noon ; rather less bright in the after part of the day. 

 2l6t. — Foggy early, but soon cleared off; tine till noon, then clouded over; rain 



at 5 P.M. ; windy and wet at night. 

 22nd. — Boisterous in the night; rain in the forenoon; fine afternoon and 



evening. 

 23rd. — Rather windy early ; fine all day, but less bright iu the afternoon than 



in the morning. 

 24th.— Rain about 11 a.m. ; fine at noon, cloudy over soon after, but a stai'Ut 



night. 

 25th. — Very foggy all day, clearing off before 10 p.u. 



About 4^ warmer than last week, and less fog until 25th, on which day a 

 dense one prevailed until night. The morning temperature of the k3rd was 

 unusually high for the time of year, and above that of any day for the last 

 four weeks. — G. J. Symons. 



COVENT GARDEN MARKET.— November 26. 

 NoTWiTHSTANDiNc the fine weather of the past week we have had but little 

 addition to the supply, and the general traie has been limited, so that prices, 

 have scarcely varied either in fruit or vegetables. The Potato trade is heavy, 

 there being at the several deputs large quantities. Many samples are bUghted, 

 more t)r less. 



FRUIT. 



. d. B. d. 



Otol 6 

 20 



Apples i Biere 1 



ChGstouts bushel 10 



Grapes, hothouse lb. 2 7 



Filberts lb. 1 1 



Cobs lb. 1 6 



Lemons ^100 8 12 



Melons each 10 5 



Oranges ^100 6 



Quinces doz. 1 



Pears, kitchen doz. 1 



dessert doz. 2 



Pine Apples lb. 3 



Walnuts bushel 10 



ditto ¥*^100 2 



Artichokes doz. 3 



Asparaiius Tf^- 100 



French 25 



Beans, Kidney.... q}*- 10) 2 



Beet. Red doz 1 8 



Broccoli bundle 9 16 



Cabbage doz. 10 16 



Capsicums ll*' 100 1 6 



Carrots bunch 6 



Cauliflower doz. 3 6 



Celery bundle 16 3 



Coleworts. . doz. bunches 2 6 4 



Cacumbers each 6 10 



picKiing doz. 



Endive doz. 2 



Fennel bunch 8 



Garlic lb. 6 



tierba bnnch 8 



Horseradish handle 8 4 



Leeks banch 8 



Lettuce doz. 10 16 



VEGETABLES. 



d. B.d. 

 0to6 

 



Mushrooms pottle 



Mustard & Cress. .punnet 

 Onions bushel 



pickling quart 



Parsley per doz. bunches 



Parsnips doz. 



Peas Quart 



Potatoes bushel 



Kidney do. 



Round do. 



l^adiahes.. doz. bunches 



Rhubarb bumlle 



Salsufy bundle 



Siivoys doz. 



Scorzouera bundle 



Sea-kale basket 



Shallots lb. 



.Spinach bushel 



Ti>iaati>es doz. 



Turnips banch 



Vegetable Marrows 



d. s. d. 



0tol2 6 



S 



2 



B 



6 



16 



2 



d. B.d. 

 Oto'i 



