NovembDr 17, 1863. ] JOUUNAL OF HOETICTILTirEE AND COTTAGE GASDENBS. 



403 



38th inst., the day on -which the Judges make their awards. 

 The reason for this innovation is that some exhibitors ha^e 

 expressed dissatisfaction that the judging should be con- 

 ducted in private, and the Council have therefore determined 

 to give this privilege on payment of an admission fee of ten 

 shillings. It was deemed necessary to fix the admission fee 

 thu.3 high, in order that the Judges might not be impeded 

 by a tlirong in the performance of their arduous duties, and 

 also not to interfere with Monday, the day of the private 

 view. The poultry will not, however, be exhibited until the 

 Monday.— {Midland Co^^nties HeraU.) 



ISABEL PIGEONS. 



In reply to Mr. Brent's note in last week s JotrsNAL of 

 Horticulture, I, having bred several pah-s of Isabels during 

 the last and present year, wiUingly teU you all I know about 

 them. 



I purchased my first pair of Lady Winchester, and ex- 

 hibited them at the Crystal Palace last December, where they 

 took second prize. They were in moult this year, or I should 

 have shown them again. Lady Winchester informed me she 

 never let them rear their own young, implying that they 

 were bad breeders ; but I thought I would try them, having 

 but little room for nurses, and the result is as above stated, 

 I never having shifted then- eggs ; stUl I must admit it is desir- 

 able to keep them in a pen when breeding, that the young 

 may be easily looked to, as they will sometimes neglect 

 them, and let them die from cold with their crops fuU. Some 

 will breed much better than others. 



A gentleman in Glasgow whose name I forget, and with 

 whom I exchanged a bird, told me that they are in some parts 

 eaUed Austrian Powters, and they certainly have some of 

 the properties of the Powter, such as the power of filling 

 out their crops with wind — female as well as male. They 

 are very fond of " showing," and the young cocks very pre- 

 cocious, calling to nest at a very early age. They are rather 

 smaller than Trumpeters, which they resemble about the 

 feet and legs, being heavily feathered and vulture-hocked. 

 Some are nearly as upright as Powters. They should be a 

 rich cream colour with white bai-s on the wings (like the 

 " Suabian " Pigeon in Mi\ Easton's work). Some are too 

 light, others too dark, but by judicious matching good 

 coloured birds may be bred ft'om them. They appear to fly 

 with the greatest ease, the air in their crops no doubt sus- 

 tiiining them, as they are very light.— Alfp.ed Hbath, Ca.lne. 



FOUL BEOOD. 



I FREELY accept Mr. Lowe's explanation in the spirit in 

 which I presume it to be tendered, but at the same time 

 beg most emphatically to disclaim having indulged ia any 

 "ungenerous insinuations." I simply stated what Mr. Lowe 

 hinself admits to have been the fact, and I had then no 

 means of knowing- what, however, I am quite willing to 

 believe — that the numerous misstatements of which I com- 

 plained arose entirely from inadvertence and defects of 

 memory. Such being the case, I have much pleasure in 

 offering to shake hands over our little difference, and shall 

 be but too glad to benefit by Mr. Lowe's able assistance in 

 the cause of apicultme. I may add that I seek only the 

 truth in these discussions, and am perfectly ready to abandon 

 all or any of my opinions the moment I see cause to believe 

 them incorrect. 



Thanks also to my friend the Hampshire peacemaker, I 

 can take a few " raps on the side " as well as any man, when 

 'the said "raps" are fairly laid on; neither ami prone to be 

 thin-skinned if the righteous smite me friendly and reprove 

 Eie ; but if their precious balms break my head, may I not 

 rub my pate and cry " hands off! " for the futiure ? 



Allowing, therefore, the dust of our skirmish to subside, 

 let us see how the question really stands between us. 

 Following all modern authorities on the subject and l>eing 

 fully borne out by my own experience, I have described foul 

 brood as a highly contagious disease, the radical cure of 

 which is extremely difficult and uncertain, since infection 

 may be communicated by the combs, the honey, and the 

 hive which has coutaiced a diseased colony, and even by the 



bees themselves so long as they retain any of the honey 

 which they have taken with them. On the other hand, Mj'. 

 Lowe maintains, as I understand, that foul brood is no 

 disease whatever, being merely another name for chilled 

 brood, which he asserts is never removed by bees and con- 

 sequently must remain a permanent evil in whatever hive 

 it is unfortunately found. He therefore follows the old 

 writers in assuring us that complete excision of the affected 

 parts is sufficient to work an effectual cure, and condemns 

 as unnecessary the various precautions which have been 

 more recently advocated with the view of eradicating an 

 infectious virus which he does not believe to exist. 



I imagine that my experiment described in page 342, may 

 have induced Mr. Lowe somewhat to modify his views with 

 regard to chilled brood and its assumed immobility by bees ; 

 but as he seems to object to the comb being new, I may 

 remark that the combs were also new in the case of the 

 dozen hours' delay in a warm kitchen, which at the time he 

 so severely reprobated, and, that I have never found bees 

 more reluctant to expel chilled brood from old combs than 

 from new ones. 



That foul brood when fully developed is really an extremely 

 vii'ulent disease and by no means amenable to the old- 

 fashioned process of simple excision, is sufficiently proved 

 by Mr. Shearer's narrative in page 182. If, however, it be 

 objected that in this case the excision might not have been 

 complete, I must fall back on my own experience during the 

 past summer, in which, I found that even driving the bees 

 into a clean hive, furnished only with a few empty and pure 

 combs, was insufficient of itself to effect a thorough cure, 

 unless supplemented by three or fom- days of what has been 

 caUed penal discipline and inanition in an intermediate-hive. 

 Here, also, let me reply to the query with which "Inquikee" 

 concludes his letter in page 383. Foul brood has been sub- 

 mitted to microscopic investigation, and apparently with 

 very remarkable results. I am reluctant to forestall, even 

 in the slightest degi-ee, the report of the gentleman who 

 has so kindly undertaken the task, and am equally unwUling 

 to theorise in advance of facts which ai-e still awaiting veri- 

 fication ; but this much I may say, that the revelations of 

 the microscope appear to afford a clue to the means by 

 which this pestilential disease becomes epidemic, and explain 

 at the same time why simple excision may frequently work 

 an apparent and occasionally even a radical cure in recent 

 cases, whilst, where the disease is of long standing it becomes 

 so virulent as ftiUy to warrant the doubt expressed by Dzier- 

 zon, as to the possibility of curing it by any process that can 

 be devised. 



An instance has recently been brought under my notice 

 by a valued correspondent in the North, which countenances 

 the suspicion that an overwhelming quantity of chilled brood 

 may, under exceptional circumstances, degenerate into actual 

 foul brood, just as an ordinary cold in the human subject 

 may occasionally, although rarely, be developed into malig- 

 nant fever. This may of course be, as I am inclined to 

 fancy it is, a mere coincidence, and the bees may have im- 

 ported the infection from some unsuspected source ; stai I 

 deem it right to mention it, and it may be taken for what it 

 is worth. My own experience undoubtedly tends, as I have 

 before stated, to negative the hypothesis that foul brood and 

 chiQed brood are in any wise identical, nor is it counte- 

 nanced by the best authorities to which I have access. UnUke 

 Mr. Lowe, I do not dismiss with a ciu-sory glance, but on 

 the contrary am disposed to give due weight to what authors 

 whom I find reliable in other respects have written as the 

 results of their ovm observations on the diseases of bees. 

 Dzierzon, who stands pre-eminent as the first scientific and 

 practical apiarian in the world, must have had the most ex- 

 tensive experience of a disease which he estimates to ^ave 

 cost him in one season the loss of five hundred colonies, and, 

 I for one, should be slow to doubt, much less to ridicule, the 

 conclusions of so competent and reliable an observer. On 

 the other side of the Atlantic we have Mr. Quinby, one of the 

 ablest of the old school of apiarians. Few can rise from a 

 perusal of his work without the conviction that he is an 

 honest and painstaking observer, aud, speaking for niysel , 

 I cannot but deem him a competent authoritj' upon a disease 

 by which he has lost as many as a hundi'cd stocks m a single 

 year. Let me, then, recite the conclusion at which he arrives 

 after a careful consideration of the suggestion which reach; d 



