112 



JOUENAIi OF HOBTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GAnDENEB. 



[ February 7, 1867. 



water; for rearing cLicliens and teeping ndiilt fowls in good ] 

 condition, it is excellent. Fur fowls wlaich are drooping and 

 lava blacjt comlis, and all the other signs of impaired digestion, 

 fee receipt which yon were kind enough to give me is very 

 good — viz., a tcaspoonful of whiskey, and a few meals of soft 

 food afterwards. 



My stock con.'ists of two Cochin hens, twelve Silver-pencilled 

 Hamburghs and cock. I have only put down the mere neces- 

 sary expenres, such as food, itc, and not those attendant upon 

 exhibiting, and, on the other hand, I have reckoned the sale of 

 eggs and chickens at the common market price. 



ISWI. EcGs. I 18(6. EGAS. 



AiiRiist 166 



Soptembor 0,"! 



October. 

 November. , 

 December . 



Total . 



JanTiftrv 



Febrtia'rj' 1?4 



Slaroh 2^5 



April :«0 



Mnj- 816 



June '25'2 



July 170 



CUicUcns hatched 5S 



Cliickeus reared 53 



£ s. it. 



F.^tponses 6 16 11^ 



Eceoiptv 11 llh 



Profit 4 3 l" 



— SrAKisn. 



BRAHMA POOTEAS AT BRISTOL SHOW. 



The rejoinder of " T. B. A. Z." last week, to ray complaint 

 respecting his criticifm on my pen of Brahmas, is of such a 

 chai'actcr that I cannot pass it hy in silence. 



I will take the personal matter first. Of his unnoticed single 

 cock he says that I admired him exceedingly a few weeks 

 before the Show, and would gladly have purchased him, also 

 preferring liis coclss generally to those of jlr. Boyle. This he 

 implies is grossly inconsistent with my remark, that by his 

 peculiar hobby he has to a g'-eat extent ruined his yard. He, of 

 course, thought it still more so, that I should (as I innocently 

 did the day after my com] laiut appeared), apply to him for a 

 hen, I need scarcely new add without success. No experienced 

 breeder, however, who knows how to use the " points " in any 

 particular yard, would think the remark and the fact at all in- 

 congruous ; and even casual rei:ders would have soon no incon- 

 sistency had Le added, as in strict fairness he should have done, 

 that my expressed desire for this bird and preference of some 

 of his cocks to Mr. Boyle's, were grounded specially and solely 

 upon the clearness and sharp marking of the wing, for which I 

 consider his strain to be remarkable, and which I wished to 

 import into the othci-. I have still a note from him referring 

 to " the experiment '' I wk^hed to try, which is a very different 

 thing to selecting the bird for exhibition. Ha ought, also, to 

 Lave added, that I did at the time, if my memory serves me, 

 refer to the small amount of vulture hock in the cock in 

 question as a decided fault in an otherwise good bird. I may 

 add for myself, what is well known to "Y. B. A. Z.," that 

 altiouph I have no wish to see vulture liocks expressly au- 

 thorised, I so far agree with him that I should like to see a 

 small amount of it toh'ratL'J, for the sake of the heavy leg- 

 feathering it tends to produce. The conversation he refers to 

 took place early in November, some weeks before either of the 

 tvo grent shows of last year, and when, " from information I 

 received," I had some reason to hope such might be the case ; 

 but the result of the judging at both the Shows referred to 

 quite convinced me the question was scttlnl for two or three 

 years at least, and birds I would formerly have bred from, I 

 should on that account now reject. I will only observe further 

 on this point, that in alluding to this particular cock ray object 

 ■was very obviously not to decry him as a bad bird, but simply 

 to point out, thp.t whilst criticising a near neighbour's winning 

 pen, his own exhibition " standard of excellence " did not seem 

 to find favour with the Judges. 



So, also, in speaking of " ruia " in his yard, I, of course, 

 meant simply, that to persistently and avowedly cultivate what 

 Judges reject must render a large portion of stock useless for 

 exhibition, and i;nadvisab!e for breeding-purposes. I do not 

 see how this can be denied ; but it does not follow there are 

 not still plenty of birds free from the defect, and the amount 

 of " ruin " wrought in any strain crossed from such a yard 

 will obviously depend entirely upon the amount of judgment 

 shown in the selection. " Two or three years back," when 

 the satisfactory cross he refers to took place, the vulture-hock 

 controversy had not reached its present point. With these ex- 

 planatory remni'ks, I have no reason whatever to doubt his 



assertion that the gentleman referred to, whom he afterwards 

 mentions byname, and who, is confessedly the most eminent 

 exhibitor of Bark Erahnius in the three kingdoms, owes bis 

 success to him. To wh.it extent his yard v.ub crossed from 

 that of " Y. B. A. Z." I have no means of knowing ; but all 

 Brahma breeders will feel grateful to have pointed cut to tbem 

 the sure highway to such marked success, and it heightens mjl 

 regret that my own application for just one single hen should 

 have met with a curt refusal. 



" This is sorter ironnicle," r.s ArtemnsWard says ; but I'wiU 

 add seriously, that I much regret having been led into any 

 remarks on a neighbour's fowls. It may be and is quite true, 

 that " \. B. A. Z." brought it upon himself fairly by a whole- 

 sale depreciation of my own birds, which I felt the more as 

 coming from one so near, whose judgment would weigh. witU 

 neighbouring fanciers, as I have already cause to believe has' 

 been the case. Still I regret having followed his example, and' 

 need sc.ircely say that my reason for doing so was not to re- 

 taliate, but only to shov/ that the standard to which he breeds 

 his own birds was little likely to mtike him a fair judge of mine. 



I shall add little more, as "defence, not defiance," is my 

 only object. A casual mention of Messrs. Henitt and Douglas 

 as " eminent judges," can hardly be called " praising " them«i 

 which I had no thought of doing ; but since he has mentioned 

 them again, I will just remark, that Mr. Douglas is himself a 

 supeessful breeder of Brahmas and knows their points well, 

 whilst he is reputed to look rather sharply after good feat'uer- 

 ing ; and of Mr. Hewitt there is a general opinion amongst 

 those v/ho have most studied liis decisions, that he has, it any- 

 thing, rather a special weakness for good combs. 



In conclu.^ion, had "Y'. B. A. Z." made it clear that Le 

 simply called my birds " poorly feathered " from his own 

 vulture-hocked point of view, or even as compared with Mr. 

 Boyle's single cock mentioned by him, I should never have 

 complaiued. The latter cock was certainly much heavier- 

 feathered, and I think for his age was altogether the very best 

 bird I ever saw ; and if all that do not come up to his standard 

 of feathering are to be called " poorly feathered," it will go 

 hard with Mr. Boyle himself. " Y'. B. A. Z." made the sweep- 

 ing and absolute assertion that my pen was "coarse in the 

 combs and poorly feathered," and the standard of comparison 

 he furnished was the second-prize pen, which he said " was 

 better," and, therefore, he did certainly " vh'lually question " 

 the decision of the Judges. I have never yet said my pen was 

 hearilij feathered, nor am I going to discuss the merits of the 

 really splendid second-jirize pen ; but I say as a matter of 

 simple fact, that be their f/enn-al merits greater or less, their 

 leg-feathering was not one whit heavier than my own, and that 

 both were good. I agree with " T. B. A. Z.," that the class 

 as a whole was very inferior ; but I consider being placed 

 before even one pen of such real merit no mean triumph, 

 which I cannot submit to have criticised away, even by such 

 fearful-looking initials as those adopted by my Persian Mentor. 

 — L. Weight, SoutliicM Street, Kinpsdoicn, Mi iatul. 



[Here this controversy must cease. We are quite sure that 

 neither of our correspondents intended either to depreciate the", 

 other's fowls, or to annoy their owner. — Eds.] 



JEDBURGH EXHIBITION OF POULTRY AND 

 PIGEONS. 



The Show held at Jedburgh on the 30tb and 31st of January waai.. 

 the niuth annual meeting that has taken place miiler the miLULigementiL 

 of tlie .Tedburqh Committee, a body of gentlemen who are evidently/ < 

 quite aUve to the necessities of a show, and who, knowing bow matters. , 

 should be carried out, use evei-y possible exertion to do all tluni^s pro- 

 perlr. This season they bad' quite a complication of drawbacks to 

 encounter. First, the date of their meetuig was encroached upon by 

 half a dozen other shows ; and, again, a far greater diiBculty arose* 

 from the almost unparalleiled severity of weather that for many week*'- 

 had snow-bound the whole district. Their Show, however, proceetled^.* 

 and the result was a far better meeting than the most sanguine of tha. '. 

 Committee anticipated. The Corn Exchange, in which the h)xhibitioxv .j 

 was held, was most artistically decorated with evecgreeas and a variety*) y 

 of artificial flowers. Taking iuto consideration the late S'^-'vere weathey,.. , 

 the number of empty pens was very small. We could not help obseiT^- 

 iug, however, that many other,wise most praiseworthy pens were 

 enifering severely from frost-bite. This, strange to say, was especially' ' 

 evident in the Dorking classes, even far more than in the Spanisli -. 

 fowls, usually considered so much more tender. 



The iSpanlah were exceedingly good, as were also the Dorliitrjs^ Imft'. 



spurs outside the legs were of frequent occurrence. In selecting fifafit-- 



t breeding stock for the coming season it would be well for all owhqta JahL' 



