Hay 86, 1870. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



3?3 



The descriptions Mr. Smith gives of their visits to the diffe- 

 rent bird shows are oapital. Bat in Chapter I. he puts in " a 

 plea for the Canary." Says he, " Much has been said and 

 written during the past few years to create a taste for the 

 aquarium and the crawling cold-blooded inhabitants of the 

 water, and every one was professing an interest in the gyrations 

 of a goggling, gulping carp, or the antics of a minnow. But 

 give me an aviary of Canaries, whose beautiful colour, elegant 

 form, and charming docility and sweet song, at once please the 

 eye, delight the ear, and enlist my sympathies. Strange — pass- 

 ing strange, that this beautiful bird is not oftener found in the 

 homes of the middle and upper classes." 



Chapter II. describes the "Origin of our Canaries." How 

 first a present of a common " dickey " was made, and it was not 

 said of him, as a penurious and nngrammatical person once 

 said of a similar gift, "Confound all presents wot eats." 

 Dickey, oommon though he was, started the taste. A home- 

 made aviary was manufactured. The description of its making 

 is so good, one almost sees it mide. Then a joint-stock com- 

 pany was formed between the father and his delighted children. 

 The aviary — anyone with a fow shillings at command could 

 make such a one — is in time filled with Lizards, Yorkshire, 

 Norwioh, and London Fancies, Belgians, &c. The names 

 given are as pretty as the pictures, and the habits of each bird 

 were carefully marked by their owner. Here is an account of 

 the inmates of the aviary, which gives names and character- 

 istics : — " Buttercup was the gayest of the gay, while Dandy 

 would sit and mope on his perch for hours, immoveable as 

 Patience on a monument. Lady Grey " (charming name for 

 a Silver Lizard) " was amiability itself, while Spangle, her lord 

 and master, was irascible and fierce; Dandy was energetic; 

 Sultan was portly and sedate; Marquis was mild and gentle; 

 while Prince Charming was the essence of good breeding and 

 propriety. Little Brilliant was lazy and greedy ; Blanche was 

 quick, while the Princess was distingue in her breeding and 

 manners." Further chapters tell us how Lizards, Norwich 

 birds, London Fancies, &c, were bought, and all told in a 

 pretty, interesting way with apt quotations of prose and poetry. 

 Then the joint-stock company went in for Belgians, to which 

 Mr. Smith has evidently a weakness. Cinnamons (the tale 

 about Sylp is capital) are afterwards bought, then Turncrests, 

 and lastly Germans. Then follow chapters on breeding, nests, 

 and nest-boxes. Others are headed " Our Misfortunes " and 

 " Our Infirmary," and lastly one whole chapter is devoted to 

 cages. 



Mr. Smith, we have seen, is very happy in his style, and in 

 the names for bis birds, and so is Miss Smith in her coloured 

 illustrations, of which there are about a dozen, and we must 

 also add that Groombridge & Sons have printed the book well, 

 and put outside a pretty cover, with gold enough to please, and 

 to match the most golden Canary. 



Lastly, we must say that Mr. Smith's book is the prettiest 

 book on the Canary that we have ever seen, and will give an 

 impetus to the iancy. It will lie on the table of many a 

 drawing-room, and, unlike many books there, will be sure to be 

 read. It is a gift suited to a lady little or big, and we are sure 

 will do much, as this Journal has done, to raise the Cannry to 

 its fit and proper place among us. "Has," says Mr. Smith, 

 "our pretty favourite lost anything of its original beauty of 

 plumage by its domestication ? Is it less elegant in form, less 

 docile in temper, or less loving and winsome in its manners 

 than were its progenitors three hundred years ago ? By no 

 means. The beauty of its plumage, the elegance of its figure, 

 the docility of its dispesition, the charming familiarity which 

 induces it to nestle without fear or reserve beside us, to say 

 nothing of its melodious song, which has of late years been 

 well-nigh cultivated to perfection, are more striking than ever. 

 Truly its interesting habits claim and deserve the attention of 

 all classeB, and if bestowed, would nfford a never-ending round 

 of innocent amusement and delight." — Wiltshire Rector. 



Silkworms.— At Yateley, near Farnborough, Captain Mason 

 has three acreB of ground planted with White Mulberry trees, 

 the leaves of which form the pasturage for a multitudinous 

 stock of silkworms ; and from his successful experience during 

 the three years 1867, 1868, and 1869, he considers that a net 

 profit of £10 per acre, after all expenses are paid, might be 

 realised upon a plantation of 100 acres. The growth of Mul- 

 berry trees, of both White and Black varieties, is attended with 

 very little risk in the mild and moist south-western counties of 

 England, and, indeed, in any situation where the trees are not 



liable to be cut off by early spring frosts. And where an un- 

 failing supply of Mulberry leaves is forthcoming during the 

 feeding season, there is nothing to preclude the prosperous 

 oondition of any number of worms, for modern invention has 

 succeeded in housing silkworms, so that, by very simple but 

 beautiful arrangements, precisely the right degrees of tempe- 

 rature and humidity, along with the requisite amount of ven- 

 tilation, unaffected by atmospheric influences, are preserved 

 throughout the critical months of May, June, and July. In- 

 vention, again, has introduced not only a new method of reel- 

 ing cocoons by the aid of mechanism, but also a novel system 

 of feeding the worms ; atid thus the cost of manual labour has 

 been greatly diminished. Ii is reckoned that the moths from 

 lib. of cocoons will produce 1 oz. of eggs, and that loz. of 

 eggs will produce worms yielding 80 lbs. of cocoons. — (Chamber 

 of Agriculture Journal ) 



FURTHER EVIDENCE OF THE SUCCESS OF THE 



NEW MODE OF CONTROLLING THE FERTILISATION OF THE 

 QUEEN BEE. 



Tub following letter, published in a recent number of the 

 Toronto Globe, is from a correspondent who appears to have 

 been entirely ignorant of the experiments already made by 

 Mrs. Tupper in the same direction : — 



Pnt the queen, with the selected drones, and some comb 

 containing honey, in a box having a sliding cover and plenty 

 of small gimlet holes through the top and sides for ventilation ; 

 remove the honey-board and place the box on the frames, so 

 that the queen and her companions may be kept warm ; put on 

 the cap and leave them two or -three days, and at the end of 

 that time your queen will be purely fertilised. 



The manner in which I made the discovery was as follows : 

 — Last summer, in examining an Italian stock in which the 

 queen had been superseded, I found a young queen just emerg- 

 ing, and being aDxious to secure as many as possible, because 

 the superseded queen was a pure Italian, procured from Mr. 

 Thomas, Brooklin, I rushed into the house, and seized the first 

 thing that came under iny hand, which happened to be my 

 little daughter's empty toy box, placed her (the queen, not my 

 daughter), in it, with a Email piece of honeycomb and a few 

 bees for companions, among which were two drones. Just 

 then a telegram was hai . 1 ! o me, requiring my presence 

 some sixty miles away at the earliest possible opportunity. 

 As I could barely have tirufi fo get to the railroad station, and 

 the matter was of much importance, I just placed the box on 

 the frames without ripl^'i''-! the honey-board, but replaced 

 the cap, and prepared for >'.-:■ journey. I was absent rather 

 more than two da s ond a half. When I returned, I im- 

 mediately looked after my i Sned queen, and found her all 

 right, having the marks of feri iiisation. — O. Fitzwilktns. 



DROPSY— LIGUPT ANS— LONGEVITY OF 

 QUEENS. 



A hive of bees is now puzzling me. The bees come out in 

 great numbers every day, and fail to the ground in a very help- 

 less and pitiable condition, if I did not know to the contrary I 

 should say they were dying from want of food. The queen is a 

 fine Ligurian, and must be very prolific, as the hive is strong 

 notwithstanding the disease, and pollen gathering and breed- 

 ing go on uninterruptedly. I haveiad one 6trong stock entirely 

 destroyed by mice, and another left in a very dilapidated con- 

 dition. I have kept Italian btes four years, and find them 

 superior in every way to the black bees, and the hybrid are 

 good in proportion. The queen received from Mr. Woodbury 

 in May, 1866, and one (the only one that season) raised the 

 following July, are both alive and respectively at the head of the 

 two most prosperous stocks I have. — S. B., Knowle. 



[Your bees are doubtless suffering from " dropsy," a disease 

 first noticed by Mr. Woodbury, and described by him in our 

 columns on the 26th December, 1865. The following is the 

 modeiof treatment by which he succeeded in effecting its cure. 

 — " Selecting a fine day, and spreading a cloth on the ground, 

 I looked over the combs until I discovered the queen which I 

 imprisoned in a qusen cage, and then set the hive on the ground, 

 putting an empty one in its place. I next took out the combs 

 one by one, brushing off every bee on to the cloth, placing the 

 combs in the previously empty hive, and completed the opera- 

 tion by putting on the crown heard and introducing the queen 

 at the top. In this way I effected the end I had in view, which 



