Mardi 29, 1877. ] 



JOaaXAIi OF HORIICaLTORE AND COTTAGE GARD3NKS. 



243 



do well to keep in sight, and yet he will not join a club because 

 he knows that his peculiar fancy cannot and does not win prizes 

 without trimmiDg. White-crested Black Polands they are, and 

 certainly it does seem to us almost ama^tug that a judge should 

 give a prize to a bird of this breed which he knows must have 

 had manipulation in its crest, and utterly decline to look at a 

 plucked ISrahma or a scissored Hamburgh, We ask again, as 

 we have done very many times before, why should trimming be 

 allowed with the faces of Game and Spanish ? Why should the 

 removal of black feathers in a White-crested Poland's crest be 

 winked at, and a bird with plucked hocks or improved tail be 

 disqualified? Some may answer, "A Spanish hen is nothing 

 unless clean in her face." Perfectly right, but a Cochin with 

 hocks is one of the ugliest fowls we have, while one with soft 

 calling feathers round the joint makes one of the most beauti- 

 ful birds we have among our pets. 



We believe it is now generally understood that a red feather 

 in the hackle of a White Cochin or a White Dorking, or a black 

 feather on the back of a Buff Cochin and such like, may be 

 abstracted without ever infringing on what is wrong or unlawful ; 

 but those who only trim in that mild way may as safely leave 

 the bird alone, for we do not believe any judge of experience 

 would pass over a bird perfect in all other points because he or 

 she had but one or two wrong feathers somewhere about their 

 body. In fact we used to continually see the White Cochins of 

 a noted breeder, who has now retired, winning over and over 

 again, which had an orange-coloured feather or two in the neck 

 and saddle hackles, and which the owner refused to remove. 

 When, however, it comes to pulling the flights of a Buff Cochin 

 cock, or of systematically p'ucking the crests of Black Polands, 

 the matter assumes quite a different a.spect. 



We are glad to hear that the club is really in course of con- 

 Btruction, and that those on the preliminary committee are sound 

 fanciers ; and much as we long to see this club established, we 

 feel the various stac^es permissible in trimming and beautifying 

 certain breeds will be a difiioulty to members. They will have 

 to strike out some line and keep to it. It will have to be decided 

 how much or how little in the case of Spanish, Game, Polands, 

 &c., is allowable and what steps will be taken if these limits are 

 passed over, as until this is done many fanciers will, we are 

 sure, shrink from belonging. We strongly hope the present 

 jndgea will join this club, for they will be able to help in this 

 matter of trimming more than any others almost : still, if they 

 refuse to join the ranks, we hope the club will be so strong and 

 so large that it will, by embracing most committees and secret- 

 aries of shows, be able to appoint its own judges and ignore 

 those who set their backs up against the improvement in poultry 

 matters which so many are impatient for. 



Judges have much power in their hands, and they should use 

 it to the best of their discretion ; and though there may not be 

 BO very many good all-round judges, still there are plenty of 

 gentlemen who could well undertake particular sections of exhi- 

 bitions ; and this is a system which we hope to see the club 

 bringing into existence, for then, by clearly defined rules and 

 limits, such members will have it in their own hands as to how 

 far they will countenance (rimming in its various branches. 

 We despair of it being done in any other way, but do believe 

 that if once the club can be mide strong enough by the number 

 of its members to say how much a judge shall be responsible for 

 to the club in the awards which he may make at exhibitions, 

 that then, and not till then, shall we find a genuine reform. We 

 cannot express ourselves too strongly on one point, and that is 

 that the success of the club will depend upon its strength. We 

 want all to join who are willing to abide by the defined rules, 

 for then only will the fancy be able to lay down its laws, its 

 opinions of right and wrong, audits ideas of the awards of par- 

 ticular judges. — W. 



BENTLEY PIGEON SHOW. 

 The above Show was held in the large room, Cross Keys 

 Hotel, March 20th and 2l3t, 1877, and was a complete success. 

 The awards were as follows ; — 



Barbs, Jacobins, Tdkbits, and Owlb. —Coc/e or Hcn.—\ and Extra 8, E. G. 

 Keay. 2, J. Chandler. ?., T. Chambers, vhc, C. Haworlh, J. Chandler (2). 

 Ant otiter VAmEXr.— Cocfc or Hen—1, E, G. Keay. 2 and 3, J. Chandler. 

 vhc, Corbett & Leeson. Selt.ino Class.— Prt'c*? not to exceed W$.—Cock or 

 Ben.—l, J. Chandler. 2, T. Chambers. 3, W. Noltaue (2). Price not to ex- 

 ceed lOs.—Cock or llcn.-l, E. G. Keay. 2, T. Wheeler. 8, J. Chandler, W. 

 Nottage. vhc, W. N'ottage. 



Judge. — Mr. J. Baker, London. 



HIVES. 



I WOULD cheerfully have accepted Mr. Pettigrew's challenge 

 to pit the Stewarton hive and system against his largo straw 

 skepa for honey results, quantity as well as quality, were it not 

 that such test has been carefully carried out in my own apiary 

 long since with all sorts of straw hives, large as well as small, 

 dome, flat, and slope-topped, cemented, painted, itc, with so 



much gain in favour of Stewartons as honey reaping machines 

 as to sink the straw skeps to their present subsidiary place as 

 mere domiciles for wintering bees to feed the Stewartons. Had 

 your correspondent had similar experience he would have been 

 more chary of his challenges. Further : Mr. Pettigrew when 

 he penned the sentence — " that the hives be placed side by side 

 in the beginning of next year and remain untouched by their 

 owners to the end of the season," ought to have known that 

 such a proposition entirely nullified what went before. In the 

 Stewarton, neither its dimensions nor contents being fixed, 

 must of necessity be frequently touched and handled. I do 

 trust the bee science of the age has not so retrograded as to 

 adopt the primeval letthem-alone or happy-go-lucky policy going 

 in for the one-chamber apartment of the big straw or old tea 

 chest. 



As was to be expected, so throughly advanced an apiarian as 

 Mr. John Hunter gives in his adhesion to "mobilism" over 

 " fixism," and I quite agree with what he has so well said as to 

 the absurdity of monster supers. Large harvests of super comb 

 in small shallow sections, as with the Stewarton, should be 

 the aim of all bee-keepers : " The particular charm of the 

 Stewarton system " when tested against even the Woodbury, 

 with a gain in favour of the former, is due to the sectional 

 nature cf its breeding as well as supering space. Its smaller 

 shallower octagon " form " during the present bitter March 

 winds, for the better concentration of heat, gives it every day a 

 start over its presently larger competitors with fixed space. 

 This goes so far to answer " 0. B.'s " inquiry last week, who 

 must understand the Stewarton is but a small hive in spring, 

 advances in dimensions with the advancing months, and thus 

 meets the productiveueea of the most prolific queens and the 

 wants of every district and season, be they good or bad, which 

 to my view places it before all hives and systems of management 

 dependant on fixed space. 



As to " battle of the hives," Mr. Lowe started with the pro- 

 position that "the best hive" was a nullity, that "hive had 

 little if any influence on honey results." I showed by competi- 

 tive straw and observatory a decided influence. His reply was 

 they wero not the " best kind of hives for storing honey." 

 Granted. Hive, then, has an influence — the whole contention. 

 —A EENFHEWSHraE Bee-keeper. 



PROPOSED TRIAL OF HIVES AND BEES. 



Surely Mr. Pettigrew cannot be serious when, in the trial 

 of hives he now proposes, he suggests " that the hives be placed 

 side by side and remain untouched by their owners until the 

 end of the season." The very essence of Stewarton or any other 

 frame-hive system of bee-keeping is that the hives should be 

 touched and the bees helped by their owners in every possible 

 legitimate way, for which Mr. Pettigrew's large straw hivea 

 afford no facilities, and for which alone the frame hives are 

 adapted. To fill up seven or eight Stewarton boxes in May and 

 so leave them, expecting the bee6 would render such a harvest 

 as the " Renfrewshire Bee-keeper's " noted one, would be 

 simply folly ; as well might the grocers' box of equal capacity 

 be used at once. Mo practical bee-keeper that I am aware of 

 champions wood against straw, but a hive that affords facilities 

 for " management " against one that in a great measure affords 

 none. 



Taking the conditions as Mr. Pettigrew suggests I should 

 certainly expect victory would favour the straw skeps; the bees 

 in these would be much less likely to swarm, for they would 

 have a large roomy chamber to fill which would tax their utmost 

 energies, and until that happy consummation was arrived at they 

 would most probably rest contented. If they did swarm with a 

 three-winged queen the probability of her majesty returning 

 home would be very small ; the bees would, however, and agaiu 

 go to work without a queen. 



The case of the Stewarton hive would be different. In the 

 first place the workers having separate compartments to fill 

 would not have the same reluctance to swarm, and if they did 

 issue forth with an unmaimed queen, and no one to return them, 

 the population would be so enfeebled that, for a time at least, 

 honey-gathering would stop. Of course I may be met by the 

 assumption that the queens in the Stewarton may also have 

 their wings amputated, but I am quite sure no intelligent frame- 

 hive user would risk the chance of his stocks being at any time 

 queenless when competing in a match of honey-gathering. It 

 is to my mind quite certain, other things being equal, that the 

 stock that swarmed would lose, and the Stewarton stocks would 

 for reasons given above be the most likely so to do. — J. Hunter, 

 Eaton Bise, Ealing. 



DO BEES MAKE OR GATHER HONEY? 



1 A paper reai before the Mif souri Valley Association,] 

 As I have been making researches and experimenting on this 

 subject I thought I would give you the result. In taking up the 

 subject. Do bees make or gather honey ? I will not try to prov 



