2U 



JOURNAL OF HORTICCLTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ AprU 1, 1869. 



emptied the poison with which they cleaned boot-tops. The practice was 

 discontinued, and the eggs became thoroughly good. 



Boarded Floors for Poultry [Constant Subscriber). — The condemna- 

 tion applies equally to a roosting house. When the fowls come down in 

 the mominff they tind no scratch, and till they leave the house their feet 

 are always kept in a strained minatural position. 



Poultry Management and Food {Black Hamhurgh).~Good oats or 

 barley meal mixed with milk are good feeding. A small quantity of good 

 food is preferable to a large quantity of inferior quality. We do not care 

 much for wheat or sharps. As yo'u say the fowls roost above the cart 

 hoase, we presume they inhabit a farmyard. If so, there should be roost- 

 ing places without resorting to a first floor. Let them choose for them- 

 selves — under the eaves of a barn, in an unused calf pen, or a similar place. 

 Wooden flooring is very bad, because it has a cold dampness, it admits of 

 only one position of the foot, and does not allow a scratch. We can give 

 no opinion about your breeding prize birds if we have no data but the 

 numbers you keep. We can only say tliey are correct as far as the sexes 

 are concerned ; you will shortly have to decrease the number of cocks. 

 No fowls require trimming, or are allowed to be trimmed, except Game 

 fowls. We do not hold with or make use of any of the condiments you 

 name. Red combs are an undoubted sign of condition, and the result of 

 good food supplied to a healthy body. Good barley and oatmeal, with a 

 little whole corn at times, some milk, some cooked meat, and it may be 

 a handful of Indian corn, will promote and maintain condition, will cause 

 red combs, and, added to cleanliness, contribute not a little to success. 

 Good management will sometimes bring first-rate produce from moderate 

 parents; but the result is more probable when the parents possess the 

 qualities that are desired in the oflspring. 



HouDANB {5i7rfr-Gfrf;i/).— Houdans are black and white ; they weigh, 

 hens about 7 lbs., cocks about 6 lbs., in good condition. They are excel- 

 lent table fowls, and have white flesh. Baily & Son, of Mount Street, are 

 the best persons to apply to. We do not think the Poultry Company is 

 in existence ; it sold ofl" last autumn, and this will account for your 

 letters remaining unanswered. 



EoGS NOT Hatching (Lancashire). — There are three or four reasons 

 why eggs should fail. They may be chilled, or the hens may sit hollow, . 

 or the eggs maybe kept too dry. We cannot account for their dying at . 

 the age you mention. They are fruitful eggs ; everything seems to go 

 well at first. We must leave the solution to you, and you must discover 

 why, when five nests are set all absolutely alike, four fail and one suc- 

 ceeds. No eegs can go on well that are kept tou dry, and to this we 

 attribute your failure. If your hens had all stolen their nests, they 

 would have brought off all their chickens. Why '.' Because the hen 

 would have left her nest every morning while the grass was covered with 

 dew, and would have searched for food till every feather in her breast was 

 panning with water. In that state she would have returned to her eggs, 

 wetting them thoroughly. You must do the same, and we believe you 

 will succeed. 



Keeping Poultry in a Dark Place (J. F. B.).— You can keep 

 Brahmas or Cochins in the place you describe, but yon cannot rear 

 chickens there. You must put them on the prass plat. The more you 

 let your fowls run there the better. Cover the asphaltum as thickly as 

 you can with sand, or, better still, road grit. It will pay you well by its 

 value as manure. A dark place is, if anything, better than a light one 

 for sitting. 



Soft Eggs (G. P.). — Your Houdans are probably too fat. Give them 

 only ground oats and mashed potatoes for a week or two. 



Hen okf Eggs for a Night {Jack). — As she had only sat upon them 

 a few days we do not think her twelve-hours absence will prevent the 

 eggs hatching. 



Dear's Poultry Food (F. S. H.).— We only know it from Mr. Jeflries' 

 lecture. It was advertised in our last number. 



Diseased Pigeons {A. S.). — Wing disease is one of the torments of 

 Pigeon-fanciers. In mild cases, or rather in an early stage of the disease, 

 it may be cured by appUcations of tincture of iodine, which will absorb 

 the contents of the lump. It arises from scrofula, and is, therefore, 

 hereditary. Attend to the digestion of your birds. "They do not fly 

 out" explains much, but, being confined, do you give them loam and 

 salt, also green food, as lettuce, cress, rape seed, all growing, or the 

 lettuce with a brick laid on its root, for the birds like to pluck at what 

 is fixed '.' Sometimes they like a feed of boiled potatoes, and to pick up 

 crumbs of bread. Instead of the food you mention, give only peas for a 

 time, for bad digestion comes of overfeeding, and wheat, hemp seed, and 

 Indian corn may not have suited them, and beans are too hot for diseased 

 birds. " A Foreigner," who is a very experienced fancier, wrote on 

 wing disease in our columns on the SJth of last July : — " As soon as I 

 discover that a bird flies awkwardly I examine the joints of both wings, 

 and, if 1 perceive any swelling, which is the beginning of the disease, I 

 pluck out the ten long flight feather?:; of the wing affected, and by the time 

 they grow again the bird will be perfectly free from disease, and will fly 

 as usual. If the swelling is ver>' bad, I pluck all the long feathers of the 

 wing. If, on examination, I find the lump is like a bubble, I press the 

 liquid out, cutting the skin. Many consider the plucking cruel, and so it 

 is, but it is the only remedy, and the most certain of success — in fact, it 

 will never fail." The lameness is another form of the disease. Put some 

 now clean screws in the bird's water and keep them there. All Pigeons 

 should by rights have freedom, or, at least, much room for exercise and 

 great attention to condiments to correct digestion, and should not be 

 overcrowded. 



Canary Breeding (C. A. J.).— "A hen Canary will be ready to go to nest 

 again in about ten days after deserting a nest of unfertile or addled eggs. 

 A breeding cage for Belgians does not differ from the ordinary one, but it 

 should be very roomy, and placed rather above than below the level of 

 the eye. You can purchase good Belgians for breeding this year of Mr. C. 

 Hawkins, 6, Bear Street, Leicester Square. I have never bred from birds 

 having confirmed asthma, but in lb67 I bred from a cock which, having 

 been very incautiously exposed to draughts early in spring, had caught 

 a severe cold, from which he never seemed to be entirely free. He was sent 

 to me when almost at his last gasp to nurse, and on his recovery I pur- 

 chased him, bred with him with great success all the season, and ulti- 

 mately took a first prize with him at a very large AJl-England Show. 

 None of his progeny exhibited any symptoms of asthma. Liaards and 



Cinnamons are pure breeds, and are obtained in the usual way by pairing 

 a Jonque and Mealy bird of either description, — W. A, Blakston." 



Pairing A Cock with two Hens (.4 Suhscriber). — *' In reply to this query 

 I will quote from a letter I have just received from the Cinnamon breeder' 

 to whom I referred a short time ago. He says ;— ' The way I managed 

 mine was this. I paired the cock with one hen by keeping them in a small 

 cage together for a few days. When the two appeared mated, I turned 

 them and two other hens into a flight cage about 6 feet square ; of 

 course the cock put the hen he had first paired with to neat, and then the 

 next forward, and so on, I found that, although he did his duty by the 

 other two, he remained throughout the season most attached to the hen 

 he had first paired with. My motive for pairing with one first is this : I 

 find that unless I do so both or all three hens are apt to begin nesting 

 together, all msh for the same nest-box, and as fast as one builds the 

 others destroy the nest, and there is speedily a disturbance in the 

 house.' This is from a thoroughly practical man, and the result of his 

 mode of proceeding was forty young birds. I should hardly feel disposed 

 to introduce the second hen if the first is sitting, though you will very soon 

 see if it annoys her or not. The same treatment will apply in the case 

 of the Linnet, but such is not the usual method of Mule-breeding. The 

 Linnet will not be 'fresh ' before May. The hen will most likely have a 

 nest before then, but the eggs will not be fertile. It is a waste of time 

 to introduce either a Goldfinch or Linnet early in the season, before they 

 are in a condition for breeding, and I am sometimes astonished when I 

 see sensible men do so for no other ostensible reason than the pleasure 

 of seeing the birds duly paired and in their places. A hen so circum- 

 stanced will soon lay, and has the miserable satisfaction of sitting on a 

 nest of barren eggs, which the breeder knows full well are so when she 

 lays them. I have even known an intelligent man allow two Mules to 

 pair, and permit the hen to sit out a nest of transparent eggs not larger 

 than peas, with a hazy idea of something marveUous resulting. — W. A. 

 Blakston." 



Distinguishing the Sex in Larks (Wcm).— MacgiUivray, our most 

 observant ornithologist, says: — " The females are a Uttle smaller, some- 

 what more slender, and in a faint degree less deeply coloured ; the 

 feathers of the head are also less elongated; but the differences are so 

 slight that I am unable to distinguish a male from a female by any 

 external character.'' 



Canaries with Goldfinches (A !>? ?/ Old and Constani Header). — " You 

 have been misinformed. It is by no means the usual practice in the 

 North to pair a cock Canary with a hen Goldfinch. It has been done 

 occasionally as an experiment, but that is all. Breeding Pied Mules 

 is entirely a matter of chance— pure chance. What may be the nattiral 

 laws which determine their production are matters far beyond our ken 

 and any intelligent Mule breeder will admit that at best it is groping in 

 the dark — a lottery in which it is fabulous odds against your drawing a, 

 large prize. Some men believe there is a particular class or family of 

 Canaries which ^vill certainly produce marked Mules when paired with 

 the Goldfinch'; they call it the ' Marked Mule tribe.' I do not believe in 

 anything of the kind, nor do I know of any method of breeding by which 

 such a tendency can be induced. The only true muling hen is one which 

 has produced a pied or a clean bird, and even then it is very doubtful 

 whether she will repeat the operation. Much might he written on the 

 subject, but in the end it resolves itself into the same thing — what is 

 understood as chance. Reading instruction in the mystery of breeding 

 Pied Mules reminds me of an article in Delamer's ' Kitchen Garden,' 

 on growing mushrooms. After an elaborate elucidation of the modus 

 opi^randi, he says something to this effect— that probably you will have a 

 fine crop, equally probably none at all! So with Pied Mules. When I 

 have solved the problem of 'squaring the circle,' I will calculate the 

 chances of breeding a clean Mule, and publish the mathematical formula. 

 I might, perhaps, introduce a patent Mule pill and Canary condition-hall 

 at the same time ;— W. A. Blakston." 



Canaries not Pairing (S. J. !<.).—*' Do not separate the birds, and 

 furnish no more building material till the hen gives true evidences of an 

 intention to build, which is not shown by her destroying and wasting the 

 contents of the nest, but by carrjing the stuff into the bos, and sculfling 

 about in it. Till she fairly begins to build she will only waste the stuff, 

 and when it becomes soiled the greater portion is rejected. It is a great 

 mistake to be too lavish in the supply of material, unless waste is no 

 consideration. A little piece of moss, a small feather or two, will afford 

 as much amusement as the whole contents of a nest-bag. I have stated 

 in previous papers that nest-boxes— i'.^., bond fide wooden boxes, are not 

 common in this district. I do not know anyone who uses them but 

 myself, neither do I use them exclusively. I generally supply a box and 

 material for the first nests, but when the season advances, bringing with 

 it that abomination of abominations, the red bug. I am only too ready to 

 sacrifice the pleasure derived from observing the building process, in 

 favour of clean boxes, whether of wood, tin, pottery ware, or wirework, lined 

 with a fresh clean piece of felt. Let the bloodthirsty parasites come then 

 as fast as they like ; a clean nest every morning will be found the most 

 effectual bar to their increase.- W. A. Blakston." 



Removing Cock Canary from Nestlings (ilf^ss J.S.).— "Thecockmay 

 be removed at any time, but it is not prudent to do so imless the hen is 

 feeding well, and you must notice whether his removal afl'ects the hen 

 in this respect. At first she will possibly appear restless, hopping about 

 the cage and giving an unhappy sort of chirp, a wail after her missing 

 lord ; but the demands of her infant brood will soon overcome this, and 

 she will very shortly nestle over them, and attend to their wants as 

 assiduously as if the Divorce Court had not interposed its cruel hand. I 

 apprehend you have a second mate for the cock ; you can at any time 

 replace him along with his first love, to whom he will remain attached 

 with a constancy worthy of imitation. — W. A. Blakston." 



Combs Displaced (A. d'Allemand). — Remedial measures should have 

 been resorted to at once ; we much fear that they may now be too late, as 

 the brood is probably destroyed and the combs irreparably damaged by 

 the bees gnawing away the cells. If, after examination, you should deem 

 them not too far gone to render success hopeless, you had better obtain a 

 frame hive, and after brushing the bees off the combs back into their own 

 empty hive, convey them {the combs) in-doors, and fit them into framep, 

 and induct the bees into their new dojnicile in the manner described in 

 pages 88 and 90 of '• The Gardeners' Almanack " for 1869. All artificial 

 supports may be removed from the combs in a few days, or as soon as they 

 ^ are fixed by the bees. 



