Uny 7, 1868. ] 



JOURNAL OF HOETICULTCBB AND COTTAGE OABDENEB. 



349 



aad made wet, and thca the powder should be forred with a. distrihutor 

 upon the ondcr aide of the leaves aH well as over them. U is not well to 

 ■yringe the trees when in bloHsora, but a slipht wetting will not do any 

 harm. The trees should be dns^ted with the tobacco iwwder upon a calm 

 4ay, and in the evening. Ouc good duelinR will be sutlicient if it be 

 effectually performed, or so an to reach all the insects, lor the tobacco 

 kills all it touches. The trees may have a (/ood syringing with water any 

 «veninp within a week. The dusting may be practised as soon as the 

 trees Lave sot their frnit. A little tire heat may be afforded your recently 

 lifted Vines during cold dull periods throu^'hout the summer, avoiding a 

 dry atmosphere. They cannot lit! tno gently excited. 



CiLCEOLAniAS Failino (,-1 Comiant Ktadi-r]. — We entirely disagree 

 with yon ae to the disease being occasioned by putting the cuttings in 

 cold frames. We remember the time when Calceolaria cuttings were 

 invariably inserted in pans, struck, and wintered in an airy greenhouse 

 There was even then the Calceolaria disease, and it has only shown itself 

 more of late years from the greater number grown. It certainly is many 



{rears eince Mr. Fish first propounded the practice of wintering Calceo- 

 arias in cold frames. It is a practice we have followed for many years, 

 and with the best results. Oar practice is verv simple. We make ready 

 a place in a sheltered open situation, putting a few inches of lime 

 riddllngs on the ground and ram quite hard. Worms do not come through 

 that, and we then sot the frames on bricks laid fiat. Coarse gravel is 

 then placed all over the bottom to the depth of 3 inches, and nest an 

 inch or two of coarse compost, and 3 or 4 inches of tiner, which consists 

 of two-thirds loam and one-third leaf mould, and then from 1^^ to 2inches 

 •f rather coarse eand. The cuttings.are put in li inch apart every way, 



a good watering boine given. Ashos are placed against the sides of the 

 frame all round, plenty of air is given in mild weather, and protection is 

 afforded from frost. Early in March if the weather is not frosty, the 

 points of the cuttings are pinched out, and in the beginning of April we 

 make trenches as for Celery, only 4 feet wide, with 3-(eet alleys between 

 them, and put in plenty of well-rotted manure and leaf mould, mixing 

 these materials well with the soil. The plants are planted in rows across 

 the beds, 6 inches apart from row to r<nv, and 3 inches from plant to 

 plant. A good watering is applied, and then water is given sparingly foi a 

 time until the plants are growing freely, when abundance is afforded. 

 They are protected from frost by old ligbtn or mats resting on spars 

 placed across the trenches. The tirKt week in May the plants are again 

 stopped, and we have divarf bushy plimts and so strong that any one 

 I would make a dozen such as you enclosed to us. Your plants ore drawn, 

 weak, and badly rooted, and never will make good plants. 



Grapes Severely bPoTTED (C*. S.).— The berries were not sufficiently 

 thinned. Cut out every berry that shows a spot, and thin away one- 

 third of the remainder. The roots of tho Vines are sluggish, they should 

 be kept warmer, be watered with tepid manure water, and the honee 

 freely ventilated. 



Insects {Bou-arih A»hton). — The bee sent is one of the Andrenidae, or 

 ehort-tongued bees ( Andrena cineraria), which make their nest by burrow- 

 ing in sandy places in tho spring. They are solitary in their habits of 

 nest-making, although often found flying together in numbers over the 

 spots they have selected. (A'u(»i<T(bcr, iieamin»tfr, Dorset). — Youramall, 

 red-spider-Iike insect is one of the mites, Trombidinm holosericeom. It 

 is quite harmless, feeding upon more minute insects. — W. 



METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS in the Suburbs of London for the week ending Uay 5th. 



POULTET, BEE, and HOUSEHOLD CHRONICLE. 



PuEAPJNG CHICKENS. 



I WAS mnch pleased with " Nemo's " commnni cation in the 

 nnmber for April 1 6th, and beg to tender him my thanks for 

 the instruction imparted ; but in concluding his remarks about 

 the chUling of egga, he says, " In cold weather half an hour off 

 the nest is too long, though double that time will not kill the 

 chicks in the eggs in May," clearly showing that even " Nemo " 

 does not attend to his sitting hens so well as he might. This 

 has led me to suppose that many, though thoroughly under- 

 standing poultry, do not so thoroughly understand rearing, and 

 do not carry it out systematically. 



In the directions I am about to give I do not claim the merit 

 of originality. The method is due to M. Jacque, the editor of 

 " Le Poulailler," but having fairly tried it againet the natural 

 system I can testify to its great superiority in many respects. 

 Its advantages are a greater average of chickens from a given 

 number of egga, more robust chickens as a rule, a more equal 

 number of chicks to the several mothers, and lastly, little or no 

 distress to the hens. 



I must state before entering into detail, that my poultry- 

 keeping is carried on in the middle of a town with a population 

 of thirty thousand ; it is not, therefore, pursued underthe most 

 favourable circumstances. 



When a hen takes to her nest she is the same evening re- 

 moved from the yard to a (sitting) room, into which only a half 

 light is admitted, and there kept on dummies for a few days 

 until two or three hens are broody. I prefer three or more 

 to two. They are placed in separate covered hampers 2 feet 

 long and 1 j foot wide, in which clean new hay has been spread. 

 Each basket has attached to it a linen label bearing the date of 

 sitting, the name of the hen, the number of eggs, with the date 

 upon which chickens are due, thus — 



Eetsv.— Fcbmary 29. 



14 Hondans, 



Due March 20. 



also a clean piece of old flannel. 



Every morning at the same hour each basket is opened in 

 turn, the hen taken out and placed under a coop, being pre- 

 viously supplied abundantly with food, both soft and grain, and 

 with clean water. Fifteen minutes, neither more nor less, are 

 allowed for feeding. Whilst the hen is off the nest the eggs 

 should be kept covered with the piece of flannel, and having put 

 all the sitting hens to feed, each nest should be visited in turn 

 to ascertain that no casualties have occurred ; and if any eggs 

 have been broken turn the rest out, put in clean hay, and cover 

 up again as quickly as possible. 



On the sixth day the hens should have an extra ten minnteg 

 allowed them, and should be given an opportunity of dusting 

 themselves whilst the eggs are being examined for chickens, 

 which is done by enclosing a lighted paraifin lamp in a bos, in 

 one side of which a hole about the size of an egg has been made. 

 To this hole each egg is applied in turn, and returned to the 

 nest or rejected, as it proves to be barren or otherwise. This 

 should be done in a dark room. When a great proportion of the 

 eggs turn out barren, a complete sitting should be made up to one 

 or two of the hens, and the rest kept upon dummies for a few 

 days till a fresh set of hens is ready : hence the greater the 

 number of hens put to sit on a given day the greater the con- 

 venience. 



On the twenty-second day the baskets containing the hens and 

 chickens are brought to the light, the chickens reckoned, and 

 regularly distributed between the hens. Some bread crumbs for 

 the chickens, and grain for the hen, are put in a saucer at one 

 end of the basket, and the whole taken back to the half light till 

 the twenty-third day, when they may be turned out where it is 

 intended to rear them. 



The above directions may seem complicated and unneces- 

 sary, but in practice will be found to facilitate the work, pre- 

 vent many mishaps, and, consequently, increase the per-centage 

 of chickens, whilst the mothers will turn out with their broods 

 much less exhausted, and consequently better fitted to take care 

 of them, than if left to sit closely for several days, as many, and 

 those the best sitters, frequently do, and then get up and stay 

 off the nest for half an hour or an hour, which, if it happen to 

 be a cold day. may spoil the eggs or make the chickens weakly. 



I trust "Nemo "will not feel offended at my seizing upon 

 this part of his well-written article, and hope he will point 

 out any error I may have unwittingly fallen into. I inferred 

 from his remarks that chickens were not so numerous as nsnal 

 this season ; I as yet see nothing exceptional in the chicken 

 season. These are the results of my attempt so far : — Five 



