250 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ March 20, 1873. 



the roof, a square of glass being replaced by a square of zinc with a hole in it. 

 Bum coke or clean cinders, and damp the aahos wheu cleaning out. Remove 

 the stove from April to November. 



Orchard-house Management (A. T.).— Ton will find an article in No. 51G 

 of our new series which will give you the information you require. As the 

 trees will soon be in liower, keep the atmosphere of the house dry at that 

 time. Pears under glasH do not set so freely as Peaches. If the weather is 

 dull and cold artificial boat should be appUed, with ah in the daytime. Water 

 ireely at the roota after the fruit is aet. 



Repotting Hoya carnosa (Idem). — Pot the plant at once if it requires 

 it; doing so will not stop its flowering. If this Hoya grows freely in a stove 

 temperature, and the shoots are trained near the glass, it will be certain' to 

 flower. Florists' varieties we cannot name. The greenhouse plant is Poly- 

 gala oppositifolia. 



Flowehs for Table Glasses {Petitr).—'\Ye do not know of any seeds 

 jou could sow in such shallow naiTow glasses to do any good. We can only 

 advise you to fill them with sand satui-ated with water, and use any cut 

 flowers that may bo in season in your garden to fill them when required. No 

 doubt such bulbs as Crocuses would do pretty well, as the flowers are formed 

 in the bulb or corm the previous season. 



Insect Eggs (L. J, K.). — The cocoon covered with eggs is that of the female 

 Vapoui-er moth (Orgyia antiqua). It is a very common insect, and being (in 

 the female state) destitute ol wings, it scarcely moves from its cocoon, in which 

 it generally dei)osit3 its eggs after pairing with the winged male.— I. O. W. 



Nabies op Fruits (H. F.).—a. is ILamb Abbey Pearmain ; b is Aromatic 

 Russet. (Uer. C. B.).—The Pear, BourrO de Ranee; the Apple, we think, is 

 Coi's Orange Pippin. 



POULTRY, BEE, AND PIGEON OHRONIOLE. 



POULTRY SHOW JUDGES AND REPOETS. 



Veet much hag been Baid lately as to alleged inoonsiBtencieB 

 in awards at poultry shows, in some cases no doubt correctly ; 

 but in some other cases the fault-finders do not seem to be even 

 aware of all the circumstances which must be taken into con- 

 sideration by any really good judge. Ignorance in most cases 

 begets prejudice, and so it is in this case. As types of comments 

 which seem to me just and unjust, I may take the remarks of 

 "Obseevek," which were calm and judicious, and of " Justitia," 

 which (I have already assumed through want of knowledge, and 

 and not through ill-will) certainly are not worthy the signature 

 appended to them. 



With regard to " Observer's " remarks, there certainly is a 

 crying need for more of really able and conscientious judges. 

 Even when in good health, Messrs. Hewitt and Teebay cannot 

 be at every show ; and I have again and again remarked there 

 is hardly an important show yet which has a really sufficient 

 staff. Whoever may be the judge of certain classes, if he has to 

 keep on his legs from morning to nearly six o'clock, with only a 

 hastily-discussed sandwich between, can his later awards be 

 equal to those made when mind and body were both in fuU 

 vigour '? The work often given to poultry judges is really cruel, 

 and I often wonder they do not follow the prevalent example, 

 and " strike for shorter hours." I wish they would ; it would be 

 an uumised benefit did every judge of repute make it known 

 that he declined to arbitrate over more than a certain number 

 of pens at any show, and insisted upon an hour for dinner in 

 the middle of it ! 



But I confess wheu we come to consider where the new judges 

 so desii-ed by " Observer" are to be found, the answer is not so 

 easy. It seems nice to speak of " electing " them, but where 

 are the peoplu to be elected ? That 's the rub. And I venture 

 to repeat a suggestion I have made elsewhere, that it is worth 

 censidering whether able service in this department, as in others, 

 IS not worth proper remuneration; and that were this under- 

 stood, it might, ijerhaps, induce several perfectly competent 

 men to devote themselves to it almost as a kind of jn'olession. 

 I scarcely see otherwise how we are ever to get judges w'ho are 



neither breeders nor exhibitors," desirable as such judges are. 

 Mr. Hewitt stands alone ; and while it is, of course, possible 

 some one else may appear who shall combine the happy qualifi- 

 cations of enthusiasm, experience, independent circumstances, 

 and the will, as well as the power, to devote the whole of his 

 time without fee or reward to other's service, I confess it appears 

 to me unreasonable even to hope for it. 



Let me suggest again, that if we expect any judge to start up 

 who shall rival Mr. Hewitt all at once, we shall never see such 

 expectations reahsed. If he will pardon me for my way of 

 putting it, even he did not become what he is all at once — he 



growed." The most intimate knowledge of any variety will 

 not necessarily make a good judge of it ; for this, certain pecu- 

 liarities of mind and eye, as well as experience in actual judging, 

 are requisite. Does anyone doubt this ? Let hiiii try a very 

 simple experiment. Let him go to Birmingham on the judging- 

 day, without a catalogue, and note down as best he may what 

 pens he thinks should be distinguished in his own pet classes. 

 Let him resolutely deny himself the temptation to see whoso 

 they are, but judge them honestly in ignorance ol this, as the 

 judges have to do ; and then on the Monday let him compare 

 ■his own mental awards with the catalogue of names. He will 

 reverse many of his own deoiBiona until he has had some ex- 



perience of this sort of thing, and he will find out by degrees 

 that it is much easier to criticise awards with catalogue in hand, 

 than to go tlirough a bewildering class of, perhaps, nearer a 

 hundred entries than fifty, and make even a tolerable approxima- 

 tion to correct judging. Names are a wonderful help. Perhaps 

 if the judges had them too their awards would be more " con- 

 sistent." Let anyone do as I suggest, and he will speak more 

 gently than some of our correspondents have beau doing. 



I have seen numerous errors in judging — undeniable errors; 

 and X may add that I never met a good judge yet who for a 

 moment denied he had often made such, or who was at all 

 backward in acknowledging them individually at any show if 

 courteously pointed out ; but no man can be expected to do so 

 in reply to the disgraceful language I have sometimes (though 

 very deaf myself), felt truly ashamed to hear addj-essed to gentle- 

 men who had done their best through a hard day's work without 

 the smallest reward of any kind. While admitting this, how- 

 ever, I may add to it, that having had occasion for purposes 

 of my own, known to many readers, to attempt something like 

 an analysis or average of the judging at oijr best shows for 

 several years past, I have been myself astonished at the sur- 

 prising amount of consistency and agi'eement, and the very 

 small proportion of marked excejjtions which appear when thus 

 tested for purposes in which personal interests have no sway. 

 That there is any real difiiculty in ascertaining what, in general, 

 the judges look for in various fowls, I cannot admit, nor can it 

 be substantiated by any impartial observer. An exhibitor who 

 is wondering why his bu'ds do not win may not find the task so 

 easy. 



I cannot, therefore, by any means agree with " Justiti.^'s " 

 remark, that watbout a *' code of rules " there "appears to be 

 no hope of satisfactory judging," and when we go from this 

 general statement to the sjjecific ones this con-espondent malies 

 to substantiate both it and his complaints of the reports too, 

 these do not appear any better founded. Thus, he states that 

 birds fDark Brahmas), " that would have been branded as 

 vulture-hocked last year, are now considered comparatively 

 clean-legged." I think I have studied Dark Brahmas as care- 

 fully as most men, and I afifirm without hesitation, that so far 

 as any diilerence at all can be observed, the exact contrary is 

 the case ; several perceptibly hocked cockerels having been 

 awarded prizes in 1871-2, whilst there is no instance at any 

 of the main shows (London, Birmingham, Manchester, and 

 Bristol), of such birds winning in 1872-3. Minor shows are less 

 reliable. I speak of those as having most authority. 



His question as to how you can " reconcile " your "report" of 

 the Devizes classof Dark Brahmas, and complaint of the "want of 

 impartial criticism," are not better founded. I would rather not 

 have referred to his argument on this point, as it refers to a 

 bird of my own breeding; but as it is his only one, and explains, 

 moreover, a very large class of misconceptions on points of 

 judging, I can hardly avoid doing so. He says, "It so happens 

 that the cup and second-prize pens exhibited at Southampton " 

 were at Devizes, and " as they gained a victory over the Crystal 

 Palace and Birmingham cup-bird, it follows [here is the fallacy 

 — a type of many], that the cup-pen at Devizes must have been 

 a very superior pen of birds." Now, without dwelling on the 

 fact that the report of Devizes did not depreciate the cup-pen 

 at all, but only the class generally, a reference to the report of 

 Southampton will be rewarded by finding the remark that 

 " Pen 75, unnoticed, belonging to Messrs. Newnham & Mauby, 

 contained by far the best cockerel [the cup bird at Birming- 

 ham], and would certainly have been entitled to the highest 

 honours had he been shown in good company." I do not know 

 who wrote either report, and am not going to deny that either 

 or both may possibly have been mistaken. I only wish to 

 point out that both may be " impartial," and the Devizes ono 

 can easily be " reconciled," since it thus appears the cup-bird 

 through which the line of comparison is drawn, as " pubUo 

 form " is calculated with racehorses, was not, so far as reports 

 go, "vanquished" at Southampton at all. 



It was worth while to mention this, as the remark in the report 

 of Southampton shows in this case so clearly the origin of the 

 misconception, which is, as I remarked, but a fair type of a 

 large class. But even " Justitlv's " general complaint, that 

 birds which have won at one show have been unnoticed at 

 another, does not of necessity prove any fault of the judges. 

 The difference in the competition may have been very great, 

 and I once had myself to give first prize to a pen which in a 

 good class would not have deserved more than a commended. 

 But still more frequently it happens that birds are shown so 

 often, they go " all to pieces." The mischief is often almost 

 imperceptible, except to a very in-actised eye, till it is far gone ; 

 and even such a judge as Mr. Hewitt, though he sees and knows 

 , that the birds are nearly worn-out, and wiU soon knock-up, miiy 

 be able to see no valid excuse iu their appearance (which is 

 all lie may go by) for withholding the highest honours ; when 

 one more show does the business and finishes them, for the time 

 at least. The process has not reallv been sudden, but it appears 

 BO, and the birds are all at free passed over. Other matters 



