244 



JOUENAL OF HORTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENER. 



t September 19, 1805. 



m place of the decoy-hive; when settled in, tie them up in a 

 cloth, of course not a bee can remain on the stand. 



Although in principle the above mode of procedure varies 

 httle from that of others, yet I find these little details, more 

 particularly as to the skewers and looped cord, great assistants 

 in effecting a rapid and successful result. The large addition 

 of bees thus obtained and united to my hives may be con- 

 sidered unnecessary, as in almost every instance they were 

 previously well tenanted ; but when I find that so large a pro- 



portion are, daring the autumn, destroyed in our shops, I am 

 exceedingly glad to make up by that means for their greatly 

 diminished numbers ; for I can assure your readers that this 

 destruction is something fearful in our httle town, aud perhaps 

 not to be seen to the same extent in any other. Bees are now, 

 in our neighbourhood, living on the fruit, and conveying large 

 I quantities of saccharine matter to their hives, thus causing 

 universal complaint ; but not a single wasp have we seen. — 

 GEoniiE Fox, Kiiirisliridge, Devon. 



THE NATIONAL POULTRY COMPANY. 



Instead of saying, as we did in our last, that the Company's 

 establishment at Bromle3' is completed, we should have said 

 that a sixth part is completed, for it is purposed to have five 

 other buildings similar to that we described and pourtrayed 

 last week. ^Ye then intimated our purpose of giving fuller 

 details, and we now carry our piu'pose into effect. 



The site has been well chosen, for the soil is very light, and 

 the subsoil gravel. This is essential, not only for rearing early 

 chickens, but for the health of adult fowls. It is more es- 

 pecially needful for carrj-ing out the experiment now in coui'se 

 of trial by this Company — namely, to rear all kinds of domestic 



fowls iu ])eus, without any runs whatever, a-voiding (he usual 

 consequent taiut aud tlisease-engendering by the deodorising 

 aud disinfecting power attributed to dry earth. £:;ff ■ . 



The floors of the hutches where rabbits are kept, and of the 

 pens in which the fowls are confined, are covered about 3 inches 

 deep with perfectly ih-y earth. This earth is turned over tho- 

 roughly twice a- week, and had been imchanged when we saw it 

 for nearly a month, and we can testify that though there were 

 about five himdred fowls in the building, and about a dozen 

 rabbits, there was not the slightest offensive effluviiun per- 

 ceptible. The earth iu the pens was perfectly dry, and, even 



