392 



JOOENAL OF HORTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ November 7, 1805. 



METEOROLOGIdl, OBSERVATIONS in tlie Suburbs of London for the Week ending November 4th. 



POULTRY, BEE, and HOUSEHOLD CHRONICLE. 



REARING CHICKENS ARTIFICIALLY. 



As I consider that I was successful in rearing a stock of eight 

 dozen chickens with very little trouble or expense, and as I 

 owe the attempt to do so to having read the discussions on the 

 subject in your Journal last winter, I think that I ought to say 

 a few words in acknowledgment my success. 



Being only a half-believer I did not incur much expense in 

 the matter, merely procuring a ttout box made with the lid on 

 hinges, and close-fitting, cut on a slope like a melon-frame, 

 one half of the lid only being glazed, and there was a hole in 

 the side, with a sliding door. In this box I put two low stools 

 with a thick fleecy top, for artificial mothers, and I placed the 

 box close beside a spare large garden frame, which stood on dry 

 ground. I had the chickens close to my flower-frames, and looked 

 after them chiefly myself. This frame, to which I admitted 

 them at pleasure by di-awing the slide, answered for their covered 

 rim or "day room," till they were a few weeks old, when I 

 used to allow my pets to take a run in the garden several times 

 a day. It was quite curious to see how fond they became of 

 the frame, and how fhey used to flock to me from all sides to 

 be let in. and to bask on the warm gravel under the glass. I 

 took each chick from the hen the day it was hatched. I had 

 not one sickly or drooping chicken the whole summer. 



The advantages I found in this system, even trying it in a 

 small way, were these : First, they did not cost in feeding 

 nearly so much as when carelessly fed in the fowl-yard, where 

 stronger fowls, dogs, /cc, robbed them of their milk and food. 

 Secondly, they throve quicker and feathered better a gi-eat deal, 

 from getting the full share of that food appointed for them, as 

 well as from the genial and uniform warmth of the frame, in- 

 stead of being often weary and wet when enticed by the hen to 

 walk about all day through grass and elsewhere. Thirdly, I 

 found the hens lose so little in condition by merely twenty-one 

 days sitting (being well fed once every day), that they laid and 

 hatched a second time early in summer. These advantages 

 ought to make the system worth a trial, even by those who 

 might not coimt it, as I did, an amusement. — A Subscp.ibee. 



DUCK-FOOT IN GAIVtE— WHITE FACE OF 

 SPANISH FOWLS. 



Whatever may be the opinion of your readers with regard 

 to the Poultry Club, and its management, there can be no 

 doubt that the publication of a " Standard of Excellence," by 

 a body composed chiefly of extensive breeders of almost all 

 the varieties of fowls, must be of very great use to exhibitors. 

 When any one takes to fowls as a hobby, and in order to make 

 his hobby more attractive breeds for exhibition, he is probably 

 at first entirely ignorant of the points most necessary to insure 

 success. To such a tyro a " standard of excellence " is of great 

 value, and has long been a desideratum. 



There is another advantage. The diilerenee of opinion with 

 regard to the most valuable points in fowls must produce dis- 

 cussion, when the assertion of a standard caUs it forth. As an 

 example, let us instance the valuable paper which the dis- 

 cussion on the " duck-foot " in Game fowls has drawn from 

 Mr. Hewitt, I never saw a more lucid or truly useful essay. In 

 that paper, the question whether this deformity is hereditary 

 or not is fairly discussed, and Mr. Hewitt supplies facts which 

 seem conclusively to prove that it is so. Should other ob- 



servers be able to produce similar facts, there can be no doubt 

 about the propriety of making the possession of such a de- 

 formity a cause of disqualification. 



In the " Stand.ard of Excellence " it is clearly laid down that 

 the face of a Spanish fowl should be free from folds and wrinkles, 

 and that any corrugation of the face which prevents a bird from 

 seeing is a, disqualification ; yet, how often do we see prizes 

 awarded to cocks which are blind, or must be so in time ; to 

 hens with such coarse faces that it is imijossible that they can 

 produce cocks free from this trotiblesome defect. Every breeder 

 of Spanish fowls knows how useless such cocks become, and 

 that nothing but a cruel mutilation can make them able even 

 to feed themselves. Such birds are generally useless as breed- 

 ing stock after their first year. Surely such a deformity, which 

 is decidedly hereditary, should invariably disquahfy its pos- 

 sessor. 



It would be a great boon to Spanish breeders if Mr. Hewitt 

 would give another of his valuable papers on this subject, which 

 is evidently not sufBciently thought of by some judges, and is 

 a source of difficulty and doubt to those who breed Spanish 

 fowls for exhibition. — Quality. 



[I am obliged by the favourable opinion expressed by youi- 

 correspondent, who signs himself " Qualitv," of my com- 

 munication respecting the deformity of " duck-foot " in Game 

 fowls. I also embrace the present opportunity to return my 

 best thanks for the many courteous letters of hke approval 

 which I have received from other soinces. I can only say, that 

 if I have aided in any degree to ventilate the subject, I am 

 satisfied that my trouble will not have been thrown away ; at 

 least, so far as it elicits the expression of opinions that might 

 not otherwise have been made public. 



Your correspondent asks me to give my own views as to the 

 coarse corrugated faces which we frequently meet with in 

 Spanish fowls. My ideas assimilate so very closely to those 

 expressed by " Quality" himself, that to enter on the greater 

 portion of that gentleman's details wotdd amount to a useless 

 recapitulation. I have, however, known a very heavy-faced 

 Spanish cock well shown for several successive years, but he 

 was in very careful hands. His face was kept scruptdonsly 

 clean, being frcqueutly washed with cold milk-and-water, and 

 afterwards tenderly dusted, under the folds, with violet powder. 

 This bird never became excoriated at all, and could see well to 

 the end of his days, but in his late years proved an almost 

 useless stock bird. This is, however, rather the exception from 

 the general rule. Most of such Spanish cocks at three or four 

 years old become hopelessly bhnd, and cannot feed at all, 

 except from corn in a vessel, eating rather by the guidance of 

 the touch than by eyesight. All specimens in this state fail 

 entirely for procreation. Neglected faces in Spanish cocks very 

 frequently become absolutely offensive from ulceration ; cer- 

 tainly not a very great point for encouragement or admiration 

 to even the fondest of Spanish amateurs, and a failing that has 

 often caused me to pass birds unnoticed. 



But if we will but look for it, we can always find a sunny as 

 well as a dark side to everything in this world. " Cauliflower- 

 faced " Spanish fowls, as thc-y are commonly called, are a most 

 useful auxiliary to keep up the size of the faces in Spanish 

 fowls, by occasional judicious crossing, and not less so, to keep 

 up, or rather increase, the size of their progeny; for the beau- 

 tiful white kid-like faces of most specimens, if bred closely for a 

 few years, entail a degeneracy of size in their chickens to such 

 an extent as amounts to imperfection. The smooth delicately 

 white face in Spanish fowls, mthout folds or corrugations, is 

 quite an exhibition favourite ; but I cannot go so far against 

 the larger-sized strain as " Qu.u.in- " suggests — viz., to at once 



