July 3, 1866. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



17 



METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS in the Suburbs of London for the "Week ending Juno 30th. 



POULTRY, BEE, and HOUSEHOLD CHRONICLE. 



WHAT FOWLS SHALL I KEEP? 



No one will be intelligent who does not ask questions. My 

 brother presided on Thursday last at a large horn sheep sale — 

 2465 sheep, late the property of James Davis, Esq., our old 

 friend. I went to say " grace," and to support my brother. 

 I met there a well-known poultry judge, George Andrews, Esq., 

 of Dorchester. Determined to gain all the information I could, 

 I asked him which were the best poultry to keep. He replied, 

 " Bantams will give the most food, eggs, and flesh, for the least 

 cost ; but the best to have are a cross between the Game cock 

 and Malay, keeping both kinds pure." I told him that in all 

 competitions there were tricks. He said, " Poultry tricks were 

 worse than horse-racing." Irecei/ed his perm ssion to give 

 his opinion. I gave my friend, Archdeacon Huxtable, Mr. 

 Eeldon's second-prize Silver Dorkings, at York. I lately saw 

 them, they are magnificent. I am much inclined to Dorkings. 

 — W. P. Kadclyffe, Okeford Fitzpaine. 



[We shall be obliged by others giving their opinions, or rather 

 the results of their experience. If a supply of both eggs at the 

 time they are dearest, and good table fowls are required, we 

 are in favour of dark Cochin China pullets, and a Dorking 

 cock. — Ecs.] 



FAILURES LN HATCHING. 



January 19th, set nine eggs in hothouse : found, in twenty- 

 four days, one egg addled, others eaten. February 1st, set 

 thirteen eggs in hothouse : hen left them in a week. Feb- 

 ruary 2Gth, set twelve eggs in hothouse : in three weeks all bad. 

 March 21st, set thirteen eggs in hothouse : in three weeks all 

 bad. May 12th, set fourteen eggs in hothouse : in three weeks 

 one egg only left. May 14th, set fourteen eggs in hothouse : 

 in three weeks two chicks dead and four eggs eaten, others 

 addled. Lost seventy-five eggs ! 



The hens sat regularly, and only came off the nests once 

 a-day for food and drink ; but you will perceive that three hens 

 ate part of the eggs. Am I to kill every hen guilty of eating 

 eggs ? My cocks are two to three years old, and the hens are 

 about the same age. I had a Creve Cceur (pullet, said to be), 

 from a first-rate establishment well known to you ; she never 

 laid an egg, and cost, when ready for cooking, 10s. a-pound. 

 What do you think will be the balance of my poultry account 

 on the 30th of June? I do not overfeed, and look after them 

 myself ! Have you a column for amateur poultry breeders 

 who become bankrupt ? — A Two-years Amateur, rut not 

 Daunted. 



[You have mismanagement somewhere, and if you appear in 

 onr list of poultry bankrupts we shall be obliged, we fear, to 

 suspend your certificate when we have made sufficient inquiry 

 into your case. We cannot understand the prevalence of bad 

 eggs. We do not believe they are naturally so, because some 

 had chickens in them, and we believe they all hud. You have 

 bad sitters and egg-eater3, and they will spoil all eggs entrusted 

 to them. An uuimpregnated egg will not chaugo under a hen, 

 because, having no germ, it has no life. An addled egg has had 

 the principle of life more or less developed, and it has then 

 been allowed to die; this renders decay possible, and it takes 

 place. Hens are in a highly diseased or unnatural state when 

 they eat the eggs on which they are sitting. We should not 

 he surprised if the atmosphere of a hothouse was the cause of 



it. Pheasants and Partridges, or hens that steal a nest in a 

 hedge or dry ditch, never do it. Take them out of the hot- 

 house, let them run naturally, and sit on the ground, feed 

 well, but moderately, and we believe you will find a different 

 balance next year, or this year with late chickens.] 



Clitheroe Aoricultural Society.— We are glad to find 

 that the Committee of this Association have set an example 

 worthy of imitation in allotting the prize money usually given 

 to horned cattle, which are this year excluded, to the poultry. 

 On reference to our advertising columns it will be seen that 

 the prizes are very liberal, and we trust that the increased 

 patronage of poultry amateurs will justify the Association in 

 repeating the experiment annually. Adequate protection from 

 sun and rain will be provided. 



MY APIARY.— No. 



now i work it. 



Ha vino fixed upon the Swiss chalet as the most appropriate 

 form of villa residence for my bees, it seemed only natural 

 that the floors of the galleries running round it, externally, 

 should serve as their settle-boards. This was accordingly done, 

 and the inside ledges on which the hives rest, were made to 

 correspond exactly with these, the lower ledge being 1 foot 

 7 inches from the" floor, the upper one, 3 feet 7 inches, for in- 

 stead of shelves, I have a fixed ledge 1) inch thick, supporting 

 the front of the bottom boards of my boxes, and a bar sup- 

 ported by an upright in the centre for the backs to rest upon, 

 which arrangement I find more convenient. The inside of my 

 house is 7 feet square, which allows sufficient room for six 

 hives in front (three in a tier), and four on each side, fourteen 

 in all, the door being at the back or north side. There are 

 two windows in the front, or south side, above the top tier of 

 hives; but I find this arrangement inconvenient, and I should 

 recommend only one window for a bee-house, and that, if pos- 

 sible, at the back, where there are no hives, the whole of it 

 being made to open easily, and, at the same time to admit of 

 being easily darkened by a closely-fitting shutter. The sides 

 of my house are 7 feet high to the plate, the roof having a 

 pitch of 2 feet 8 inches from this to the centre, and overlapping 

 2 feet all round. The material used in the construction is 

 three-inch deal, boarded inside and out with thin planks 

 tongued and beaded. The tunnels, therefore, through which 

 the bees have to enter from the galleries to the inside ledges, 

 are nearly 4 inches long, and the floor-board of each hive 

 has to be fitted closely and exactly to the mouth of this. The 

 whole building is set upon three courses of brickwork. There 

 is, as the engraving shows (see page 465), a wide shelf running 

 along the outside front of the house, upon which I have some- 

 times placed hives or boxes, but never, as yet, with bees in 

 them, having found fourteen stocks, as many as I could keep 

 with safety in this locality. 



I am not aware that there is anything peculiar in my system 

 of management, as I have adopted L. L. Langstroth's plan of 

 frame hives, and work them very much according to the di- 

 rections given in his book, either making all my swarms ti- 

 ficially, when I wish to increase the number of my stocks, or 

 adopting the plan which he recommends, of making three out 

 of two by driving and removing, and which he pronounces to 

 be the best plan of all for increasing stocks, and keeping them 

 strong. But it may be well, perhaps, to mention one peculiar 

 feature in my arrangements this year, as likely to interest our 



