152 



JOUENAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ Angust 21, 1866. 



Red Spider on Orchard-house Peach Trees— Apiu cots Late in 

 Ripening (A. B. C). — You must continue to svrinpe your Pench trees in 

 the morning; the flavour of the fruit mny suffer a. little, but better that 

 than allow the trees to be weakened by red spider. Your ventilation 

 must be deficient, or perhaps your orchard-house is in a confined posi- 

 tion, for our trees treated as detailed in page 87 are perfectly free. You 

 may safely syringe the trees after the fruit is gathered with the decoc- 

 tion of quassia chips, 4 ozs. to the gallon, boiled ten minutes, adding to 

 it while cooling 4 ozs. of soft soap. This will injure neither leaves nor 

 buds. You should have kept that part of your house in which are the 

 Apricot trees warm as soon as the fruit commenced to swell towards 

 ripening. The trees would have remained healthy, and the fruit would 

 have ripened early. Apricots are easily retarded by abundant ventilation, 

 while Peaches and Nectarines often ripen freely with it in sunny weather. 

 All the ventilators may be open in October and November, except in 

 stormy weather, when the entrance of a violent gale may do mischief. 



Victoria Nectarine (J. W. G.).~ Yonr own surmise is a correct one. 

 There is no doubt but that the ungenial weather of the present summer 

 has been unfavourable to the ripening of all fruits that prefer and require 

 a warm and bright season ; and the Victoria Nectarine is one of those. 



Drying Fbrns (E. B.).— Gather the fronds when they are perfectly 

 dry, and spread them out neatly on sheets of paper— old newspapers 

 will do very well ; pile them one over the other, and cover with a piece 

 of board, on which put as much weight ns will keep them perfectly flat. 

 Change the papers, or dry them once a-day, and in a few days the fronds 

 will be quite dry. 



Names of Plants (Larhenalia).— We cannot do anything with the 

 plants unless you attach numbers to them. Thanks for the returns of 

 rainfall, but we must decline them till the end of the year, when we shall 

 be pleased to publish the observations for the year. The two Number- 

 which you name will be sent free by post for eight penny stamps. 

 \Rodolph).— 1, Stachys sylvatica; 2, Epilobium hirsutum ; S, Verbascum 

 nigrum; 4, Senecio sylvaticus. (Erica).— 1, Erica einerea; 2, Erica 

 cinerea covered with Cuscuta europa;a ; 3, Cnlluna vulgaris; 5, Erica 

 vagans. {J. B.).~l. Adiantum capillus-Veneris ; 2, Adiantum cuneatum ; 

 ?,. Pellcea adiantifolia ; 4, Platyloma rotnndifolia ; 5, Nothochlrcna rufa ; 

 G, Pleopeltis nuda(?); 7, Onychium japonicum; fl, Pellsea ternifolia ; 

 10, Aspidium molle ; 11, Davallia elegans; 13, Platycerium alcicorne. 

 (H. T. II'.). — 1, Lysimachia vulgaris ; 2, Kerria japonic* fl. pleno. 

 i.s. .i. V. i.— Probably Lastrea puuctulata. (Hiipcricvw).— The "Violet, 

 V. cornuta, is not a native plant. 



METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS in the Suburbs of London for the Week ending August lBth. 



POULTRY, BEE, and HOUSEHOLD CHRONICLE. 



VULTURE HOCK IN COCHINS AND BRAHMAS. 



" A Questioning Bkaitma " has again mooted this point, and 

 the reply is, " Why were they ever produced ?" This is, in fact, 

 the question asked, and I suppose I must take it and the con- 

 test as the reply to my challenge, of which " Justitia " speaks, 

 given so many months ago, to which, in truth, I felt confident 

 that " silence had given consent." Is it worth while to open 

 up all this question again? I am certain the "Judge" will 

 never convert me ; and as far as I can make out, there is i 

 only one judge who holds the opinion that moderate vulture 

 hock is not a necessary qualification of a thoroughly good 

 Brahma. I have been led to this belief by the career of my 

 old cock, " Champion." In his long life he has made acquaint- 

 ance with a great number, and some variety, too, of judges. 

 I may say that with the great majority of them he has been on 

 most friendly terms, and they have constantly expressed their 

 good opinion of him. Once, and once only, did Mr. Hewitt, 

 allowed by all to be the most able judge we have, ever omit to i 

 notice him. It was in a very large class, and I am quite con- { 

 vinced it was an oversight, and " Champion " forgave him, as 

 he never bore malice, and within a fortnight, in a severe com- 

 petition, Mr. Hewitt awarded him first prize. Since then the 

 gentleman to whom Mr. Hewitt awarded the first prize at the ' 

 exhibition where " Champion " was unnoticed, wrote to me 

 for birds, saying he had remarked my pen at the show, and he 

 considered them " perfect," though somewhat smaller than his 

 own. This gentleman knows as well as the " able Judge " 

 what a good bird is, and whenever he exhibits, which is not 

 often, his specimens are always near the top, if not quite there. 

 " Against this I place the other fact, that at the only shows other 

 than that mentioned, where Champion has remained unnoticed, 

 the same judge, whom I fancy (rightly or wrongly, I cannot 

 say), to be the "Judge" replying in "our Journal," is the 

 awarder of honours. Now does not this appear like an isolated 

 opinion against the moderate vulture hock and a host in favour 

 of it? Against it we have the "able Judge's" unsupported 

 opinion, for I trust I am not mis-stating the case ; no single 

 exhibitor has given in his adhesion against the hock, at least 

 to my knowledge. What have we in favour of it ? — all the 

 judges whom old " Champion " has had the pleasure to meet ; 

 the majority of breeders ; the " Standard of Excellence ; " 

 Mr. B. P. Brent, no light authority ; our Editors ; the " Poultry 

 Book," brought out at the time of the Cochin fever and before 



Brahmas were scarcely known ; and. lastly, that which I before 

 advanced, and which no words of the " Judge " can possibly 

 refute — the fact that the drawings of these birds, as iu their 

 earliest days they were presented to Her Majesty, are unmis- 

 takeably vulture-hocked birds. 



I might rest the case here, I think ; but before I close, I will, 

 however, further glance at the reply attached to " A Question- 

 ing Brahma's " letter, "There was an attempt at the second 

 London Shoic (the italics are mine) to admit the vulture hock." 

 Is this allowed ? Then, I ask, wherever did it spring from, 

 if not from the birds themselves ? Thus early the vulture 

 hock intrudes itself. The "Judge" supposes some freak or 

 cross, but he does not explain how this was possible. Ptar- 

 migans, Serai Taook fowls, if I recollect rightly, were not then 

 introduced, and the old booted Bantam alone enjoyed the ap- 

 pendage ; but it is impossible that Cochins and Brahmas 

 derived it from this source. Whence, then ? The Gwynne 

 Cochins and the Sturgeon Cochins, I know personally, never 

 patronised the naked hock that disfigures many Brahmas and 

 Cochins now-a-days. " Evidence was at once collected, to.," 

 he continues, but where is this evidence to be found ? Nobody 

 knows. Surely, the " Poultry Book," written in the very height 

 of the Cochin fever, would not have committed itself to the op- 

 posite opinion, or, at least, would have noticed this evidence. 

 Possibly, too, there is another reason why the first imported 

 birds should have been naked-ltocki d .- I say this, taking: it for 

 granted they were so, but unable to credit it. It is quite 

 possible that the natives valuing the moderate vulture hock, 

 would not part with these birds until the prices rose to the 

 fabulous amounts all of us who recollect the period can re- 

 member. 



But he continues — " If the objection to the vulture hock 

 were new, or only just published, then those who possess" 

 vulture-hocked birds might justly complain, and ask why they 

 were excluded from competition ; but they have always been 

 excluded." I pass over my own personal experience of Brahmas, 

 fairly successful. I have kept them a dozen years, and always 

 more or less vulture-hocked, and I ask, What can our " Judge " 

 mean by "exclusion from competition?" Is his memory so 

 short that he cannot recollect the grand show at the Agricul- 

 tural Hall, Islington, two years or so ago ? In the largest class 

 of Brahmas that had ever been seen, and in a most severe com- 

 petition, a vulture-hocked pen was awarded first prize, and 

 though on all hands it was allowed that the second-prize pec 

 ought to have been first, I never heard that any objection 

 would have been raised to this pen receiving second prize ; and 

 if "always excluded," how is it that my old "Champion" 



