320 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ October 28, 186C. 



Wintering Mrs. Pollock Geraniums (Agnes).— You will do well to 

 place Mrs. Pollock and other polden-leavcd Geraniums in a house with a 

 gentle heat for a few days, and also winter them in a rather warm green- 

 house. In a cool house they do not grow freely. Avoid damp, especially 

 with cold. Cloth of Gold and Golden Chain with us this year have been 

 fine; but they have done very indifferently in many places. Ours are 

 grown in very rich open soil, which we find essential. 



Fruit Trees Overgrowing a Wall (A Scottish Subscriber). — Your 

 Apple, Plum, and Cherry trees which have overgrown your wall, 5 feet 

 high, and a wooden fence of 7 feet in height, may be cut down level with 

 the top. and the branches being trained horizontally, the trees will do at 

 that height of wall and fence. Our espalier trees are not more than 3 feet 

 in height, and we have some hundreds of yards of Pear and Apple trees 

 trained horizontally. Your gardener's proposed plan of having a wire 

 trellis fixed upon the top of the wall and fence is novel, and may answer, 

 the only danger will be that the trees will be liable to injury from winds. 

 We are not able to improve upon it. If your garden be sheltered the 

 plan would be worth trial with the wall. 



Making Garden on a Gravelly Soil (IT.). — We also are now making 

 anew garden, and ouv soil, like jours, is from a foot to 15 inches deep on 

 a bed of gravel. We are trenching it as deeply as we can without bring- 

 ing up the gravel, putting the top Boil in the bottom of the trench. This 

 is what we advise with your ground: trench it by all means, but avoid 

 bringing the gravel to the surface. Your soil being shallow and well 

 drained, we would not advise planting the fruit trees on mounds, for 

 that would only tend to render the soil more dry, and the trees would be 

 more liable to suffer from drought in summer, which you will have to 

 guard against by liberal applications of coolmanure and copious supplies 

 of liquid manure. 



Arranging Tulips and Hyacinths in Beds (F. J.). — For a bed of 

 early single Tulips you may have a centre of Pottebakker (white), Rob 

 Roy (bronzy crimson), Canary Bird (yellow), Ma plus Aimable (red, orange 

 flakes), Luna (white), Due Van Thul (scarlet), Golden Prince (yellow), 



Vermilion Brilliant (scarlet), and Jagt Van Delft (white). Double Tulips, 

 centre : Marriage de ma Fille (white, striped violet rose). Yellow Rose 

 (yellow), Rex Rubrorum (scarlet), La Candeur (white), Tournesol (scarlet 

 and yellow), Imperator Rubrorum (crimson scarlet), and Due Van Thol, 

 edged with Scilla campanulata (blue), and S. campanulata alba (white), 

 which last are the best varieties of Scilla campanulata. They would 

 have a good effect in conjunction with scarlet and yellow Due Van Thol 

 Tulips. Of Hyacinths you can only have them in red, white, and blue 

 shades, beginning with white as a centre, then red, white, and blue, and 

 so on. For the centre of an octagon bed, no evergreen is so gay as 

 Berbcris Darwinian and yet we would recommend a tree Box of pyramidal 

 form, a dwarf Hully, or something of that kind. 



Wintering Geraniums and Fuchsias in a Room (Idem), — The plants 

 of Fuchsias and Geraniums would bo preserved equally well in a room 

 as in a cellar, providing it were frost-proof. 



Trees for Plantation {Okas. Wade). — In your border 21 feet wide 

 you will have room for five rows of trees. 1st Row, 2 feet from the 

 boundary, back wall, or fence, Lime trees alternately with Scotch Fir; 

 2nd row, English Elm, with Norway Spruce between the Elms; 3rd, Sy- 

 camore, Beech, Ibnse-Chestnut, and Spanish Chestnut, alternately with 

 Yew and Holly ; -1th, Purple Beech, Thorn Acacia, Mountain Ash, Norway 

 Maple, and variogated Sycamore, alternately with common Laurels; 

 front row, Libic, Syringa, Ribes, and Gueldres Rose, alternately with 

 Laurustinus, Aucuba japonica, Mahonia aquifolium, Berberis Darwinii, 

 and St. John's Wort. Plant in rows -1 feet apart, and the seme distance 

 from plant to plant in the row, an evergreen being placed between the 

 deciduous trees. If the ground were trenched previous to planting, the 

 trees would do all the better afterwards. 



Names of Fruits (N. it.).— The Pear is Thompson's ; the Apple, Here- 

 fordshire Pearmain. (E. H.). — The Pear is Marie Louise. No. 1, Cellini ; 

 2, Golden Reinctte. (P. E. T.).—l and 2, Easter Beurre Pear. 



Names of Plants (W. .S.).— It is not a Fern, but an Alchemilla. (2f. S.) 

 — Pilca muscosa, or Artillery Plant. 



METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS in the Suburbs of London for the Week ending October \jnth. 



POULTRY, BEE, and HOUSEHOLD CHRONICLE. 



POULTRY SUPPLY. 



When there were no exhibitions all the poultry that was 

 bred was eaten at home or sent to market. There was no 

 other mode of disposing of it. Now more poultry is kept, hut 

 all try for the " blue ribbons," the large prizes at the large 

 shows, and also for the sales at exhibitions at prices that can 

 only be realised after success. To compass this, birds are 

 kept till they are too old for table purposes, and, on the other 

 hand, the competitors are considered so valuable that after 

 a selection of the likely ones is made, the remainder, the most 

 numerous part, are either destroyed or neglected. As a rule, 

 those who are the largest exhibitors contribute little, if at all, 

 to the supply of food beyond developing the good qualities of 

 the different breeds. This is no light work, and they deserve 

 thanks for doing it ; but here we come to a full stop. We have 

 no class to step in, and, acting on the knowledge that is ac- 

 quired, to breed for table purposes. Anxious on this, as on 

 every other point that comes before us as public men, we have 

 inquired into the fact, and the solution seems to be, that the 

 former large supply of poultry was due to the small farmers 

 in Surrey, Sussex, and parts of Kent. They have nearly all 

 disappeared to make room for larger ones, and these pay no 

 attention to poultry, beyond caring for chickens that are 

 hatched out, and selling them to the best advantage. They do 

 not seek to increase the number produced, nor are they at any 

 pains to take advantage of the demand that is opening up. 

 Beyond seeing to them for house consumption, eggs are not 

 considered as farm produce, yet they are imported by hundreds 

 of millions, and the money goes out of England for them by 

 thousands and tens of thousands of pounds at a time. We 

 import Geese from France. Holland, and Belgium ; thousands 

 of Turkeys, and nearly all our Pigeons come from France ; 

 Babbits from Ostend in such quantities that they sell by weight 

 as any other meat, and yet we go on buying without any effort 

 to supply part of this enormous consumption at home. 



If we were a statistical people our readers would be perfectly 

 astounded at the weight of food brought into Loudon during 

 the winter in Ostend Babbits — many tons weekly. They are 

 bred and fattened by men who have few or no advantages, 

 small houses and gardens ; but all things are worked in with a 

 sole view to profit. The refuse vegetables of the garden form 

 an item in feeding. Not a cabbage leaf is wasted or spoiled. 

 The heart of the cabbage figures on the table as a vegetable, 

 but more often as a component part of the sowpe aux cJwux, 

 while the stalk is denuded of its leaves on behalf of the Babbits 

 till cabbages in Belgium are like the elms in the neighbour- 

 hood of Slough and Datchet, presenting a long straight small 

 stalk, with a small round head. Everything is treated the 

 same. The Babbits are sent over skinned ; the skins sell well, 

 and are more valuable when fresh taken off than they would be 

 after they had travelled. The feet are cut off, and serve for 

 the manure of the garden that supplies the food. Much of 

 the manure of the rabbits is sold, or else another garden is 

 taken that it helps to render productive. At Avignon, in 

 France, the lop of the withy cut in the autumn is stacked to 

 feed the Babbits in the winter ; at Aix the same. Eggs, poultry, 

 Babbits are all articles of trade on a large scale, and it is 

 followed by men of intelligence and capital. One man, whom 

 we knew many years ago in France, began by a small trade of 

 this kind between the two countries, and settled in England. 

 At the time of his death, a few years since, he was turning 

 £200,000 per year. Such trades are made up of many small 

 producers, and a few collectors, who visit the places at stated 

 periods, take whatever may be fit for the market. In the pre- 

 sent dearth of food why cannot something be done here to 

 stimulate production and enterprise, and feed both body and 

 pocket ? 



DORKINGS. 



I cannot allow the remarks of " Newmaeeet " in your last 

 to pass unnoticed. First, as to Dorkings, " Newmarket" calls 

 them ugly, heavy, clumsy birds ; says their flesh is insipid, 



