370 



JOUKNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ Novomlxr 4, 18C9. 



the last week's " Joarcal " — he preeented the pioluro cf a man 

 ■who knew how to spend his hours of retirement happily. Mr. 

 Fox was a member of the Society of FriendB, and was mnch 

 respected by men of all creeds in Devizes as a good Christian 

 man, — WiLTsniKK Rectob. 



PRIZES FOR FRENCH VARIETIES OF FOWLS. 

 As a breeder of Cruve-Cccnrs, I think they and the French 

 Tarieties generally (considering their valuable qnalities as layers, 

 bird« for table, or ornamental poultry), are not placed in a snffi- 

 ciently hononrable position by many Rentlemeu who undertake 

 the management of poultry exhibitions. In fact, they are fre- 

 quently left entirely without a class. For instance, I have written 

 for and received the following catalogues of shows selected from 

 your list — Chester, Bradford, Oakham, and Leeds, and find no 

 class for any French variety in any one of them. Now, consider- 

 ing the competition we meet where classes are allotted to us, 

 and tlie large and increasing number of breeders interested in 

 these fine birds, I think we ought to have more opportunities 

 to learn whether our favourites are as good specimens as those 

 belonging to other exhibitors.— Blackbird. 



POULTRY- KEEriNG IN AMERICA. 



I.N ponllry management there seem to be some particulars 

 on which light is needed on your side of the water as well as 

 here. For the iirst time in ten years I have this season been 

 troubled by feather-eating fowls, but find no remedy. I had 

 some experience a few years since with a disease on the legs of 

 fowls, appearing like an eruption, and occasioning a rough 

 warty appearance. I thought it contagions. I let a neighbour 

 have a broody hen thus affected to sit, and the chickens hatched 

 becjime affected also, nothing of the kind having been seen 

 amongst his fowls before. In January, 186S, I received three 

 Hondans from Messrs. Baily & Son; they were perfectly smooth- 

 leg?;ed, and are so still, as were all their chickens of last year 

 (more than fifty), but this year I have noticed three with a 

 slight tendency to feather-leg. One was hatched early in spring. 



Afterwards I received a pair of Houdans from Mr. J. C. 

 Cooper, Limerick ; all their produce are smooth-legged, but in 

 a brood hatched in August from the Cooper hen by the Baily 

 cock there were two showing feather-legs. Some two or three 

 feather-legged fowls have run with the Baily cock occasionally. 

 Must I believe this to be the cause of his producing these 

 feather-legged chickens ? I am told that a slight feathering on 

 the leg is often seen amongst Houdans, even imported ones ; 

 is there anything in their original make to cause it, or that 

 they have picked up and incorporated in their constitution so 

 that it crops out occasionally ' 



In January last I noticed a fine large pullet, a cross between 

 a White Dorking and a Brahma, on her nest apparently dead. 

 She had not laid, and I supposed her death was caused by her 

 efforts to do so. I was very sorry to lose her, as there were four 

 sisters, much alike, all laying. I took her out some ten rods 

 into the woods, poised her on my hand, and tossed her as far as 

 I could ; the snow was about a foot deep, and hard on the top, 

 and she came down on it heavily, and lay as she struck, feet 

 upwards. My thought on hearing her strike was, if there is 

 an egg there it is surely broken. About ten days afterwards I 

 saw one of these crossbred pullets on a nest, and when I came 

 away left the door open, so that the fowls might come out. 

 After a time I noticed the three pullets outside, and went for 

 the egg as the weather was rather chilly, and was astonished to 

 find the first-named bird on the nest, alive, well, and laving. 

 This brought to mind directly the big egg I had found aboit 

 the time of the supposed death of this pullet. I do not remember 

 the dimensions, but it measured somewhere about SJ inches 

 round oneway; it was in the last-named nest, and it seems 

 probable laid by this pullet after her snow bath. Was not this 

 the best treatment, aside from the roughness, that could have 

 been adopted ? She was rather shy for a long time, but is 

 all right, and has laid many a large egg since. — Pegam, JVellfx- 

 ley, Massacliuscts. V.S.A, 



[We are more than pleased with the communication of our 

 transatlantic reader, and wish heartily there were a more frequent 

 interchange. We have advocated it for many years, and shall 

 be indeed glad if this letter should prove the harbinger of a 

 continued correspondence. If we can name no cure for the 

 plague you speak of, we can say whether we suffer from the 

 game ; if we do, we can state all the symptoms. 



We have also suffered from feather-eaters for the second 

 time this year. We have large pens opening on an orchard. 

 We have Buff Cochins, Grouse Cochins, Houdans, Spanish, 

 CrLveCrtUrs. and Brahma?. AH are fed alike, and nothing is 

 neglected that is supposed to be good for their health. First 

 Houdans took to feather-eating; then Spanish. They did not 

 do it by halves, they positively ate part of the fowls ; with the 

 exception of the principal feathers of the tail and wings, none 

 remained. The birds were in perfect condition, and fat ; the 

 hens laid. The first experiment was to reduce the food as 

 much as might be consistent with health ; they were also 

 supplied with lettuces, and spots of earth were turned up daily 

 that they might search the mould — useless. Next, the fowls 

 were rubbed all over with the bitterest ointment a chemist 

 could make. The fowls bit at it, shook their heads, seemed as 

 though they would try to spit it out. Then they went up to a 

 bird where a bare and almost raw spot peeped temptingly 

 through the ointment, looked at it, and withdrew, and came 

 again, and at last, plucking up courage, went boldly at the 

 tempting morsel. This was a failure. Next we put them in 

 confinement, two or three in a small cage ; they did not eat 

 the feathers so much as when at liberty, but they still ate 

 them. 



The Spanish carried on the filthy practice worse than the 

 Houdans. In neither ca=e, with the exception of the tail 

 feathers, did they pick the flesh. It was the feather only they 

 wanted, and as fast as stubs appeared for forming the new 

 feather, they picked them out. 



The disposition of the pens where the propensity manifested 

 itself was as follows : — In one pen were Buff Cochins ; next, 

 Light Brahmas ; next. Grouse Cochins ; next, Houdans ; next, 

 Spanish : then Crfve-Conur. The two middle pens, Houdans 

 and the Spanish, were desperate feather-eaters. They seem to 

 delight in it most in very hot weather, and are, we think, dis- 

 posed to renounce their evil ways now winter is drawing nigh. 

 They never had the habit till last year, and we are without a 

 remedy for it. 



We have not told any of the hundred and one experiments 

 we have tried in the way of withholding or changing food ; we 

 have not mentioned the numberless nostrums and certain 

 cures recommended to us. We consulted our medical man, 

 and succeeded in making him take an interest in the case. We 

 even condescended to ask the old women. They said, " They 

 knowed nuttbin about it. Their chickens never did nutthin of 

 the kind." No one could help us, no one did help us. We 

 have heard of it from all quarters. The most experienced say 

 it is a new thing, and they have no remedy for it. We have 

 noticed all our lives that about the moulting time, and in 

 certain condition of body, the moment a feather falls from a 

 hen, another picks it up and swallows if. We have known one 

 become a feather-eater, but she was always detected, and re- 

 moved. We have never known anything like this year's expe- 

 rience. We have never known the cock become a convert to 

 the filthy habit. 



The warty appearance of the legs is common in old Cochins. 

 It is seen sometimes in chickens, but seldom. In the latter it 

 is to be cured with compound sulphur ointment ; in the old 

 birds we think it incurable. We have never seen it in any 

 breed but the Cochin and the La Flrche. A Cochin is old and 

 worn out at three years, and it is at that age this sort of " gal- 

 linaceous elephantiasis " appears. 



We can say nothing to the appearance of feathers the second 

 year on the legs of the Houdan. It is a very common occur- 

 rence to find a tendency to feathered legs in many breeds. It 

 is very common in the Dorking. We are not prepared to say 

 whether the feathered-legged hens caused others to have fea- 

 thered-legged cbickens, but there are strange things of this 

 sort. We can vouch for the truth of the following : — A person 

 well known to us had a yard of Spanish fowls at a very lonely 

 spot far from any house. There was no other breed, with the 

 exception of one hen, a Chittagong, kept for her valuable pro- 

 perties as a mother. She had a reddish-brown plumage. After 

 a time many of the Spanish came with a brown, others with a 

 red saddle. Our friend, vexed with such a result, consulted 

 those whom he thought calculated to give him a good opinion. 

 One, a person of much experience, but living very many miles 

 from the place where the fowls were kept, at once asked the ques- 

 tion, " Have you a hen of any other colour running with them ? " 

 Oar friend said, "Tes." "Well," said he, "remove her, and 

 you will remove the evil." It was so. There are curious facts 

 to be noted in poultry, and it they can be explained, so mnch 

 the better. We have at the present time a Spanish hen which 



