February 18, 1875. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



140 



that of a hotbed, they will root freely. The cuttioRH will flower before the 

 cut-down plants. Pot the cuttings about the middle of I\Iaich, and put in 

 the cuttings, but without a gentle heat they will not root freely. The proper 

 method of growing Camellias is given in the " Greenhouse Manual," to bo had 

 from our office for lOd. 



ORcniDS FOR Fern House (J. T. S.). — MaBdevallia Harryana, Odouto- 

 glosBum Alexandnt, O. grantie, O. Bictonienee, (.>. citroRinum, (). Pescatoroi 

 BpIendeuB ; Ctvlogyue ciiatata major, La-lia auporbieua, Epidondvum vittllinum 

 majUB, Oncidium criRpum, Zygopetalura Mackayi, Cypripedium iusigue, 

 C. caudatum, C. venuftum, and Calunthe vestita. Other plants to tlower ure 

 Anthurium Scberiztriamim, Apbelaudra aurantiaca Roezli, Centroposon 

 Lueeana, Dalechampia Iloezliaua rosea, EuchariH aniaznnica, Franciscea 

 calyoina major, Ilippeaptium pardinum, Imantophyllum rainiatum, Pentas 

 kermesina, and Vinca albaoculata. The highest temperature should beat 

 noon or soon after, aud the temperature in dull weather should bo 5^ hi^'lier 

 by day than at night, with buu aud air 15^^ to 20' above the night or mini- 

 mum temperature may be advantageously allowed. For the temperature you 

 require, fire will be required by day as well as night. 



Cuttings of Poinsettias (Rus). — Put in the cuttinKfi now, and give 

 them a bottom beat of 75" to 80'-, with top heat of G5" to 75°, or more from 

 sun heat. A hotbed will answer very well. The cuttings should be taken 

 from well-ripened wood. 



Cydonia japonica Fruit— Seedling Oranqe {Mrs. Henderson).— The 

 fruit of Cydnnia japonica is not unlike a small Quince, but square not pear- 

 shaped, and of no use. The frees require to be some age before they fruit 

 freely, but the setting may be effected in young trees by fertilising the 

 blossoms with a camel-hair brush. A seedling Orange will not fruit within 

 five years, but seveu or more years commonly elapse before they flower. The 

 plant would be best grafted with a fruitful kind. 



He^tino Houses (J. P. of York). — If we understand you aright you pro 

 pose to have four rows of piping in the first house or stove nest the boiler 

 two flows and the same of returns ; and you want to know if the other houses 

 can be heated from these pipes, using both flows and returns. Decidedly so. 

 One of the flows may be taken forward through both houses, and return by a 

 ayphon beneath the flow, and will be the return to the boiler for the first 

 house as well as the other two. The other flow pipe will return by a syphon 

 and pipe beneath it to the boiler. You will by this, without further arrange- 

 ment, always have heat in the two cooler houses as well as in the stove. 

 This will not be necessary at times, and you will need valves upon the flow 

 pipe just before it enters the house next the stove, which we apprehend is a 

 greenhouse, and another before it enters the cool vinery, aud these will 

 enable you to work the whole separately or together. You will need also a 

 branch pipe from the flow to the return pipe iu the first and second house 

 before the valve to allow of the water returning to the boiler, and this will 

 enable you to work satisfactorily without any loss of piping. 



Irregular Gardening (G.). — Your idea is not good. Glass structures 

 require daily attention. AVe advise you to be content with out-door gardening 



AuGHiNBAUGH Blackberrv. — Miss Hall will feel much obliged for the 

 name of a fruit-grower where she can purchase the ' Aughinbaugh' Black 

 berry, raised in California. 



Rose Cuttings in Open Ground (B. B.). — The cuttings -will now be 

 forming roots, and may be left where they are until April, when they should 

 be faken-up carefully and potted in small puts aud pla-iod in a cold frame for 

 a time, being shaded from bright sun, and when they have rooted freely 

 harden well off, and plai^t-out in the open ground or keep in pots, shifting 

 into larger pots as required, and plunged in ashes in an open but sheltered 

 situation. Instead of potting you may plant them out in an open situation 

 in April, in rows about 2 feet apart, with 6-inch distance from plant to plant, 

 watering if the weather be dry. In autumn they may be planted where they 

 are to remain. Some of the plants after potting or plantiug will fail, as not 

 all emitting incipient roots become plants. 



LiBONiA FLORiBUNDA (A. B.). — That is the name of the plant of which 

 you sent us a flowering spray. It is a very pretty, free-flowering, greenhouse 

 plant, and wat? introduced in 1884 from Brazil. It is a softwooded shrub, 

 and of easy culture. It camg to this country from German gardens. 



Names of Fruits {A. B«j?5).— We regret we cannot identify the Pear you 

 sent. It is quite worthless, and the best thing you can do, if the fruit are all 

 like the specimen, is to uraft the tree with a better sort. {Arcturii$). — 

 1, Easter BeurrL-; 2, Flemish Bon Chrrtien. 



POULTRY, BEE, AND PIGEON OHRONIOLE. 



THE EXHIBITION DORKING.— No. 8. 



BY T. C. BURNELL. 



For the first fortnight of their lives chickens should be fed at 

 least every two hours, and no amount of care and trouble ex- 

 pended on them will be too much if we wish to rear prize birds. 

 Size is the principal point in a Dorking, and size is only to be 

 obtained by breeding from the finest birds, and by feeding the 

 chickens early aud late on the best aud most nutritions food. 

 Chickens are awake with the lark ; aud as it is " the early bird 

 which gathers the worm," we, too, mast be up with the lark if 

 we do not wish our chickens to be in the rear when the all- 

 eventful show-day comes. If we happen to have a poultrymau 

 who can be depended upon we are indeed lucky, but such are 

 very few and far between, and far better will it be to pay for a 

 little knowledge and become experienced in time than to go on 

 paying high wages to one who very likely knows but little more 

 than yourself, and who will certainly teach you nothing. Two 

 guineas a- week and more are now commonly paid to a first-class 

 poultry manager, and there is but little doubt that if we can 

 afford to keep a poultrymau, the best are the cheapest in the end. 



After the first day my chickens have whole groats as a staple 

 food, varied with a little hard-boiled egg chopped fine and 

 ground oats mixed very dry. In a week or ten days they will 

 relish small wheat, and occasionally a little chopped meat may 



be given them as the egg ia discontinued. The great point will 

 be neither to let them eat too much at a time nor leave any, so 

 that, if possible, they may always have an appetite at feeding 

 time. If in the hot weather their appetite seems to leave them, 

 a little gentian bark grated into the meal will be beneficial; but 

 as chickens get older they do not require to be fed so often, and 

 the interval between meals may be gradually extended till, at 

 about four months old, they are fed aboat three timi-s a-day. If 

 new milk can be obtained they will much enjoy a drink of it 

 the first thing in the morning ; but too much coddling will only 

 tend to make them delicate. 



It will be a very wise course to weed out the chickens as early 

 as possible, as the fewer there are the better they will thrive. 

 Two or three in every brood may generally be selected for the 

 spit without much trouble, as defective and crooked toes and 

 sooty feet will never get any better. No rules can be laid down 

 for certain, but a little experience will soon teach which chickens 

 to keep. 



The chickens should not be allowed to perch at night on nar- 

 row or crooked sticks, or they will most certainly become crooked- 

 breasted. Some breeders keep their chickens bedded-down on 

 straw or sawdust till their breastbones are fully formed, but this 

 entails much trouble, and I have not found it essential ; besides, 

 some chickens have crooked breasts from the day of their birth, 

 and nothing that we can do will then set them right. Till recently 

 I was of opmion that crooked breastbones could be entirely pre- 

 vented, but from conversations with some of the most careful 

 breeders, and from my own experience, I am convinced tbat some 

 cases are hereditary, and, like rickets iu children, as long as we 

 breed from such we shall never get rid of it. Undoubtedly 

 birds occasionally receive prizes in spite of crooked breasts, but 

 in my opinion a crooked breast in a Dorking, the table fowl 

 2Jar excellence, is quite as bad as, or worse than, a crooked leg or 

 wry tail. A slight bend in the bone I would pass over, but a 

 bird which has a large hollow iu his breastbone I would not 

 have for a gift, and in my opinion he should never receive a 

 prize. If the chickens are given a Hat plauk of wood to perch 

 on about inches wide, with the sharp edges just planed off so 

 that they cannot perch upon them, they will be obliged to roost 

 on the centre of the board, and if this is not placed too high up 

 we shall see very little of crooked breasts if the parent birds are 

 not defective in this respect. 



At ten weeks old the cockerels and pullets should be separated 

 from one another, as by this means a good deal of trouble will 

 be avoided, and the cockerels will not fight, especially if an old 

 cock be left in charge of them. If a cockerel be taken away for 

 three or four days for an exhibition or other purpose he should 

 always be returned to his comrades at night, or a free fight will 

 very likely be the result; but if the bird on awaking finds him- 

 self on his old perching place ho will forget all about his absence, 

 and will in all probability in the morning run out with the others 

 as usual. This is very important, as with fifteen or twenty 

 cockerels it would be quite impossible to find separate runs for 

 them all. 



I have before mentioned how necessary it is to train birds to 

 a pen before sending them to a show, and this is especially the 

 case with hens and pullets. If two hens are caught and placed 

 in a small pen together they will be nearly sure to disagree, and 

 one will peck the other almost to pieces, even though they have 

 been bosom friends before. A good plan will be to first let them 

 run in a small yard together where there are no other birds, and 

 afterwards to put them in a smaller place, and thus to accustom 

 them to one another by degrees. If after this one bird stUl re- 

 mains obdurate, and insists on pecking the other, the only way 

 will be to tie the offender by one leg to the side of the pen ; but 

 even this will sometimes not effect a cure, aud the only way then 

 to proceed will be to make up another pair. The plan of show- 

 ing two hens in a pen together is now generally given up, though 

 in my opinion it is a far better criterion of who has the best 

 yard of fowls, and I think the yard which exhibits the largest 

 number of noticed birds ia more deserving of credit than that 

 which exhibits one, even though this be the first-prize bird. 



The Cop Bbistol Hen.— The opinion that 1 expressed to 

 Mr. Burnell and others, that Mr. Bartrum's cup hen was the 

 same that I was first with at the Palace in 1873, was not intended 

 to be conclusive, and I regret that Mr. Burnell, without referring 

 to Mr. Bartrum first, stated as a fact what was merely a con- 

 jecture on my part, owing to the great similarity between the 

 two birds. Having heard from Mr. Bartrum that he was not 

 the purchaser of my hen I can only acknowledge my mistake. 

 My hen was six aud a half years old when exhibited at the 

 Palace. I bad bred from her that season, aud when shown she 

 was in good health and perfect condition. As I had her myself 

 I can make no mistake about her age. — R. W. Beacuey. 



Fancy Poultry in Jersey. — The seventh annual report of the 

 Jersey Poultry Society has just been published, by which it 

 appears they have a good balance iu band. The Committee 



