358 



JOURNAL OF HOETICULTDBB AND COTTAGE GABDENER. 



[ May 6, 187B. 



Names of Plants IE. S. H.).—It is the double white Wood Anemone, 

 Anemone nemoroea ilore-pleno. It is enmetimes called the Double White 

 Hfpatica. iJ. A. O.t. — The white Narcissus is N. pseudo-Narcissus var. Mos- 

 chalus; the jellow one, Double Campernelle. The Scilla is amteoa. The 

 others Primula eiiiata purpurea and Euphorbia hibernica. iH. W.). — The 

 Jouquil, Narcissus Jinquilla. It is a uative of Spain, and described as long 

 eince as Ihe reign of Elizabeth bj Parkinson as the " Jmjquilja," and in 

 eTery European language it has a similar name allusive to its rush-like 

 leaves, Irom Juncus, Ihe Latin for a Eush- ISiihscribcr's Dauglitcrj.—Ci&y- 

 tonia perloliata, and the Wood-rush, Luzula campestris. 



POULTKY, BEE, AND PIGEON OHEONIOLE. 



COULEUR DE ROSE. 



We suppose at times the hnes of coaleur de rose are wont to 

 bathe everyone and everything in its attractive tints. This de- 

 seriptive. epithet, imported from a foreign country, is untrans- 

 latable in EngliBh. If we hunt the term out in a French dic- 

 tionary we find it means something bright and joyous. It is all 

 very nice in its own country, where it is used in a much more 

 delicate way than it is here, for in our language it generally 

 comes to mean something bathed in bright and delusive colours, 

 and Eo may be termed in our significant word— humbug. Now- 

 a-days we find this rose tint laid on many things in a delicate 

 manner, and so making them appear under false colours. Many, 

 too, put on rose-tinted spectacles, as it were, and behold things 

 looking fair and lovely, but when looking at them with the ordi- 

 nary eyes of life are dieappointed and find out what reality is. 



In the poultry world, too, many look on couleur-de-rose-b&lhei 

 scenes, and thty themselves frequently scatter the tinted drops 

 on their own property. Many of the poultry people dip their 

 advertisements in this flattering liquid and make them " fair 

 and false, glittering and delusive ;" but the rose-coloured garb 

 does them no good, while it mortifies and often hurts the feelings 

 of others. We will take one or two cou?e«?--rfe-)-ose-tinted cases 

 and see what vre have dished up fur us in this charming colour. 

 Let us imagine Mr. Paint-it-bright is speaking. " What ! My 

 dear Plain-colour do you mean to say that is the best Brahma 

 cockerel you have ? I am Burprised ! Why, I should beat you 

 all to fits if I exhibited. You should see mine— such combs, 

 Buch tails, and such leg- feather I Oh, what a pity it is you live 

 BO far off and can't come and see my stock, for I could put you 

 up to a wrinkle how to get good colour on the thighs and breasts. 

 But take my advice, my boy, and get something better in future." 

 Whereupon Plain-colour is filled with jealous ideas of the most 

 burning character, for he has done his best to get the finest 

 cockerels extant; and though he would give his hand almost to 

 see and possess one of Paint-it- bright's marvellous birds, still 

 he knows they are to him almost as inaccessible as the Arctic 

 Eegicns. 



But something quite unexpectedly turns up and Plain- colour 

 has to go down to Roeeshire, and when his business is over 

 straightway he rushes off to see Paint-it-bright's wonders. The 

 hideous reality breaks on him, and he finds couleur de rose has 

 indeed been lavished over the description of the birds, for they i 

 have ugly coarse combs, brown wings, and thighs mottled to a I 

 frightful extent. Still, though he has been so duped he omits [ 

 to tell his experience to his friend Mrs. Wantcups. She, poor ; 

 lady, is in search for a sitting of eggs of a very popular and I 

 handsome breed called Black Feather-legs: so she turns to our 

 poultry Journal and eons the advertisements. "Victory!" she 

 cries ; " here are eggs to sell from some splendid Black Feather- 

 legs. They have only been shown a very few times and they 

 won all kinds of things, beatiug all kinds of people, who have 

 hitherto carried all before them till this grand yard burst upon 

 the fancy." Mrs. Wantcups straightway sends off her P.O.O., 

 and the eggs come. Poor lady ! the advertisement had truly 

 been tinted. The birds had been bred by someone else, and 



1? u "^^^ *° '''^ '''^" owner in a siate of exquisite condition, 

 which had been the cause of the winnings in question, and at the 

 very few shows where they had since won, the great guns which 

 were described as having been so ignominiously beaten had been 

 represented there with only their third strings, their first and 

 second being away at other places winning cups and prizes of 

 themselves much more valuable, and likely to bring much 

 greater glory to the exhibitor. Again, had she looked she 

 could have seen, perhaps, that the rose tints had been laid on 

 • coarsely and unevenly, not even thick enough, perhaps, to hide 

 an ugly mixture of pronouns, which is sometimes observable in 

 such painted advertisements. Poor Mrs. Wantcups ! she will 

 know in future what couleur de rose means. 



Other employers of this bright colour there are, wholesale 

 dealers, who go about brightening up everything— poultry shows 

 and poultry committees, poultry managers and poultry secre- 

 taries. They go to exhibitions, and they attend sales ; they 

 brighten-up, as it were, the plumage of their birds, and distil 

 fair drops of couleur de rose on the combs of their fowls ; they 

 write their letters with rose-coloured ink; their very pens give 

 roBecoloured accounts of how their Bantam cock, now for sale, I 



is the best out ; or how they would never sell that Tumbler 

 cock if the hen had not died. 



Couleur de rose, too, we find mixed up in new kinds of 

 goods, and little sparkling stars of it on new-fashioned coops 

 and wire enclosures. Certainly the poultry world often is 

 blessed with a rosy shower. And then there are some who go 

 to exhibitions to pick-up news and retail it out again ; who 

 make friends with the committee, or get introduced to the 

 secretary through some other rose painter. These artists espe- 

 cially love shows where the committee in a time of success, 

 and as a reward after hard work for months in organising their 

 show, go in for a bottle or two of clicquot in some cosy office, 

 and offer, in the exuberance of their joy at seeing their room 

 full of visitors, a glass of the thrilling beverage to our friends ; 

 and they then drink of the sparkling vintages out of rose-tinted 

 goblets, and go home, on their journey in imagination dipping 

 little slices of bread into the cups of wine now become flat and 

 insipid, trying to reanimate their briUiaucy with bright splutter- 

 ing bubbles, and commit to their note books all that they saw 

 fair and beautiful, and forget the thorns that grew beneath the 

 rose's petals. 



Again, some publish little books on poultry, and tell of profits 

 that set the readers' brains whirling, and make them hasten to 

 Stevens and embark on the poultry mania. All humbug. They 

 can only tell the old story; but here they have dished it up 

 tastefully with a rose-coloured sauce, and the tints have been 

 so plentifully spread, that the wretched maniac who took the 

 poultry farm, thinking his fortune was made, curses the day he 

 ever read the delusive pamphlet. 



We have said enough, shown instances enough, and we can 

 readily see that those to be our friends in this the poultry fancy, 

 as in other scenes, must be those who present themselves and 

 their goods to the world through no rosy-tinted windows, but 

 honestly and truthfully through panes of plain glass, where 

 couleur de rose exists not to humbug outsiders, where the fancy 

 in walking through the world may see truthfully what the man 

 and his goods are. — W. 



A PROPOSED ESSEX AGRICULTURAL 



SOCIETY'S POULTRY SHOW. 



I H-^VE just received the schedule of a poultry show to be held 

 at Brentwood, in connection with the Essex Agricultural So- 

 ciety. The latter fact, to which attention is invited, is a some- 

 what ominous one. Last July a show was held at Stratford 

 under the same ausj ices ; I was fortunate enough to be a prize- 

 winner, but did not succeed in obtaining my prize money. For 

 mouths I wasted letters and post cards on Mr. Cornerford, the 

 Secretary, who never deigned to answer me till I sent him a 

 somewhat forcible reminder, upon which he coolly wrote back 

 that " he regretted he could not comply with my request, as hia 

 books had long been closed." I therefore inform the public of 

 the way in which the Show in connection with the Essex Agri- 

 cultural Society was managed last year. How far the said 

 Society is legally responsible for Mr. Cornerford I do not pre- 

 tend to gather from the singular ambiguity of the schedule's 

 heading, but it is suiBciently discredited by his repudiation of 

 exhibitors' just claims. I observe that there is this year a new 

 Committee, among them I see the name of a clergyman which 

 will command general respect, but I have yet to learn that a 

 society by changing its ofiicers obtains liquidation of its debts. — 

 0. E. Cbesswell. 



EGGS. 



I NOTICE a contribution on page 283 signed "W." under the 

 above heading, and although I coincide in many of the state- 

 ments there contained, I believe the following remarks will 

 show a different side of the picture. 



I have been a large breeder of poultry during 1874, having 

 reared over 1300 fowls, many being sold at over a sovereign 

 each, and as much in one case as £8 lO.s., and now have upwards 

 of two hundred head pure and crossed for certain purposes ; bat 

 as " W." says, wishing to make my poultry-yards more attrac- 

 tive, early this year I ordered sittings of eggs from various ad- 

 vertisers. Each sitting was carried by myself from the station 

 to prevent any accident in shaking, and my results (after an ex- 

 pense of over i;13 in eggs, besides buying broody hens for hatch- 

 ing from almost all parts of England at 4s. 6d. and 5s. each, and 

 carriage in addition) are as follows, without mentioning names. 

 Hciudan eggs from Stonehouse, Gloucester : one contained a 

 chicken, but could not survive the necesbity of breaking away 

 from the shell after twenty-two days sitting- White Cochins 

 from Melksham ; Creve-Cojurs from Chatteris, Cambridgeshire ; 

 Golden-spangled Hamburgh eggs from Bourne, Lincolnshire ; 

 La Fluche, Houdsn, Crcve-Co3urs, and Silver spangled Ham- 

 burghs from Banbury; Silver-spangled Polands from Wivelis- 

 combe; Black Spanish from Penge; and out of the last-named 

 nine lots not one single egg contained a chick or even sign of 

 Ufe. 



