May 20, 187B. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTDRB AND COTTAGE GARDENEE. 



397 



the shows in the different villages by turn. We are convinced 

 Buch shows are appreciated, and help on the cultivation of 

 poultry among the poorer classes. We would not restrict buch 

 exhibitions to poultry only ; far from it, we would make them 

 embrace everything that ia interesting to a country life, and 

 give prizes for fruit and flowers, best-kept gardens, window 

 flowers, honey, bread, butter, needlework, and everything in 

 which members of a cottage home can take part. It is iu the 

 Bouthern counties especially where such village shows would do 

 good. The men are principally labourers, earning but just 

 wages enough for bread and butter. In the north the manu- 

 facturing districts hold out such a pleasant tariff of wages that 

 the poultry fanciers there are able to compete, and do so sue- 

 cesBfully, at the many local shows for which Lancashire and 

 Yorkshire especially are so famed. We hope some of the lead- 

 ing people in villages and country parishes will take up the 

 matter more, and see if they cannot help on some such shows. 

 Perhaps a few particulars of the little show held in the corner 

 of Sussex, to which we before alluded, may be of service. 



The district for competition is open to eight villages. Anyone 

 from those parishes may compete, and to encourage the cottagers 

 to exhibit as much as possible, no entrance fees of any kind are 

 charged. We believe when this little Society first started, some 

 kind and influential tradesman offered his services as Hon. 

 Sec, and to him its success is to a great extent attributable. 

 Consequently, in forming new societies we would especially 

 advise an able business-like man being chosen if he can be found 

 to fill this post. Then a Committee was formed of two or three 

 tradesmen out of each village, who appointed the most central 

 place for their committee meetings, and so started their Society. 

 Of course they could not do much without money aid, but every 

 one was glad to subscribe his or her mite to such a good pur- 

 pose, and the Committee, members of each village, collected 

 from their own gentlemen, tradesmen, farmers, and cottagers. 

 Subscriptions and donations were given as small as 6(2., and very 

 few exceeded 10s. even from the wealthiest landed proprietors ; 

 consequently no iiifluential squire is absolutely necessary to set 

 this sort of show going. The inhabitants of one village are as 

 ■well able to do it as those of another. 



We find from last year's balance sheet the eight villages of 

 this Society made up in donations and Bubscriptinns £93 10s. 6d. 

 The largest sum collected from one village was .i'20 Os. Gd., and 

 the least £2 lis. 6d. The greater part of this sum was expended 

 in prizes — viz., i'85 15s. 6d. They were not of themselves valu- 

 able premiums, but were many in number ; a cottage loaf, a 

 patchwork quilt, a lettuce, and a Dorking cock had all chances 

 of winning the same sum of money. These good people m«ke 

 it a regular gala day ; most of the farmers give their men a half- 

 holiday, and all have to pay 6d. to go into the showyard from 

 1 to 4 P.M., and after then 3d. The amount taken at the gates 

 in these small sums came to £!ii 18s. 



It is important to have such a show held in a suitable place. 

 Most villages, however, have some squire's park, and if per- 

 mission can be obtained for the show to be held iu them the 

 pleasure is even much greater for the visitors than if it was held 

 in a field. The gentlemen who kindly give the use of their 

 grounds for the meetings of the Society about which we have 

 been writing also throw their gardens and private walks open, 

 so the day is really looked forward to by all the villagers as the 

 day of the year. 



There are, of course, expenses, such as hiring pens and band, 

 labour, printing, postage, &c. ; but these should be covered by 

 the gate money, while the money collected in subscriptions is 

 spent in the prizes. The report and balance sheet this Society 

 have just issued is their sixth, and by it we see they have a 

 balance in hand of ^28. There are such things as wet days even 

 in August, so it is well to have a reserve fund. 



As far as the results of the poultry department of this Exhi- 

 bition go, with which we are here most nearly concerned, we 

 know from experience that it has worked much good. Not only 

 do the cottagers in very many instances now keep a few birds 

 who never before had a feather, but they keep a better class of 

 birds and of more profitable breeds — Brahma-Dorkings and 

 Houdaus for spring chickens, and Hamburghs for laying. We 

 know of many cottagers who have gone in for their few chickens 

 and made a good thing of them ; and what one can do all can. 

 We do not advocate the subdivision of classes for such shows, 

 but there should be classes for Dorkings, Brahmas, Cochins, 

 two kinds of Hamburghs, French, and Ducks. These could be 

 more subdivided, but those classes which we have named we 

 consider essential, and we believe when the operations and 

 working of such associations are better understood there will be 

 annually a still further increase in the number of exhibitors. 

 We do hope that some kind patrons will come forward and try 

 to start such village exhibitions in places where they do not 

 already exist, for we are convinced that by stimulating the 

 energies of the cottagers in this way great good will ensue. — W. 



Early Swabmino. — I have seven stocks of bees from which I 

 have two large natural swarms, one on the 1st of May, the other 



on the 8th.— Thos. Cobney, The Gardens, Eden Park, Claines, 



Co. Limerick. On Friday last, May 14th, a friend of mine 



at Ashton-on-Mersey, six miles south-west of Manchester, had 

 a swarm of bees. To-day, May 17th, I also had a swarm. I am 

 six miles south-east of Manchester. Both swarms English or 

 black bees. 



CHICKENS FBOM EGGS ONE THOUSAND 



AND TWO HUNDRED YEABS OLD. 



The Paris correspondent of The Nation states that the guests 

 of the Abbe Denis, curate of the parish of St. Elio, in the 

 Faubourg St. Antoine, dined a few days ago on fowls whoso 

 immediate ancestors figured, he says, on the table of the great 

 Frankieh King Dagobert. When the Abbu Denis laid the first 

 stone of the church and presbytery he has built by his own 

 exertions on the site of the old chateau and gardens of Dagobert, 

 a hen's nest full of eggs was discovered beneath the ruins of tho 

 ancient building. These eggs were twelve hundred years old, 

 and were about to be thrown away by the labourers, when the 

 Abbfi, remembering that wheat had been grown from grain 

 found in Egypt in mummies dated back from the time of the 

 Pharaohs, bethought him that possibly there might still be life 

 iu these eggs. A savant of the Institute, consulted at once in 

 reference to these precious relics of an age when there was as 

 yet no France to detest " perfidious Albion " or to be jealous 

 of Prussia and needle-guns, advised they be forthwith confided 

 to a hen of approved success in the maternal capacity. This 

 advice having been acted upon, the good cure and his friends 

 had the delight of witnessing, twenty-one days afterwards, the 

 hatching of a fine brood of chickens, the direct progeny of 

 the denizens of Dagobert's barnyard. The fowls thus obtained 

 have been carefully kept from any mi'salUance with their con- 

 geners of less ancient blood ; and the Abbe has now a yard so 

 well replenished with "King Dagobert's fowls" that he not only 

 supplies his own larder with poultry of this illustrious breed, 

 but is about to organise, at the suggestion of numerous friends, 

 a sale of " King Dagobert's eggs " for the benefit of the poor of 

 his parish. — (National Agriculturist.) 



MR. BULLEN'S POUTERS AT HOME. 



The name of BuUen is but a new one among exhibitors of 

 fancy Pigeons, but it has come very frequently to the front tho 

 last few years. Still, although new as an exhibitor, Mr. BuUen 

 has, to use his own words, " been a Pouter fancier his whole 

 life." When I found that a Bath clergyman had taken high 

 honours with his Pouters at such Shows as the Crystal Palace, 

 Bath, and Bristol, &c., I felt a great curiosity to see how he, a 

 resident in Bath, managed to keep his birds. Hitherto among 

 English amateurs of higher social position I had always, and I 

 think only, known clergymen and other gentlemen as country 

 dweUers ; but here was one who resides in Bath, not in a villa 

 near, but actually in the city of Bath — close to historic Pultney 

 Strtet, and who keeps his Pigeons there, and is yet a successful 

 exhibitor. Offering a visit to Mr. BuUen when meeting him at 

 the Pigeon fanciers' levee, the Crystal Palace Show, an offer 

 liindly accepted, I wended my way one day last winter (what a 

 comfort to be able at length to talk of the winter as being past !> 

 to Edward Street, Bath, where Mr. BuUen resides. 



The Pouter, as most of my readers kuow, requires quite dif- 

 ferent treatment to any other Pigeon. Like a baby, if he is shy 

 he is not worth looking at; and as a baby must see company, 

 and be talked to, and drawn out, so must a Pouter. He must be 

 familiar to sauciness ; far from being afraid of you, be pleased 

 and proud to make your acquaintance. In short, he must bo 

 made a companion of in order to be companionable. To achieve 

 all this and keep his birds in show Mr. Bullen has given up a 

 room in his house to them — a room looking to the back, which 

 with another tenant would have been the housekeeper's room. 

 Here live the Pouters in state, in pens of goodly proportions ; 

 and through the opened window they can pass into a wired 

 enclosure, the whole space of a town garden being appropriated 

 for their flight. Surely no city-living Pouters were ever better 

 cared for. The room immediately below the one in which live 

 the Pouters— a cellar in fact — is occupied by the feeders, which 

 also have their place of flight as well. These feeders are good- 

 sized Runts, their size being kept up by an occasional cross with 

 a prize bird. These good-tempered big Pigeons— (big people 

 are generally very easy and kiudly, in contrast to fiery littla 

 folks)- Mr. BuUen finds the best of feeders, giving an abundant 

 supply of food, and so much better than the birds recommended 

 for feeders by the old books— viz., Dragoons. These, like their 

 great uncles the Carriers, are a very quarrelsome variety ; and 

 then with such a dagger of bill a Dragoon is a powerfully armed 

 foe, andean rip up a poor helpless bloated Pouter as easily as a 

 Roman soldier did a bearded Jew at the seige of Jerusalem — 

 holding the Jew by the beard, and using his straight, piercing, 

 dagger-like sword. Poor helpless Pouters ! at the mercy wholly 

 of the fighting weUarmed Dragoon. But the kindly portly 



