October 8, 1874. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTICOLTDRE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



333 



late, and only two first swarma in the parish rose in weight to 

 100 lbs ; a few swarms weighed 90 lbs. each, more 80 lbs., and 

 more below these weights. 



Being rather unwell during September I was unable to fetch 

 my hives from the moors at the end of the season. They re- 

 mained on the highlands of Derbyshire, consuming their stores, 

 till the 3rd iust. Some of them I found are rather too heavy 

 for me to handle and carry. Some of them now are between 

 90 lbs. and 100 lbs., some more than 80 lbs. each, some more 

 than 70 lbs., and many less than that weight. This year the 

 stock or mother hives are as heavy as their first swarms, which 

 is an unusual occurrence, as first swarms in ordinary seasons 

 generally rise in weight 20 lbs. and 30 lbs. more than their 

 mother hives ; but this year swarms had not time enough to 

 overpass the parent hives. At the swarming season this year 

 stock hives gathered a great deal of honey. 



Where bees are kept for profit it is good policy to take honey 

 ■when it can be obtained. When a good season comes round I 

 deem it wise to reap a large harvest of honey, even to the reduc- 

 tion of the number of stocks. It is easy to multiply stocks in 

 seasons in which honey is not stored in quantity. In grape- 

 growing a crop is expected every year ; in bee-keeping we can- 

 not get a harvest of honey annually ; it is therefore wise to 

 take a large harvest of honey as often as possible. Honey 

 will be taken from all our hives that weigh more than GO lbs. 

 each, and those of leas weight will be kept and sold for stocks. — 

 A. Pettigkew. 



A FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD SWARM OF BEES. 



Early in July, 1859, I put a swarm of bees in a common box 

 hive made of rough hemlock boards 12 inches square by 15 inches 

 high. From this hive has issued a swarm every year until now. 

 — Sol. Crandell, Chatham Village, Col. Co., N.Y. 



[I may mention a parallel case. Some fifteen years ago I 

 called on Mr. Samuel Brundrett, market gardener, Withington, 

 near Manchester, to buy some hives of bees, when he showed me 

 one which had swarmed annually for twelve years. It looked 

 as if it had not been touched or raised off its board during the 

 whole time. I have seen many old ones, and examined them 

 internally. Their combs were black and tough enough, cer- 

 tainly. iEvery young bee leaves a pellicle or skin in the cell in 

 which it is bred, and of course the cells of old combs become 

 contracted by breeding in them. It has often been said that 

 bees reared in old combs are smaller than those reared in younger 

 ones ; but we have frequently failed to notice the difference in 

 size, and sometimes we have fancied they are less in old hives. 

 Bees thrive better among young combs than they do in old ones, 

 and young combs yield more honey than old ones ; but I can 

 easily believe that the combs of a hive may be used by bees for 

 fifteen or twenty years if they be kept dry and free from foul 

 brood. Too much honey and farina in hives hinder breeding 

 and do harm. In nine cases out of ten, hives three years old 

 have too much farina in their brood combs, which clogs their 

 operations. 



A New Zealand bee-keeper, now in this country on a visit, 

 called to see me the other day. He first described how bees 

 were managed in that colony. The bees are kept in plain boxes 

 about 12 or 11 inches square. When fall, boxes as large are put 

 on them as supers. He had taken 80 lbs. of super honey from 

 one hive last year. When the combs become black the empty 

 boxes are placed below them, and when fall they are destroyed 

 for their honey. In this way the boxes are refilled with young 

 combs. There, as here, swarming takes place, and is not pre- 

 vented by supering in every case. — A. Pettiqrew.] 



DOGS.— No. 6. 



WIRE-HAIRED TERRIERS. 

 Providence that " suits the wind to the shorn lamb," has 

 very beautifully and mercifully suited the dog's coat to the 

 climate in which he is born. Take a few instances in proof of 

 this. Look at the Siberian dog, the dog that in teams draws 

 his master's sledge over the frozen snow. How very long and 

 rough is his hair ! how easily from ib falls the snow, and how 

 difficult for the suow to penetrate to the skin ! Surely his coat 

 is fitted to his climate. Then the Mount St. Bernard is another 

 snow-fitted dog as to coat ; and mark you, the rough one is the 

 right one. Then the Scotch colley, the rough one again is the 

 right one. How his hard thick coat which no rain, not even that 

 Scotch mist which the proverb says *' wets an Englishman 

 to the skin," can reach his skiu. Then there is the Scotch deer- 

 hound, rough and warmly clad ; the Irish greyhound who can 

 face dank Hibernia's climate with his rough warm coat. 

 There is the Scotch terrier with his warm hard coat, fencing 

 well his hide. The Russian greyhound is another example who 

 has actually bushy hair; while the Siberian dog before men- 

 tioned has long hair even on his head and paws, so well pro- 

 tected is he against that cold climate. If I look at the naturally 

 swimming dogs, I see again the adaptation of the dog's coat — as 



the Newfoundland, the Irish water spaniel ; I see in them a 

 like merciful arrangement. And I imagine that all the dogs 

 originally in this chilly island of ours were rough-coated — i.e., 

 warmly clad — coat fitting climate. If it be true that the modern 

 otterhound is the true representative of the southern hound, 

 my argument is much strengthened, for the otterhound is 

 warmly clad. 



But how about the English terrier? What was he in olden 

 time ? Not, I verily believe, the smooth-skinned sleek creature 

 of to-day's civilisation. Was he, like the Scotch terrier, very 

 long-coated ? I also think not. Scotland is much colder than 

 England. The Scotch sheep-dog is much more warmly clad 

 than the old-fashioned, bob-tailed, hard, wiry-coated English 

 sheep-dog. What, then, do I believe the English terrier to 

 have been as to coat? I believe him to have been wire-haired. 

 This is a particular kind of coat, but it is admirably suited to 

 the dog's work and ways. Long hair would hinder him, but he 

 is exposed to climate in bad weather. Look at his coat : he has 

 a thorough good loin-cloth as ever man wished for, or had on 

 his favourite horse on a bitter December day, when the rain is 

 falling in torrents. Then the mist may fall on his head, but it 

 only hangs on his thick moustache, and can easily be shaken off ; 

 and his chest has a like rough warm cover. In fact, taking the 

 climate of England, he is as well and sufficiently covered as 

 even the Scotch terrier is for the climate of Scotland. The 

 wire-haired dog should have a coat somewhat like cocoa-nut 

 fibre, in no case silky or approaching to silky. This wire-haired 

 terrier, called in books sometimes and rightly, " the old- 

 fashioned hard and wiry-coated dog," is not now often seen, but 

 he is, I believe, the genuine English terrier, the best of all 

 terriers suited for work in this cold, damp, east-wind-pestered 

 climate. It you look at the terrier in Bewick's " Quadrupeds," 

 you will find such a dog ; and any old book represents a terrier 

 rather rough than smooth. 



In regard to the value of wire-haired terriers I give the follow- 

 ing anecdote, which is less than a year old : — A relation of mine 

 who lives in the midst of a hunt famed all over England, was 

 talking one day last winter with the man who has the care of 

 the terriers (both kinds are kept, the wire-haired and the 

 smooth), and he asked him which he preferred for work. The 

 reply was, ** Well, sir, these smooth uns are good for anything, 

 capital dogs sir, but then they shiver so on cold days. They are 

 all right such days as this (it was a lovely sunny winter day), 

 but the rough uus don't shiver, and bear the cold and wet best, 

 so I like them the best." The smooth-haired fox terriers are 

 charming dogs and to them I shall devote a paper ; they will face 

 anything, will go into any damp drain, and some will swim well; 

 but, oh ! how they suffer in cold weather. The pluck is in 

 them, the heart is all right, but man has robbed the poor dog of 

 that warm covering which was intended to keep him secure and 

 safe in damp earth, or mud, or winter's water. Man alters for 

 fancy and for eye, but I doubt whether he ever improves, so 

 far as usefulness is concerned. In olden days it was rather 

 sport than fancy ; and although I cannot and will not uphold 

 cruel sports, yet I must say there is some cruelty in making, so 

 to speak, a terrier work in the cold without his coat on, the coat 

 his Creator gave him for protection and comfort too. I dub, 

 therefore, the wire-haired terrier, now seldom seen, as the 

 genuine old English dog of this breed. He is a dog, like all 

 terriers, very companionable, a cheerful dog ; and if he follows 

 one for miles in the wet and cold, one does not feel that he is 

 suffering as the smooth dog does, when, covered with mud and 

 chilled to the bone, he looks-up with a pitiful face as much as 

 to say, '* Oh ! master, I wish I had a warm coat, but your race, 

 mankind, has robbed me of it." I have often felt very sorry to 

 see a poor smooth-haired terrier in thorough bad case from wet 

 and cold. 



The wire-haired terrier class has not as yet been a large one 

 at shows, not even at Birmingham. Their chief breeder, as far 

 as I know, is Mr. Wootton of Mapperley, whose dogs I have 

 seen and admired at Birmingham, and a photograph of some of 

 his dogs, certainly the right sort, is now before me. I regret 

 much that the wire-haired terrier is not among that admirable 

 series of photographs of prize dogs painted by George Earl, the 

 painter, to my mind, of dogs now Landseer is no more. His 

 fox terriers, his English terrier, his bull terrier, are admirable 

 and life-like ; but why has he omitted the wire-baired, the 

 oldest of all ? If I am told that the wire-haired is a vermin 

 dog, I reply. Of course he is, that was what he is intended for? 

 Are there no vermin in England still ? Have the rats gone 

 back to Hanover ? Are stoats, weasels, polecats no more ? Be- 

 sides, he is more than a vermin dog — he is that and more too — 

 what dog better when rabbits are to be killed ? 



I have said that all terriers are companionable, sprightly, 

 cheerful dogs. Years ago — I was but a boy then — I made, in 

 company with my father, a driving journey of between tbirty 

 and forty miles into Norfolk. A wire-haired terrier was with 

 us as merry, and active, and inquisitive — bolting into this hedge, 

 through that gate — the last few miles rs he was the first few. 

 Weariness be did not seem to feel. Was not that warm coat of 



