STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 181 



portioned to the size of their run, they will cultivate the ground 

 well, allowing no hard crust to form on its surface, nor weeds to 

 flourish, and will tear apart, pulverize and work up into a com- 

 post all sorts of old rubbish. Biddy's worst enemies admit she 

 can do that to perfection. Many grubs and insects, conveyed to 

 vegetable quarters and flower beds in fertilizers, are found and 

 eaten. All this while the birds themselves are enriching the 

 land. The guano of commerce not always comes from Peru, but 

 sometimes has its origin in American poultry yards, and is all 

 the better for that, as chemists think no fertilizer is superior in 

 condensed strength to this home-made product. Can earth- 

 worms, so praised by naturalists, do more than Biddy has done 

 thus far? Then is she not entitled, when warm weather comes, 

 to sit under shelter, so to speak, of her own vine and fig tree? 

 Trees and plants afford a sure protection from hawks. Poultry 

 need shade for comfort, and, throughout the year, green food for 

 health. Undersized and injured vegetables, of all kinds, seem 

 to suit their tastes and constitutions quite as well as sounder 

 roots. What horticulturist hasn't unsalable produce, a dead 

 loss, except as swine or fowls transform it"? If this subject were a 

 little broader, agriculture instead of horticulture, the market fowls 

 make for cereals would be an important consideration, also their 

 utilization of screenings, etc. The chemical constitution of a 

 soil is believed to aflect the color of their plumage, not so much 

 by direct contact, as through the digestive organs and blood, 

 because they eat not only vegetation growing out of this soil, 

 but more or less earth itself. A variety and abundance of min- 

 eral matters produce dark and vivid tints. Lime and phosphorus 

 tend to symmetry of form and vigor in carriage. Ammonia in- 

 duces sprightliness. Gardens are yearly enriched with fertilizers, 

 both natural and manufactured^ which contain these very ele- 

 ments, and such situations cannot but prove favorable to pro- 

 ducing high-bred poultry. 



Horticulturists wage constant war on insects, and make a large 

 annual outlay for powders and other compounds to destroy these 

 pests. But the New York Tribune says : ' ' London purple, Paris 

 green, and other deadly and enduring arsenical preparations may 

 well be included in the black list. It is time honored entomologists 

 ceased to lend their influence in favor of such perilous stuff, 

 which, recklessly scattered as it is in immense quantity, poisons 

 the land and the fountains of life." The Bural New Yorker 

 unites in this protest. N^ot that any person or many animals 



