POULTRY BREEDING. 235 



sisted in calling her "All Butter"; while he called my 

 Chevalier barley the " Shrivelled ear." When I was 

 judging farming in Worcestershire the owner of one of 

 the competing farms recommended us to eat one of his 

 pears, which he called the Bronchitis ; we discovered, on 

 looking at the label, it was the " Bon Chretien." But, 

 for an excellent misnomer, the following always com- 

 mended itself to me : — The Clerk of the Peace for the 

 county of Bucks had a very good garden, and was ac- 

 customed to present the Chairman of Quarter Sessions 

 each quarter with a bunch of a well-known rose, called 

 La Rose des Quatre Saisons ; his gardener always per- 

 sisted in calling it the " Rose of the Quarter Sessions." 



Poultry-breeding and rearing has for many years been 

 a special hobby of mine. I have contributed occasionally 

 papers on this subject to the Farmers' Club, and in 1885, 

 I think it was, I stated my views and experiences in the 

 matter to a representative of the Daily Nezvs, who 

 appeared in the midst of the Chiltern Hills on inter- 

 viewing bent. 



It is often asked why we should pay hard money out 

 of the country for what might be grown in it .? Why, 

 when we have plenty of corn, do we not feed more 

 fowls .? In 1884 we imported ^^"2,908,927 worth of eggs, 

 or nine times as much in value as in 1859, and poultry 

 to the amount of £66g,6o^, or about ten and a half 

 times as much as twenty-five years ago. Why have we 

 no great poultry farms } No doubt our production of 

 poultry and eggs might be considerably increased, but 

 an England all poultry farm is just as absurd an idea as 

 an England all pasture, all orchard, or all market-garden. 



