:359. 



NEAV ENGLAND FARMER. 



449 



THE SCOTCH GAME FOWLS. 



The beautiful specimens of fowls which are 

 figured above, we do not present to- encourage 

 any propensity for the cock-pit or prize fight, or, 

 because we think that, upon the whole, they 

 ■would be more profitable, as a breed, for our' 

 poultry yards generally ; but because we suppose' 

 the Game Fowl is a pure breed, and that such 

 blood infused into our common fowls would 

 greatly improve them. 



In Dixon and Kerr's excellent work on Poul- 

 try, it says — "Of all the varieties of domestic 

 fowls, except, perhaps, the Smooth-legged Iran- 

 ians, the Game Fowl is the most symmetrical. 

 It is more slender in the body, the neck, the bill 

 and the legs, than other kinds, and the various 

 hues of the plumage are more brilliant and 

 showy. Their flesh is white, compact, — like that 

 of the race-horse compared with the scrub, — 

 delicate, and very nutritious. 



"There are evidently two varieties of the game 

 fowl, if not more. The first occasionally seen in 

 the yard of the farmer, is a bird ovei' the average 

 size, and rather heavily formed ; rather too much 

 comb; breast quite black ; neck, back, and wings 

 a very deep red ; tail, glossy green. The hen 

 plain brown, with a lighter colored neck, some- 

 times a little streaked with ochre ; legs light- 

 colored or white. 



"The other variety, which I much prefer, and 

 now possess, is a smaller fowl, of a peculiarly 

 light and elegant make ; head very small and 

 fine ; neck, light orange red ; breast richly spot- 



ted, as are, also, in a degree, the wings ; the 

 back, a very rich red ; tail, glossy greenish black ; 

 legs, dark. Hens, brown, of various shades, the 

 feathers being streaked with pale ochre down 

 the middle, the same as pheasants ; comb, in the 

 cocks very small, and not large in the hens." 



The eggs are a little smaller than those of our 

 common fowls. The hens are good setters and 

 mothers. A cross with the game fowl would un- 

 doubtedly give stamina and value to most of our 

 common breeds. 



For the New England Farmer. 



"COPELAND'S COUNTRY LIFE." 



Mr. Editor: — I have rather hastily examined 

 the above work, particularly the author's remarks 

 on the cultivation of Fruit Trees. There are 

 many excellent hints and directions regarding 

 their culture, but in his "wholesale denial," as he 

 terms it, of scraping and washing the bark of 

 any tree, it seems to me he is entirely at fault; 

 for although, with him, I believe that lichens and 

 mosses of various kinds are not the cause, but 

 generally the consequence of a diseased state of 

 the tree, still the woolly aphis, called in I'.ngland 

 the American blight, which is occasionally found 

 in the forks of the branches of our ajjple trees if 

 suffered to multiply, does injury, seeming to burn 

 the bark upon which it fastens ; then, again, we 

 have another insect, somewhat allied to the 

 above, which has been termed the scale, or mini- 

 ature tortoise, found upon the bark of our young 

 pear trees, fastening themselves closely upon the 

 bark. They are white externally, but when 

 1 rubbed off emitting a red liquid ; this insect, when 



