August 22, 1878. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
159 
keeping them apart, and if the cockerels require some forcing give 
them a little Sprati’s food in their ordinary meal. The plan to be 
pursued at the Hemel Hempstead Show strikes us as a good one— 
yiz., for a cockerel and pullet to compete as a pair, but in separate 
pens. In the case of the smaller breeds—Silkies, Hamburghs, 
and Bantams—the sexes of those to be shown early should not 
be separated, and all may with advantage have some stimulating 
food. We may give a hint, too, that in the case of varieties 
where sickles are a necessity care should be taken that the 
destined prizewinner has so much as possible his own way. We 
jhaye observed among our own Hamburghs and Bantams that a 
<ockerel which is “ cock of the walk” always developes his sickles 
rapidly ; but if the cockerel be kept under by an old bird they 
are very slow in growing this appendage of maturity. 
Summer shows are generally short affairs and held under tents 
without the unnatural and exciting adjuncts of crowds of even- 
ing visitors and blazing jets of gas, hence chickens may be sent 
to several shows without material injury. It must, however, be 
remembered that birds forced on for them seldom prove fine speci- 
mens in the end, and are usually quite out of condition for the 
later shows. We have known some remarkable exceptions to 
these rules, usually when the chickens have gone suddenly into a 
moult like that of old birds, developed much during it, and have 
then come out in handsome fresh plumage. As a rule they con- 
tinue small (though, unfortunately, this does not follow in the 
ease of Bantams), and are useful, as we have said, rather for 
present exigencies than for future reproduction of their kind—C. 
WINCHESTER POULTRY SHOW. 
THE first poultry Show, and the first south of England chicken 
Show of the season, was held at Winchester on the 14th inst. and 
following days. We were informed that two months ago the 
Show was not thought of. A few gentlemen conceived the idea 
that a poultry show would be appreciated in the town invited 
Mr. T. C. Burnell to join the Committee, and with his advice and 
Assistance an admirable collection was produced. Twenty classes 
of poultry obtained 213 entries, and twelve of Pigeons 130. 
Dorkings.—First a substantial bird, but rather oyal in the back 
and queer on the feet; second smaller, and crooked in the legs; 
third a good Silver. Pullets.—First a fine well-grown bird, a 
little sooty in feet. Cochins—Cockerels, fifteen entries. First 
a fine Partridge, second a better Buff but not so forward, third 
a Partridge. 
as eighteen weeks—much too young for the company. 
thought him the most promising in the class. Pullets a large 
elass (thirty entries). First a nicely pencilled Partridge, rather 
deficient in leg feather; second a well-shaped sound Buff, same 
owner, we thought should have been first ; third a large Buff, but 
tinged in hackle. Brahmas.—Cockerel—First a good Light, 
second and third moderate Darks. Pen 81, another Light, we 
thought should have superseded the Darks. Pen 78,a Dark, was 
jn colour and other respects the best in the class, but he showed 
unmistakeable signs of a twisted hackle. Pullets—First a Dark 
of sound ground colour but deficient in markings. We much 
preferred the second, a well-developed Light of excellent shape 
and beautiful markings. Pen 83 (Stevens) extra prize, we also 
liked better than the winner. Game.—Cockerel.—First a pro- 
mising Black Red; second also a Black Red with nice style, but 
mot so neat in head as the winner. Pullets—A dashing-looking 
Pile first, second a small but capital-coloured Duckwing, a little 
loose in the tail. Hamburghs—Only nine entries in the two 
classes ; the winning pullet,a Golden, was wellpencilled. French. 
—Capital classes. Cockerels—First, a fine Creve, but we thought 
hima little up in the back; second a well-marked Houdan. Pullets. 
—The winner a splendid Créve, we thought her the pick of the 
Show ; second a well-marked Houdan. Bantams were a moderate 
lot. <Any other variety.—A rather forward Spanish cockerel was 
first, second Polish, third a good Andalusian. <A pretty pullet 
shown by the same exhibitor was second in the following class. 
Pigeons, considering the period of the year, were better than we 
anticipated. Carriers nine entries. The winner we did not like ; 
he was larger in beak wattle than the others but uneven round 
the eye, thick in the neck, and coarse in style ; second a Black; 
third a Dun, we thought birds of a much higher class. Pouters 
and Fantails followed. Good classes. Dragoons.—The first, a 
young bird, was rather down in beak, and for this reason we 
much preferred the second (same owner), a very old winner and 
We 
still in good condition. Any variety Dragoon.—A capital class, 
a Chequer was first. Jacobins.—First and second Yellows, third 
a good coloured Red. Owls.—First and second (Barnes). The 
winner has been noticed by us on former occasions. Any other 
yarlety.—First a Barb, second a Magpie. An extra prize was 
given to an excellent white Barb that justly attracted the atten- 
tion of the Judge. No prize list was forwarded to us. 
VARIETIES. 
Av a recent meeting of the Council of the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society of Ireland, Major Borrowes called attention to a new 
Pen 39, unnoticed, a beautiful White entered | 
turnip-crop pest—a species of small green worm or caterpillar, 
which, within the previous forty-eight hours, had covered a 
space of twelve acres of turnips on his estate in the County 
Kildare. Such a thing has not occurred there for twenty-five 
years. The worm speedily ravaged all the leaves except the 
centre one, and showed wonderful powers of getting over the 
ground. 
A LINCOLNSHIRE correspondent informs us that harvest 
operations have been seriously impeded in that county by heavy 
and protracted rains. Since August 2nd 5.68 inches of rain have 
fallen, and since cutting commenced 6.60 inches have been regis- 
tered. Much wheat has grown green in the stooks, but the 
weather during the present week has been more favourable, and 
progress has been made in securing the crops. 
A REVOLUTION is likely to be wrought in the harvest field 
by the new combined reapers and binders. At the recent trial at 
Bristol, the gold medal was awarded to M‘Cormick’s machine, 
entered by Waite, Burnell, Huggins, & Co. The machine cut 
and tied half an acre of greenish oats in twenty-four minutes 
without a stoppage of any kind, and it finished 1 acre and 
26 perches of wheat in fifty minutes, including two stoppages, 
once snapping the wire. The special merit of the work, says the 
Mark Lane Express, was in its perfect collection of all the corn, 
scarcely an ear being dropped; thus absolutely the whole of the 
crop is bound in the sheaves, leaving nothing at all to be raked 
up, and perhaps not more than a handful per acre for gleaners. 
About 23 Ibs. of No. 20 gauge annealed wire is used per acre at 
a cost of 1s. 8d. to 1s. 7d., and the saving in corn from the clean 
collection would seem far more than enough to pay for this, con- 
sidering that the old bands are alleged to be saleable at about half 
price, and the labour of five or six men in manual tying is dis- 
pensed with. 
TuRF Iy ORCHARDS—An opinion is very generally enter- 
tained that turf in orchards is not only not injurious to fruit 
trees, but is actually an advantage, as forming a covering which 
prevents the too rapid drying of the soil. Both of these views, says 
a Berlin paper, are erroneous. As regards the first, it has been 
actually proved that turfed ground gives out far more moisture 
than unturfed soil. Practical experiments have shown that during 
five months in the summer a morgen of turf land gives off, on the 
average, 800 cubic feet of water a day ; unturfed ground, though 
dry on its surface, is not able to withdraw so much moisture from 
the subsoil ; the evaporation which goes on through the leaves of 
the grass is far greater. 
A Fioatine Bre Hrve.—Our American cousins have hit 
upon another novelty, which we find thus referred to in a New 
York contemporary :—“ A floating bee house has been constructed 
by Mr. Perrine, a Chicago honey dealer, large enough to accommo- 
date two thousand hives, which he is having towed up the Missis- 
sippi river from Lousiana to Minnesota, keeping pace with the 
blossoming of the flowers, and thus stimulating the honey-making 
ability of his bees. Returning he will stop about two months 
somewhere about St. Louis, and will reach Louisiana in October. 
He wants to take advantage of the autumnal flowers at each 
point. The plan of moving the bees to get the benefit of flowers 
has been tried in a small way in some parts of Europe.”—(Colonies 
and India.) 
— Mux anp TyPHoID.—The medical officer of Bristol has 
traced the typhoid feyer outbreak there to a dairy farm. The 
supply of milk to retailers has been stopped, and every precaution 
taken. No deaths have occurred, but the area of the outbreak is 
extending. 
POSITION OF SUPERS. 
WE ali concur with the writer of the reply to “F. J.” as to the 
importance of the correct placing of supers and the principles 
which regulate being well understood ; but he is very much out of 
order in stating that “it is in harmony with the laws of Nature” 
the empty being placed next the stock hive and underneath the 
filling one, and that the contrary practice of those who employ 
Stewarton hives “has not given us good reasons, or perhaps any 
reasons at all, placing the empty super above the fullones.” The 
principles which regulate the practice were fully explained in 
these columns years ago. 
It is said that Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the bee. 
In the early spring months the population is at the minimum, and 
the hive if properly constructed should then be small for the 
better concentration of the heat ; with the mse of the temperature 
and increase of population it is enlarged by means of nadirs placed 
underneath, it being well known that the brood combs are ex- 
tended in a downward direction. Now suppose we give a couple 
such nadirs at once, we do not find the workers descend to occupy 
the lowest, leaving the nearest empty; they proceed with too 
much regularity for that. In like manner with the commence- 
ment of the honeyflow: supers are set on above and the bees 
ascend to take possession of the nearest first, and gradually extend 
themselves upwards proportionately to the population of their 
storage wants. In short it is ever the anxious endeavour of bees 
