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JOURNAL OF HOETICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENER. 



[ June S, 1871. 



Alyssnm; the Trliite one is Arabis albida, and the purple one Anbrietia 

 purpurea. (J. B ).— Erysimum odoratnm. (J, C, Broviley). — Tour speci- 

 men is Syringa Emodi. Native of the Himalayan mountains. 



POUITEY, B£E, AlfD PIGEOIff CHUONICLE. 



PRIZES FOR THE BEST COCK AND HEN. 



At most of the summer and smaller shows, prizes are offered 

 for the '* best cock and hen " in the different classes, and one 

 would espeeti to find the best male and female bird taken to- 

 gether, obtainlBg these prizes. Instead of this being the case, 

 vre continually find some of our judges awarding prizes to the 

 cock, entirely ignoring the hen. This, to eay the least, is 

 neither fair nor just to the exhibitor, who carefully selects his 

 birds, so as to make them match in quality, size, colour, and 

 general st3le. All breeders of poultry know there is as much 

 difficulty in procuring good hens as cocks, and to breed success- 

 fully either male or female birds, as much depends upon the 

 purity and quality of the hen as the cock. The prizes are dis- 

 tinctly c ffeied for the " best cock and hen." Then why should 

 judges, in making their awards, take no notice whatever of the 

 hen, merely seleecing the cock, and giving him the preference ? 

 Possibly the cock in one pen, if taken by himself, may be better 

 than that in another, but he often has with him an inferior 

 hen, while in the other there may be a good hen, and if the 

 two are judged together would make by far the better pair ; and 

 as the prizes are intended for them, let our judges give justice 

 and satisfaction to those who exhibit the best cock and hen. 



I am led to make these remarks after having visited the Bath 

 and West of England Show at Guildford. In several classes 

 the hen was never noticed, or the prizes would not have been 

 given as they were, and thus the judging in many cases gave 

 great dissatisfaction, and naturally so, when some winning pens 

 contained hens the very worst in ihe whole class, and in one or 

 two cases were hardly worth the trouble of carrying away. — Casi. 



SEX OF EGGS. 

 One of your correspondents revives the old question about 

 the sex of eggs ; I send you my experience. Last winter an 

 old country poultry-keeper told me he could distinguish the 

 sex in eggs ; I laughed at him, and was none the less sceptical 

 when he told me the following secret: — "Eggs with the air- 

 bladder on the centre of the crown of the egg will produce 

 cockerels, those with the bladder on one side will produce pul- 

 lets." The old man was so certain of the truth of this dogma, 

 and his poultry-yard so far confirmed it, that I determined to 

 make experiments upon it this year. I have done so, carefully 

 registering every egg " bladder vertical" or "bladder on one 

 side," rejecting every one in which it was not decidedly one or 

 the other, as in some it is only very slightly out of the centre. 

 The following is the result : — Fifty-eight chickens were hatched, 

 three are dead, eleven are yet too young to decide upon their 

 sex ; of the remaining forty-four everyone has turned out exactly 

 true to the old man's theory. Thip, of course, may be an 

 accidental coincidence, but I shall certainly try the experiment 

 again. I am now trying the same theory upon Ducks' eggs. 

 — W. H. P. 



BANTAMS. 



On taking up my copy of The Jouexal of Hoeticultuee to-day, 

 June 1st, I was agi-eeably surprised by reading the article from the 

 pen of ''"WiLTSHiitE Eector " on "What Poultiy should I keep ?" 

 for my last recollection of him amongst the Bantams took me back to 

 January 16th, 1866. and following weeks up to the end of March, 

 when he told us that on his visit to the Birmingham Show at Christ- 

 mas, 1865, he saw ninety-nine pens of Game Bantams, and that, 

 "throwing aside a few coarse birds, a great number seemed one as 

 good as another," and that " as to profit with them, of course there is 

 none." He says, " I have kept all kinds of Bantams ; the only sort 

 I found profitable were Blacks." Also that Giime Bantams " are easy 

 to breed good." Many readers of " our Journal " will, doubtless, re- 

 member that these opinions raised a little friendly discussion at the 

 time, and I am glad to observe not without effect, for " Wzltshiee 

 Kector " has at last become a convert to the side opposed to him then, 

 and he now says, "Bantams are scarcely kept so generally as they 

 ought, to be, and they could be kept likewise with profit;" "no breed 

 affords greater amusement and interest," ttc. ; " Bantams produce 

 abundance of egga, and especially the pullets of the Blacks and Black- 

 breasted Beds are excellent winter layers," itc. 



I am sure X can heartily endorse the above remarks, and will add 

 that from a ]^retty long experience I can recommend the Game 



Bantams as being more hardy than either the best Blacks or Sebrights. 

 I kept Black Bantams twenty-five years ago, and have had both them 

 and the "White Bantams since I became an exhibitor, but never found 

 them so interesting as the Game, which I have bred carefully and 

 studied closely for the last foui-teen or fiiteen years. 



As the Hector says, it is quite safe, generally, to allow the large 

 breeds, such as Cochins, Dorkings, and Brahmas, to run with the 

 smaller kinds of Bantams without fear of a cross ; but Game Bantams 

 are frequently crossed with large Game fowls, and I have this season 

 three broods of chickens of the first cross between a Game hen and a 

 Bantam cock, and several broods of the second and third cross with 

 the Bantam. In the Game Bantams, style and not size is the point 

 first in importance, and the smallest Game Bantams are seldom good 

 enough to win. Colour is also a great point in Game Bantams, and is 

 of more importance than size. 



Bantams are easiest to rear in April, May, and June, but the April 

 birds grow larger than either the very early or later broods ; and where 

 smallness of size is required, May and June may with advantage be 

 selected for setting the eggs. 



Our esteemed friend, the " Wiltshiee Rector," shows a preference 

 for Black-breasted Beds over any other colour of Game Bantams ; 

 but each of the four standard colours has its own special recommenda- 

 tion, and I really think that could he see my favourite set of PUe 

 Bantams, cock and five hens, with the striking contrast between the 

 creamy white body and tail, and red neck and saddle of the male bird, 

 and the rich salmon breast and shoulder and white body of the hens, 

 with their graceful can-iage as they walk on the lawn in front of my 

 house or in the fields surrounding it, he would admire them more than 

 the Whites. Then the Brown- breasted Beds are great favourites of 

 mine, with their large, expressive daxk eyes, purple faces, golden 

 hackles, and greenish black bodies in the hens ; these are especially 

 striking when close at hand. I am glad to see that so many com- 

 mittees of shows are adopting our suggestion, and offering prizes for 

 Brown Beds this year, and hope the class will be well supported. 

 Again, what can be more pretty than the glossy black breast, white 

 neck, and golden saddle of the Duckwing Bantam cock, accompanied 

 by his hens of a delicate silvery-grey, with fight fawn breasts ? These 

 are great favourites with the ladies, and I should like to see more of 

 them exhibited. 



The Black-breasted Beds have long been my especial favourites, 

 but after our Kector"s recommendation I am sore I need not say 

 another word in their favour, but with many other constant readers of 

 " our Journal " I shall look forward with much interest to the future 

 numbers of the series of papers commenced with the proudest and 

 merriest of all poultry — the Bantam. — W. F. Entwisle. 



( 



REARING CHICKENS. 



!>' your impression of May 11th I have read a paper on rearing 

 chickens, or rather the experience of a noted breeder of Game, in 

 which he states that Game birds cannot be bred to the standard re- 

 quired for exhibition except by in-and-in breeding. It is a great 

 mistake and a baneful practice to breed birds in this way, of whatever 

 variety they may be. I have bred Game for nearly twenty years^ 

 formerly for the pit, now for exhibition, and find my birds take their 

 share of prizes awarded at most shows, and I can honestly say that 

 they are bred without any relationship whatever to each other It is 

 a weU-known fact that a Game fowl has a constitution which no other 

 fowl possesses, and were breeding in-and-in adopted, the results must 

 follow — viz., weakly constitution and want of courage, the reverse of 

 a Game bird. In olden times, for fighting purposes, a cross with 

 mother and son was sometimes adopted, and the result was often good, 

 but care was taken not to breed again from the progeny, or the result 

 might have been what has often been witnessed in the pit — viz., a bird 

 having the winning card in his hand running away. 



I breed upwards of .a hundred chickens yearly, and rarely lose any, 

 with the exception of a few joung cocks destroying each other by 

 fighting, which they sometimes do at six weeks old. My first time of 

 feeding is at 7 a.m., and my last at 7 P.sr., the food consisting chiefly 

 of oat and barleymeal, groats, and whole barley ; no house scraps nor 

 artificial food is given. Nature should be followed as much as possible, 

 and my idea is they should not at this season be fed so bite as ten 

 o'clock at night. If a chicken is taken up in the hand at that hour 

 its crop will be found quite full, if plenty was given three hours pre- 

 viously. I give my hens thirteen eggs, and like to see as many 

 hatched as possible. Ihe chicks average from eight to twelve to each 

 hen, and they seem to do well, as if it were the more the merrier. 

 — D. H. 



I A3r amused at the difficulty one of your correspondents experiences 

 in raising chickens. I rarely lose a chicken, except by some accident, 

 and few people have to contend with greater ditficulties, as I am 

 obliged to keep my pets quite out of sight, and a long way from the 

 house, so that I can rarely see them more than three times a-day. I 

 have now fifty strong chickens of ages varying from two months to a 

 fortnight old ; not one has died, but a cat killed six before we shot her, 

 and another chicken was killed by a man who was turning a manure 

 heap, bni7ing the poor chicken, who was busy hunting for insects in 

 company with its mother and nine brothers and sisters. 



My plan of management is very simple. The coops are large and 



