JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
January 27, 1881.] 
81 
the cup at the late Crystal Palace and Dorking Shows, has, we 
understand, recently changed hands! 
- Coloured Dorkings.— We hear that Mr. Janies Cranston 
of Thornhill, N.B., who has exhibited Silver-Grey Dorkings for the 
last two years at Birmingham and elsewhere with such remarkable 
success, has recently gone in for coloured Dorkings, and we observe 
his name in the prize list at Kendal. 
- Liability of Railway Companies. —The case of Adams 
v. the Great Eastern Railway Company, decided the other day at 
Ipswich County Court, is of some importance to fanciers. The 
Judge following another case (Ashenden v. the Brighton Railway 
Company) held that the bye-law framed by the Companies, limiting 
their liability in the case of dogs to £2, was void a3 being unreason¬ 
able, and a verdict was given for the plaintiff for £50, the proved 
value of a dog sent by the defendant Company’s line and suffocated 
during its journey. The same bye-law generally provides for poultry 
and Pigeons as well as dogs, and the decision is thus of interest to 
our readers. 
- Pure-bred Poultry. —Apart from the greater pleasure 
which it affords, it pays better to keep and breed pure-bred fowls 
than to breed and feed a lot of mongrels, which latter many do for 
fear of the expense of buying a few pure-bred fowls to start with. 
In determining which breed of fowls to get, make up your mind at 
the start that no one breed can or does possess all the desirable 
qualities you are in search of. If you wish a breed for laying get 
Leghorns or Hamburghs ; if you wish them for weight get Brahmas 
or Cochins ; if you wish them for ornament get the Polish ; but 
give up the idea of getting a grand combination of all these qualities 
in one breed. Make up your mind what you wish in the way of 
fowls, and then select such breeds as will answer those requirements 
best. Give them good comfortable quarters, supply them liberally 
with water ar.d food, giving them requisite care and attention, and 
you will never have cause to regret your investment in pure-bred 
fowls. When your neighbours see what fine birds you have they 
will naturally want some of them for a sitting of eggs, and thus will 
a demand be created which will amply repay your first outlay of 
cash and subsequent trouble and expense. If you had bred nothing 
but mongrels there would have been little or no demand, and then 
merely at market prices. A good trio of pure-bred fowls, of almost 
any kind, can now be bought at fair figures from reliable breeders 
in most sections of the country.—( Farmers’ Magazine.) 
- The “ Mechi Fund.” —We are glad to state that the appeal 
of the Committee of the above fund is being liberally responded to 
by the public, and that several subscriptions have been received in 
addition to those already published. These include the Duke of 
Devonshire, £100; Mr. M. T. Bass, M.P., £50; Mr. Pickering Phipps, 
£50 ; Messrs. Barnard, Bishop, <fc Barnard, £26 bs. ; Sir Thomas D. 
Acland, Bart., M.P., £25; Mr. Alderman Fowler, M.P., £25; Mr. 
Frederick T. Mappin, £25 ; Messrs. Ransomes, Head, & Jefferies, £25 ; 
Messrs. Sutton & Sons, £25 ; Mr. John Corbett, M.P., £21; Captain 
Jay, £21 ; Mr. O. E. Coope, M.P., £20 ; Mr. W. De La Rue, £20; 
Mr. James Garrett, £20 ; a Friend, per Mr. James Garrett, £20 ; 
Mr. W. Goldsmith, £20 ; Mr. F. W. Grafton, M.P., £20 ; Mr. Robert 
Hanbury, £20 ; Earl Spencer, £20 ; Mr. John Walter, M.P., £20 ; 
Messrs. E. Cook & Co., £10 10s.; Mr. J. Corke, £10 10s.; Mr. James 
Spicer, £10 10s.; and several others of similar amounts. The Com¬ 
mittee aie making a systematic appeal in the interests of the fund, 
and already applications—signed by the Lord Mayor, the Marquis of 
Huntly, and Mr. Samuel Morley—have been addressed to Members of 
both Houses of the Legislature, provincial Mayors, members of the 
Common Council of London, city companies, bankers, brewers, agri¬ 
cultural engineers, seedsmen, and agricultural chemists. It was 
stated at the last meeting that Sir Henry W. Peek, Bart., M.P., Sir 
Sydney Waterlow, Bart., M.P., and Messrs. Hunter Rodwell, Q.C., 
M.P.; James Round, M.P. ; and Clare Sewell Read had consented to 
join the Committee, and that the following banks would receive sub¬ 
scriptions on behalf of the fund—viz., Messrs. Coutts & Co., 59, Strand, 
W.C.; Messrs. Glyn, Mills, Currie, & Co., 17, Lombard Street, E.C.; 
Messrs. Hoare, 37, Fleet Street, E.C.; Messrs. Martin & Co., 68, Lom¬ 
bard Street, E.C. ; Messrs. Robarts, Lubbock, & Co., 15, Lombard 
Street, E.C.; the London and County Bank, 21, Lombard Street, E.C., 
and branches ; the London and Westminster Bank, 1, St. James’s 
Square, S.W. 
- Peasant Proprietorships. —In a discussion on the “ Land 
Question in 1880,” at the Institution of Surveyors on the 10th inst., 
Mr. C. G. Grey spoke as follows :—“ The question of peasant pro¬ 
prietorship in Ireland has been much ventilated of late. To talk of 
the possibility of the 277,000 tenants holding under 15 acres (referred 
to by Mr. Watney), living on such an acreage was absurd, and the 
results would be suicidal. The very small farmers of Ireland could 
not live on their farms in bad years. He remembered the famine of 
1847—the horrors that resulted, and the exertions which all the 
residents of any position made to alleviate that distress. People 
were accustomed to regard the famine of 1847 as the only misfortune 
of the kind which had happened to Ireland ; but, looking back into 
its history, it would be found that there had been a succession of 
famines in 1816, in 1821, in 1823, in 1827, in 1831, and in 1832.” 
- Vegetable Farming. —“There was,” said Mr. Savill at the 
discussion above referred to, “ some little danger in recommending 
tenants what to grow. Some five or six months ago Mr. Caird re¬ 
commended farmers to grow vegetables, and the result had been 
disastrous to those who had grown Cabbages and other vegetables. 
Many a man of small capital, who had tried the experiment, had 
found that it cost him, speaking in round numbers, some £20 an acre 
to produce his crop of Cabbages, which was not worth when grown 
£5 an acre—in fact, not worth cutting ! The receipts were less than 
the outlay for the labour incurred in taking to market. No doubt 
the case was peculiar to the immediate neighbourhood of the metro¬ 
polis, for in country districts the Cabbages could of course have been 
utilised for feeding stock.” 
- Spurious Butter. —The Irish Farmers ’ Gazette publishes the 
following “ The manufacture of substitutes for and imitations of 
genuine butter, now carried on so extensively in many sections of the 
West, is really a national calamity, as well as a fraud upon innocent 
and unsuspecting consumers. There are seven factories in Chicago 
alone, each turning out from 2000 to 18,000 tbs. per day of suene or 
lard butter. Car-loads of this bogus butter are being shipped east¬ 
ward daily. What must be the effect of such illegitimate transac¬ 
tions upon the sale of western dairy products at our seaboard markets ? 
How unfortunate to American interests, in the great and increasing 
export trade in butter, that this promising industry should be crowded 
out by new-fangled articles, having the semblance of butter, but 
carrying deceit and fraud in their contents. Our eastern dairymen 
will find an increasing demand for their butter product if bearing 
upon its face the impress of purity, and if marketed in such form and 
package as to distinguish it from the vile adulterations now being 
manufactured in the West. National and State legislation should 
protect an industry, now yielding one billion pounds of butter 
annually, from the schemes of unprincipled tradesmen, who would 
ruin the dairy business of this great nation in order to profit by the 
manufacture of a miserable mass of bogus stuff, wholly unfit to eat. 
The American dairy is too large a factor in the prosperity of the 
nation to be allowed to fall into disrepute through the selfish and 
unprincipled manipulations of dealers in suene, soapstone, grease, and 
oleomargarine.” 
ARTIFICIAL HATCHING AND REARING. 
Several correspondents have written to ask for advice upon 
this subject. As we stated in answer to one of them last week, we 
purpose shortly giving a series of articles upon incubators and 
their management ; we shall afterwards give a detailed account 
of the various rearing appliances in use. In the meantime, as the 
needs of some of our readers appear to be pressing, we now give 
in a condensed form the results of our own experience in these 
matters. The rules to be observed are as follows :— 
Firstly. Let the eggs set be as fresh as possible, certainly not 
older than a week. 
