202 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [ March 10 , issi. 
remarkably well. I should mix the manure and apply it as early in 
spring as possible, as soon as I had got the ground ready — even 
before winter. Potash is not liable to be washed out of the land, 
neither is the phosphate of lime. The only risk you run is that in 
very wet weather some of the ammonia may be washed out. Arti¬ 
ficial manure is not a preventive against disease. I recommend it 
in order to ensure as large a yield as possible, and a manure which 
supplies all the constituents in the proper proportion. Farmyard 
manure might be applied or let alone.” 
-Farming in the North of England.—A correspondent 
writes to Newcastle Journal as follows :—The storm which we have 
experienced in this district since the 10th January is now telling 
with most serious effect upon all hill stock. Hand-feeding of stock 
with hay has been day by day resorted to, till at last the supply of 
provender is all but exhausted, and relief cannot easily be had. 
Never has there been greater anxiety in the minds of flockmasters 
than there is now. Sheep-rot is prevalent all over the low-lying 
pastures. Serious losses have already befallen the farmers through 
deaths, and in scores of instances whole flocks have been sent to the 
butcher to save them from a total loss. March has come in, true to 
the tradition, like a lion. The outlook is more doleful than we like 
to report. Turnips are much injured. Upon arable farms work is 
very far in arrears. No spring Wheat has been sown, nor will there 
be any now. Clover leas are yet unploughed to a very great extent, 
and all the land for the Barley crop lies awaiting the plough. When 
we will get seed time it is difficult to say ; the time of the year is 
now at hand, but the season to sow is lost, especially for Wheat, and 
what is intended for Beans, like the land for oats and Barley, is yet 
all to make ready. With two months of arrears of ploughing lying 
before him, the corn farmer’s prospect is not one bit better than the 
grazier. The position of either is certainly not an enviable one. 
- A Simple Test of Oleomargarine.—A s there is much 
more of this product sold in England than the public are aware of 
we publish this test, which we believe to be a good one, from the 
American Farmers’ Magazine. Persons familiar with the process 
of manufacture of oleomargarine are aware that it is subjected to 
heavy pressure to express all extraneous matter, so consequently, 
when ready for sale, it presents a perfectly compact homogeneous 
mass. In order to detect the fictitious take a smooth-bladed knife 
and cut oleomargarine. It presents where cut a perfectly smooth 
surface, while genuine butter when cut with a knife does not pre¬ 
sent such an appearance, for you will find water oozing out and 
numerous small holes will appear. With this simple guide no one 
need be deceived as to the article they purchase. 
- AylesburyJDucks. —The Aylesbury trade is not conducted 
in large establishments, but is carried on exclusively by cottagers 
who, it has been computed, manage to divide between them some¬ 
thing like £30,000 a year. All round Aylesbury the cottagers are 
wont to keep a small number of birds. The eggs produced are sold 
by the cottagers to the “ duckers,” who sometimes contract to take 
their whole season’s supply at a fixed price. These “ duckers ” are 
for the most part labourers who are sufficiently independent in their 
circumstances to be able to devote such time as they may have occa¬ 
sion for to this particular business. They are in by no means a large 
way, six drakes and twenty Ducks constituting on an average the 
stock with which they commence the season’s operations. They begin 
to collect eggs in October, and give perhaps 3s. 6d. a dozen for all 
that are laid, though occasionally, Mr. Fowler says, he has known 12s. 
a dozen offered. They hatch, not under Ducks, Jbut under hens, 
usually Dorkings or Cochins. These are set in casks, or small 
hampers, or cheese boxes, and when the young birds are a few days 
old three or four broods are put together with one hen. Those 
intended for market, it is curious to observe, are never allowed to go 
into the water, but are kept very clean and dry on barley straw, and 
are fed on hard-boiled eggs, rice, and bullock’s liver for a fortnight 
or so, after which they are treated to barleymeal and tallow greaves. 
They are kept under cover—whenever convenience can be secured 
for them—in hovels or in cottages, sometimes as many as 2000 or 3000 
birds, partitioned off by boards into thirties or forties, preparing for 
market under one management. It is, as we have explained, the 
“ duckers ” who accumulate stock in this way, and about this time of 
year they begin dispatching their birds to the London market; and it 
is said that, as the spring advances, it is not an uncommon thing for 
a ton weight of ducklings to be dispatched from that neighbourhood 
in a single night. Now a ton of young Ducks from six to eight 
weeks old will comprise perhaps 450 birds, or 225 couple, worth, in 
the best part of the spring, from 15s. to 20s. a couple. This represents, 
it may be, £150 or £100 a night, all or most of which goes, not into 
^he hands of any large dealer, but, as it has been shown, is distributed 
among a very considerable number of people, who in no respect but 
their thrifty care and enterprise are better off than tens of thousands 
of Irish peasantry, to whom just such an industry might bring 
comfort and independence .—(The Globe .) 
PRACTICAL SCIENTIFIC BREEDING. 
(Continued from page 183.) 
BREEDING THE SEXES SEPARATELY. 
There is nothing which causes so much want of success 
amongst young fanciers as ignorance of the fact, that in many 
varieties of poultry it is necessary to mate-up distinct yards for 
breeding cockerels and pullets. We cannot but regret that this 
course should be necessary. It is in our opinion the result of an 
erroneous method of judging having been adopted in regard to 
one sex or the other. Either through a want of practical know¬ 
ledge of the breeding of the varieties upon which they had to 
adjudicate, or through caprice, the judges adopted standards for 
the two sexes which were inconsistent with each other. That is 
to say, a pair of birds to which prizes were awarded as being of 
the same variety, were really so distinct that if mated together 
they would have produced chickens unfit for mating with either 
parent. The birds shown as a cock and hen of 6ome particular 
variety were really of distinct varieties, and except in the show 
pen had nothing in common. Fanciers were more in the hands 
of the judges then than they are now, and instead of resisting 
this false method of judging, they fell in with the views of the 
judges and set up separate breeding yards for each sex. 
The standard having been thus wrongly fixed, has in regard to 
some breeds become so universally recognised that it would be 
quite useless to make any attempt to alter it now. In regard to 
these the breeder must therefore be prepared to submit to the 
inevitable, and in addition to his exhibition stock must purchase 
other birds which are worthless for exhibition, but which are 
suitable for mating with the exhibition stock of each sex. Two 
separate strains must, in fact, be formed. This, of course, neces¬ 
sitates the maintenance of a double number of breeding yards 
and the rearing of a larger number of chickens each year. It 
also necessitates the possession of a knowledge which is not 
always easily accessible—namely, the knowledge of the points 
which are the complement in one sex of the exhibition points in 
the other. All these considerations render it advisable that a 
beginner should, before taking up any variety, ascertain that it is 
not a variety which requires the two sexes to be separately bred, 
or if this be the case should master the method of breeding 
each sex. 
We may say that there is hardly any variety as to which we 
have not heard of successful attempts being made to breed ex¬ 
hibition stock of both sexes from the same yards. Permanent 
success, however, can hardly be obtained in some sorts without 
breeding the sexes separately, and as to these it is mere waste of 
time and trouble to make the attempt. 
There are, however, some varieties which have only for a com¬ 
paratively short time been judged by an erroneous standard, and 
in which a struggle has been going on between the breeders and 
the judges. In Dark Brahmas, for example, the tendency of the 
judges was for several years in favour of excluding mottled¬ 
breasted birds from the prize list. It was found that the pro¬ 
duction of well-pencilled pullets and black-breasted cockerels 
from the same parents was almost impossible. The clearer the 
pencilling of a hen the more likely were the cockerels bred from 
her to be more or less mottled on the breast. The leading ex¬ 
hibitors persisted in exhibiting mottled birds. The Crystal Palace 
Show established a separate class for them. The matter was 
taken up in the poultry press, and in one way and another it has 
