JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
376 
[ May 4, 1882. 
it a rule to be present. We have always done so, and have known 
great losses by trusting to the men entirely. 
Thorne Agricultural Society. —The annual Exhibition of 
horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, dogs, rabbits, poultry, pigeons, cage birds, 
and flowers will be held on the 14th of June. 
We have been somewhat surprised, considering the exceptional 
mildness of the past winter and the present spring, to have many 
reports from poultry fanciers of failure in hatching. Of course, 
failure may result from many causes, and is far more often due to 
mismanagement than to unfertile eggs. But we do not now speak 
of reports from the inexperienced, but from really practical fanciers 
who can he relied upon, and who tell us that they have a great 
number of clear eggs this season. Our experience, fortunately for 
us, has been far different. But that matters little; enough reports 
of failure have reached us to call for some explanation, and, if pos¬ 
sible, some remedy. Of course, the fertility of the eggs depends 
upon the breeding birds of both sexes being in vigorous health and 
condition, and condition to a great extent depends upon the climate 
and season. Male birds especially are much affected by cold, and so 
during the winter and early spring it is a common thing to have 
many unfertile eggs. As we have said, our own early hatches have 
this year been unusually good; but we must confess that at the present 
time they are somewhat falling off, and our idea is that the warmth 
of the winter over-stimulated the birds and caused the production 
of too many eggs for their strength, and that the failures now re¬ 
ported are the result of exhaustion. Birds reared in this climate 
seem to need the usual bracing of the English winter, which they 
certainly have not this year had. No special treatment can possibly 
make up for this want. Apart, however, from the peculiarity of the 
present season, there are a few precautions which we believe would 
always ensure a much better proportion of productive eggs than is 
generally obtained. 
1, Exercise is necessary to keep the breeding birds in health and 
vigour. A pen of simply fancy fowls, from which only a few eggs 
are required, and which are kept rather for beauty than utility, may 
well be confined in a small run, but stock from which a large supply 
of eggs and chickens is to be obtained must have plenty of exercise. 
We fear that the general attention given to poultry of late, and what 
is commonly called poultry “fancying,” has accidentally caused 
fowls often to be kept in somewhat an unnatural way, and has so 
helped to make their eggs unfertile and their produce weakly. If a 
setting of cross-bred eggs is bought at a farmhouse the produce, as 
a rule, is not very good or very pretty, but it is a rare thing to find 
any eggs unfertile. When, however, we have our eggs from some 
famed poultry establishment where many breeds are kept in close 
quarters it is a common thing for half the eggs to prove clear, at 
least in the early part of the season. The want of natural exercise 
and food is probably the cause. Fanciers often tell us that they 
have at the beginning of the breeding season separated some half 
dozen of their best and most vigorous birds from the rest of the flock, 
and alone preserved their eggs for sitting. So far very good. It is 
always right that the breed of all animals and birds should be per¬ 
petuated by the most vigorous specimens of it. But too often these 
best birds are closely penned up, while the rejected inferior ones 
roam at large in the farmyard and over fields. The treasured eggs 
prove useless, while those of the common stock are fertile. Close 
confinement is the cause of the failure, and we always advise that if 
a really ample enclosed run with variety of ground cannot be given 
to the selected few that they should have the general run at large, 
and their inferior relatives be penned up. It is not only necessary to 
save eggs ftom the best specimens, but that these should be in the 
best of health. 
2, To keep them in vigorous health when at liberty is no difficult 
task. We have written so constantly on the general management 
of breeding stock that we fear to weary our readers with recurring 
to the broad simple rules we have so often given for it. Of one 
thing we will remind them—spiced and exciting foods, though oc¬ 
casionally necessary to stimulate hens which are very backward in 
laying, have, if constantly used, a very had effect upon the cocks. 
We fancy that this season the early stimulus given by the unusual 
warmth of the winter has had much the same effect—it has ex¬ 
hausted them. 
There is another point not to be forgotten. It is commonly thought 
that every egg must be absolutely clear and unfertile, or must pro¬ 
duce a chicken. This is not so. Of those that are duly fertilised 
there are some which have a stronger and some a weaker germ. 
People who frequently and carefully test their eggs during incuba¬ 
tion know by sorrowful experience that red and mixy look of the 
contents of many an egg, in which a chicken has up to a certain 
point duly developed, and. then dies for want of vigour and vitality. 
This difference in the strength of the vital germ in different eggs is 
very apparent when they are incubated artificially. In an incubator 
we find many more originally fertile eggs fail at different stages of 
development than we do when they are put under hens. Doubtless 
the natural warmth of the hen supplies some indescribable (if we 
may so call it) vivifying force which no artificial means can supply, 
and in its absence all the weaker germs fail and perish. It is no 
uncommon thing for purchasers of eggs to complain that worthless 
and unfertile eggs must have been palmed off upon them because at 
the end of the twenty-one days they are found “ addled,” and very 
unpleasant descriptions of their contents are appended to vigorous 
remonstrances with the vendors. The fact is, that their foul and 
“addled” state proves the very reverse—viz., that they were fertile 
eggs, for really clear eggs will, at the end of their incubation, be 
much the same as at the beginning. 
Many things may have prevented their hatching, such as an 
originally weak germ, a check or chill during the time of incuba¬ 
tion, a jar in transit, the prevalence of very cold winds, or even a 
chill from damp before they were set. The latter case we believe 
to be a very common one though seldom thought of. A hen which 
lays away will nearly always choose a dry corner; if, however, a 
nest has been thoroughly drenched before incubation we have never 
known eggs to hatch. This season we received a sitting of eggs 
from a distance beautifully packed, but in wet moss. We had 
perfect confidence in the sender, who assured us that she had hardly 
had a clear egg all the season, still a perceptible chilly feel about 
them gave us misgivings at once. An inspection before a candle 
on the fifth day showed us that all but two were fertile, but further 
examinations after a few days made it equally certain that some¬ 
thing was wrong. Our fears did not belie us—one cripple was all 
the result. Doubtless forty-eight hours in damp moss had chilled 
them. To sum up our conclusions, they are: That to get the largest 
possible number of productive eggs it is necessary to have vigorous 
stock, that they should be well but not overmuch fed, and, above all 
things, should have plenty of run and exercise.— C. 
OUR LETTER BOX. 
The Management of Pigs (W. Couriman ).—We have failed to find a 
comprehensive work on the breeding, rearing, fattening, and general manage¬ 
ment of pigs in the form of pamphlet. There are several essays upon the sub¬ 
ject in the Journals of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. But we 
know cf nothing so likely to meet your wishes as the two back numbers of the 
Journal of Horticulture, dated December 19th and 26t’n,1878, as they give the 
information desired, the articles being founded on a long period of practical 
experience. 
Hens Ill ( J.H .).—Your hens appear to be suffering from diarrhoea in a 
virulent form. Some defect of cleanliness either in their drinking vessels or in 
their housing is probably the cause. Look to this, and give those which are ill 
a dose of castor oil, followed by a little powdered chalk mixed in with the food. 
Try also a feed or two of rice well boiled in milk. 
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
Camden Square, London. 
Lat. 51° 32' 40" N.; Long. 0° 8 0" W.; Altitude, 111 feet. 
date. 
9 A.M. 
IN THE DAY. 
• a 
0 > o? c3 — 
Hygrome- 
P . 
Shade Tem- 
Radiation 
P 
1882. 
ter. 
£ P 
d-* O 
perature. 
Temperature. 
c3 
« 
April. 
3 3 1 - 5 
oc GrH 
In 
On 
Dry. 
Wet. 
So 
PH 
Max. 
Min. 
sun. 
grass. 
Inches. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg 
deg. 
In. 
Sun. 23 
£9.231 
53.8 
51.2 
s. 
49.7 
61.5 
48.9 
106.2 
42.8 
0.165 
Mon. 24 
29.480 
55.5 
49.7 
w. 
49.8 
59.2 
4G.J 
109.7 
43.0 
0.050 
Tues. 25 
29.477 
49.6 
44.7 
s.w. 
49.1 
53.7 
39.3 
80.1 
35.8 
1.076 
Wed. 26 
29.335 
47.8 
44.3 
N.W. 
47.7 
52.9 
37.2 
107.8 
36.3 
Thurs. 27 
29.758 
47.4 
41.4 
N.N.W. 
47.3 
53.7 
36.4 
100.0 
30.6 
0.163 
Friday 28 
29.216 
40.2 
45.0 
W. 
47.3 
57.0 
40.9 
111.8 
35.3 
0.035 
Satur. 29 
29.476 
47.8 
43.6 
S. 
47.5 
52.6 
38.7 
79.0 
35.0 
0.220 
29.425 
49.7 
45.7 
48.3 
55.8 
41.1 
99.2 
36.9 
1.710 
REMARKS. 
23rd.—Morning fine ; heavy showers in afternoon with hail. 
24th.—Showery day ; fine evening. 
25th.—Fine and bright early ; rain commenced 11.45 A.M., and continued with 
much cold wind. 
26th.—Damp at first, afterwards fine with some sunshine. 
27th.—Bright early, afterwards dull with bright intervals. 
28th.—Showery ; fine evening. 
29th.—Bright early ; rain commenced 8.45 A.M., continued for several hours; 
heavy gale in evening. 
Temperature lower than in the previous week, and almost exactly the average. 
Continuous heavy rain on 25th, and very hea% gale on 29th.—G. J. SYMONS. 
