JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 437 
spread and raked into every second or third furrow as the case may 
be. As fast as the land is ploughed the men use a light one-handed 
spade for the planting, the spade being introduced at an angle of 45° ; 
when lifted up leaves an opening for women to follow and introduce 
a plant just under the back of the spade, and holding it in its position 
until the man withdraws the spade, the man then in the act of pass¬ 
ing on in the work with one foot and presses down the earth firmly 
over the root or stem of the plant. In this way, even if the land be 
very dry, the plants are sure to take ; and the men when accustomed 
to the use of the spade in the way required, the women to insert the 
plants and boys to fetch them, much effectual planting can be done in a 
day. This plan is well adapted for any kind of plants usually placed 
out with the setting-stick, and are sure to succeed whether wet or dry 
weather prevails at the time of planting or follows it. We have on 
various occasions grown as fine Cabbages and Broccoli by this plan 
as we have seen, and it is far preferable to planting with the setting- 
stick, especially if the plants are tall and strong. 
Horses, when drilling Swede or other root seeds or preparing the 
land is going on, may with advantage work on the land in the early 
part of the day, and proceed in afternoons when the weather is fine 
with the work of carting and stacking the hay. In using the mowing 
machine we prefer to make long days, and work three relays of horses 
in drawing the machine, the tedding machine following closely. 
With the use of our new process after twice tedding, the hay may 
on the third day be fit to carry to the stack in a partially green state 
if the home farmer is prepared with the exhaust-fan to withdraw the 
extra heat from the stack. It will, however, require to be built with 
a sack full of hay or straw drawn up the middle as fast as the rick 
rises, so that a chimney or hollow space may be left in the centre of 
the rick up to the level of the proposed eaves, and a hollow wooden or 
iron pipe with a 4 or 5-inch orifice built into the rick, reaching from 
one side to the centre chimney at about SJ feet from the bottom to 
which the exhaust-fan (and these now are made in different ways) 
should be applied, and on the opposite side of the rick a hollow tube 
just large enough to admit the insertion of a thermometer with a 
handle attached, by which means the temperature of the rick 
can be ascertained. When the hay reaches 100° or corn reaches 
80°, it is time to use the exhausting-fan, and to take care that 
it does not go beyond, for hay is injured at the temperature 150°, and 
will take fire at 200°. Practically carried out we consider this 
one of the greatest and most ingenious inventions of the age. If hay 
is now spoiled or injured either in the field or the stack it is the 
farmer’s own fault; not even in the bad season of 1879 was there any 
hay injured where this system was properly carried out. There is, 
however, another great and important fact to be considered, for if 
the weather is quite favourable the hay may be placed together in a 
comparatively green state, in which case the quality and feeding 
value will be much greater than when dried by the sun, and certainly 
not subject to the waste and loss of the dried leaves falling, as is 
often the case in very harsh weather, during the process of making 
and carting. Nor are the exhausting-fan and other appurtenances 
costly, and we advise the home farmer to study his interest in this 
matter and prepare himself for both haying and harvest. 
Live Stocli .—We recently inspected a well-managed farm of about 
250 acres, partly arable and partly pasture. We found the Hampshire 
Down tegs just shorn, fat and ready for the butcher, many of them 
having been sold in their wool; these were feeding on Trifolium, two 
foldings per day, and 1 tb. each of decorticated cotton cake, and they 
were in beautiful condition. We also saw a butter-making dairy of 
about forty Guernsey cows, nearly all being pure Guernseys, but bred 
on the farm ; these were grazing in some meadows with a plentiful 
supply of grass, the cows, however, at milking-time received each 
4 lbs. of decorticated cotton cake daily. There were also two capital 
pure-bred Guernsey bulls of different ages, about thirteen head of 
yearlings, besides calves for weaning, all pure Guernseys and bred on 
the farm. We saw in the dairy a beautifully made-up lot of butter in 
printed £ lbs. almost as yellow as gold, and the quantity per cow made 
at present including some heifers with first calf just gone was stated 
to be 9 tbs. per cow per week. We mention this as a good illustration 
of the cattle management for such a farm, including the lesson to be 
learned from the great improvement in not only the arable but the 
pastures since we had last seen the farm just three years ago. Now 
this improvement can be clearly traced to the fact that every acre 
whether of meadow or newly laid pasture receives a dressing every 
year, besides the advantage from cake-fed stock. We shall return to 
this subject again. 
Bath and West of England Society and Southern Counties 
Association. —The Exhibition to be held at Cathays Park, Cardiff, 
during Whitsun week is expected to be one of the largest ever 
held by the Society—similar, in fact, to those held at Bath, Exeter, 
and Worcester. The number of entries in the live stock depart¬ 
ment is very great, but the great feature of the Exhibition will be 
in the trial fields which adjoin the show yard. Here elaborate 
preparations are being made for a full and complete display of the 
various methods which have attracted so much attention of late for 
saving and maturing the hay crop in untoward weather. Gibbs’s 
hay-drier, which has been for some little time in the market, and 
Neilson’s process, which has only within the past few months been 
brought under the notice of the farming community, will both be 
exhibited in actual work. The exhibition of bees and bee appliances 
in a tent specially constructed for the purpose, and the delivery of 
lectures by an expert, with practical examples of the most approved 
methods of bee management and manipulation, which were intro¬ 
duced for the first time last year, and met with so much approval at 
Tunbridge Wells, will be carried out upon an even more complete 
scale at Cardiff under the auspices and direct superintendence of the 
British Bee-keepers’Association. The horticultural department will 
also maintain its attractiveness, and will include many choice speci¬ 
mens from the gardens and greenhouses of floriculturists of South 
Wales. 
TUFTED FOWLS AS LAYERS. 
(Continued from page 416.) 
1, The French tufted races are the Crelve Coeur and the Houdan. 
The Cr6ve Coeur is a noble bird in size and form, short-legged, up¬ 
standing square, and robust. It lays larger eggs than any of the 
other tufted breeds, but we believe it to be a little less hardy than 
the Houdans. Craves are black, though we have seen them pure 
white and blue. We fancy that the whites are albino sports, and 
so not to be cultivated and encouraged, and probably the blue are a 
cross between them and the black. Houdans are a race of very tough 
constitution, and bear more confinement than t'reves. They are 
good layers and nice table birds. Alone of all the tufted races they 
have a fifth toe. Whence this came we know not. Possibly it is 
attributable to some remote cross with an old Dorking breed. 
Houdans vary much in productiveness; at least, we have found 
them do so. They are shy and not easily tamed, which we think a 
disadvantage in any domestic creature. Both Creves and Houdans 
must be good specimens to be handsome. Indifferent birds, with 
small, crooked, and falling crests, are simply hideous. 
2, The many “ Polish” sub-varieties are all beautiful, and there 
is, we think, no variety of poultry in which second-rate specimens 
are so tolerable as Polish. Indeed, sometimes birds, handsome in 
marking, and with crests well shaped, though too small for the show 
pen, are, we think, more beautiful than those with crests of inordinate 
size. We are now only giving rough sketches. For minute descrip¬ 
tion of each sub-variety our readers must refer to former articles in 
these pages, or to good poultry books. The White-crested Blacks 
have always been our great favourites. The Silver and Golden 
were, we b lieve, in times past spangled; they are now generally 
laced— i.c., each feather is edged with black. The buff breed is very 
handsome, but seldom seen in England with real accuracy of mark¬ 
ing, for each feather should be edged with white. Pure black there 
once were, and we know some now nearly black. White, too, are 
nearly extinct; but we could name a yard in which they have been 
revived, and where some beautiful pens may now be seen. Blue 
with white crests, and Cuckoos, too, exist here and there. Enough 
variety this, assuredly, to satisfy all tastes. But at present we are 
chiefly concerned with their useful qualities. There is a vague 
general idea that Polish are delicate fowls. We long accepted this 
common opinion of fanciers, but experience has convinced us that it 
is erroneous. Very probably where a single family has long been 
interbred to obtain some particular point—such as great size of crest 
or accuracy of marking—they are delicate, and so are Cochins or 
Brahmas, or any of the sorts reported to be hardy. Where, too, any 
kind of tufted fowls are turned into long wet grass or dank woods 
their crests get wet, matted, and miserable, and colds are sure to 
follow. Each breed has its peculiar adaptability to particular cir¬ 
cumstances, and the special virtue of Polish fowls is that they bear 
confinement well, never pine in it, even when they have been reared 
at large, and lay as well in small as in large quarters. This latter 
characteristic is v- ry rare and very valuable. We have found from 
many and constant experiments that hens of almost all other breeds 
invariably cease to lay when moved from a wide range to enc'osed 
runs. This change must in nearly all large establishments of 
poultry be made when first the pullets are caught out of the pullet 
runs and placed in breeding pens. Thence it happens that at the 
particular time of year when eggs are most valuable and. most re¬ 
quired the best breeding hens are not laying. That, too, is not the 
worst. When a laying bird is thus suddenly checked it is no rare 
thing for her laying powers to be impaired, and for her to lay ab¬ 
normal or shelless eggs when she does lay again. For these rea-ons 
a breed, the hens of which bear with equanimity sudden confine¬ 
ment, is very valuable. We have three Poland hens which, after 
being reared on a large and free range in 1880, were, in the autumn 
of that year, shut up in a small grass run, the worst and most ex¬ 
posed which we have. They have been in it ever since, and not one 
of them has ever ailed for a day. Since January 1st they have all 
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