November 16,1882. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 467 
out arable land, and as an experiment I laid down three fields 
adjoining on three different methods. One was cleaned and sown 
with a corn crop and seeded with mixed Clover and Rye Grass ; 
one was cleaned and sown with best permanent grass seeds from 
Messrs. Suttons, and one was left to Nature. All have since 
been manured and grazed by sheep and young cattle fed with 
cake and corn and have greatly improved, but the best of the 
three is the one which was seeded by Nature alone.” 
We consider this is one of the most valuable contributions from 
a practical farmer we have ever seen upon this important 
subject, and corroborates most entirely the recommendations of 
Sir J. B. Lawes, which he had based upon his own trials upon 
the experimental plots at Rothamsted, and showing most forcibly 
and conclusively the value of scientific researches and experiments 
when conducted by intelligent and practical farmers. Whenever 
I have advocated the application of earthy compound manures it 
has frequently been objected that the cartage of heavy manuring 
materials was attended with great expenses, and the objectors 
have advocated the use of light hand-tillage manures, such as 
guano, nitrate of soda, and bone earth in various forms and con¬ 
ditions. But in a new pasture we have no humus to fall back 
upon like that of old pasture ; we must, therefore, refer to the 
best and quickest way to obtain this. 
(To be continued.) 
wore: on the home farm. 
Horse Labour .—Horses have not been employed on the strong and 
flat soils in seeding for Wheat for more than a month, and vf ry little 
has been done even on the driest soils. We know various farms of strong 
land where no Wheat has yet been sown. A great mistake has been 
made, and the farmers have been too trusty as far as weather is con¬ 
cerned, or that they have not horse or steam power enough employed 
on the farms to prepare the land in due season. Every farmer ought 
to know that the month of October usually gives the heaviest rainfall 
of any month in the year, and strong land, to be on the safe side, 
ought to be seeded with Wheat on the average of years during the last 
week of September or the first week in October, which can easily be 
done if the land has been prepared at the time, because the drilling 
under ordinary conditions of the weather is not a long job if the 
period and the work has been anticipated in a business-like manner. 
It is reported that on the hills in the north-east of Gloucestershire 
and parts of Cumberland and other northern districts that a con¬ 
siderable acreage of crops of Oats, Beans, and some Wheat was still 
in the fields at the end of October. This we cannot help thinking is 
a matter requiring more attention than it meets with at the hands of 
many farmers. Why should spring Beans be grown at all in the late 
climates and cold soils ? Why should not early white Oats be grown 
and winter Beans ? Why should Wheat on such soils and climate 
be grown at all, unless of an early sort ? We think that in nume¬ 
rous cases the farmers are more to blame than the state of the weather, 
because every man should endeavour to make the best provision 
against adverse weather. Although we may get a favourable seed¬ 
time late, every preparation must be made for it, for we well recollect 
certain seasons when th^re was no seed-time for Wheat, <fcc., until 
December, notably in 1872 and 1841, and some others during our long 
experience, and the home farmer now ought to be better prepared 
for adverse seasons than at any former period. Improved implements 
and improved cultivation, at least if intelligence and caution have 
prevailed, have been the rule in each succeeding year. Ours is, 
according to our version of it, the most undefinable climate of any 
cultivated country in the world. There are, of course, worse climates, 
but they are known and may be anticipated, whereas we have often 
endeavoured to anticipate the weather at certain seasons and as often 
failed. 
Hand Labour .—This has been seriously hindered in the fields, ifcc., 
during the late heavy rains, and in some of the best pastures in the 
different counties the floods have prevailed and prevented any 
customary trenching and ditching being done ; in fact, in some 
districts the work connected with Wheat-sowing, ifcc., has been pre¬ 
vented, and large area? of land have been flooded, in addition to the 
pastures. Men, however, at every sea onable opportunity, should 
go, spade in hand, an 1 let off all accvm ulated water in the furrows 
where Wheat or wint -r Beans, &c., b:ve been sown. Besides, the 
water meadows are now in flood, ard require careful and constant 
attention by the drowners. 
Live Stock .—All the bullocks now under box-feeding, especially 
those intended for Christmas, should be kept at a full allowance, 
say 64 tbs. of Swedes, or 56 tbs. of Mangolds daily. The roots, being 
passed through Gardener’s cutter, should have strewed over them 
and properly mixed with 4 lbs. of cake and 2 lbs. of Bean, Barley, or 
Maize, all in the meal state, in order that it may adhere to the cut 
roots and be eaten without waste. We never feed with hay, only 
give clean sweet oat straw ad libitum , and what they do not eat may 
be used for littering the boxes and stalls, but we prefer boxes. If we 
used stalls the cattle should stand in pairs, and be tethered at each 
corner, so that eveiy animal may get its share without disturbing its 
neighbour. 
WHITE DORKINGS. 
Some years since we gave in the pages of this Journal our 
ideas on White Dorkings. Time has flown since, and we have 
not abandoned our favourites nor changed our opinion as to their 
excellence. It is always a cause of wonderment to us that the 
breed has not become more popular. We seldom see it in any¬ 
thing like purity in the farmyard or the park, nor even amongst 
fanciers is it extensively patronised, as is proved by the paucity 
of entries in the White Dorking classes of shows as compared 
with many other breeds. Surely it is a breed attractive to every 
lover of beauty, with its pure white plumage and bright coral 
comb. Its lack of popularity can only be accounted for by the 
old and, as we believe, utterly groundless prejudice against all 
white poultry as being delicate. Probably it is a fact that 
albinos, or white specimens of a race naturally and usually dark, 
are generally feeble in constitution ; but that white races of 
poultry are so all our experience leads us to deny. We are not, 
however, now speaking of white birds generally, but of White 
Dorkings in particular. We have long kept both the Dark and 
Silver-Grey varieties as well as the White. The young stock are 
reared in common ; all have the same treatment, and our later 
experience confirms our original conclusion long ago given in 
these pages—that of the three varieties the White are the most 
vigorous. We then related that in a certain disastrous season, 
when our chickens of many races all died, the White Dorkings 
alone resisted the epidemic and throve. 
We have again had a bad year, though not so much fatal as the 
one then mentioned to chickens in their earliest days as to half- 
grown birds. Our experience is the same again. A wasting and 
incurable consumption has ravaged one of our flocks, but while 
others were pining and dying of unaccountable exhaustion some 
White Dorkings among them grew and flourished. Our own 
experience has been confirmed also by that of others, notably by 
that of a Scotch correspondent, who years ago wrote to us as a 
stranger inquiring the breed of fowls we should recommend him 
to keep for general use on his property in the west of Scotland. 
To his great surprise we advised him to try White Dorkings. He 
did so, and has more than once since thanked us for our recom¬ 
mendation, speaking in the highest terms of the hardihood and 
productiveness of the breed. Our present subject was suggested 
by the remarks of a contemporary a few weeks ago in a report of 
the poultry show at the Agricultural Hall, to the effect that the 
White Dorkings there showed traces of a Game cross. We believe 
the reporter to have been mistaken, and for two reasons. 
1, We know something about all the strains of the winning 
birds at that Show to which allusion was specially made, and 
know them to be strains which have been kept scrupulously pure, 
and that their owners are far too experienced fanciers to make 
any such injudicious cross. 
2, A Game cross would probably so spoil the plumage of a 
family of White Dorking as to make it unfit for the show pen for 
generations to come. We have never tried it, but can only con¬ 
clude that this would be its effect from observing other Game 
crosses. We have crossed White Game with other white breeds, 
among them with Japanese Silkies of spotless and glistening 
whiteness, and the produce have invariably been Piles. It has 
seemed impossible to breed out the red patches, doubtless from 
the strength of the Red Game blood, from which the White are 
descended. 
However, though not (as we believe) with Game fowls, White 
Dorkings have been crossed with White Cochins, Dark Dorkings, 
Cuckoo Dorkings, and probably with Hamburghs. We have known 
cases in which the former crosses have been tried, and with dis¬ 
astrous effects as to the purity of plumage. Size is certainly in¬ 
creased, but with it a certain coarseness appears, easily recognised 
by a practised eye. But the chief evil is an ugly yellowish or 
brownish tinge of neck and saddle hackle in the cock, and of neck 
in the hens, in lieu of an even whiteness. The Cuckoo cross, 
too, has, we know, been made, and after many generations 
leaves its evil effects in dark feathers, which occasionally appear 
in the offspring of seemingly the very best stock. That the Ham¬ 
burgh cross has been tried we have not positive evidence, but the 
small neat combs of one strain, combined with a too elegant 
slimness of body and frequently white earlobes (a real eyesore), 
are tolerably strong evidence of it. 
The object of these lines is to dissuade fanciers of so useful and 
beautiful a breed to abstain from spoiling it by such crosses. 
Unfortunately its admirers are too few, and consequently the 
