October 28, 1880. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 405 
Show yet held by the Association, the large hall being well filled. 
The Exhibition comprises dairy cattle and all descriptions of dairy 
produce, with the various implements and appliances connected with 
its manufacture. Goats, poultry, and Pigeons are also included, 
while space is also devoted to bees and honey. Prize drawings and 
plans for a dairy farm homestead are on view, and there is the usual 
miscellaneous collection of articles more or less connected with the 
farm or dairy. 
The live stock in the dairy classes number nearly three hundred, 
and comprise a valuable collection of animals. Most of the classes 
were well filled, but the Channel Island classes especially so, and it 
was here where the most keen and exciting competition took place. 
Her Majesty the Queen sent several animals to the Show, and obtained 
prizes in some of the classes. 
In pedigree stock for Shorthorn cows in milk or in calf there was a 
fair competition, the prize being awarded to “ Violet,” belonging to 
Mr. W. H. Wodehouse, Woolmers Park, Hertfordshire, an animal 
showing great length of frame with her milking qualities well 
developed, while her fine breeding is unmistakeable. Her Majesty 
the Queen took second prize with a very fine animal, but not showing 
the dairy qualities of the winner. For pedigree bulls the Marquis of 
Exeter was awarded the prize for his “Telemachus IX.,” which is a 
magnificent animal, and well worthy of holding the premier position 
if its weight, which is enormous, is overlooked. 
For Shorthorns not eligible for the herd book there is a good entry, 
and many useful animals are exhibited. The West London Dairy 
Society supplied the winners for those shown in pairs with a couple 
of red roan cows about five years old, remarkable for their milking 
qualities, and no doubt obtain their position from that cause, as we 
should consider the second and third of superior quality. Amongst 
the single cows the winner was exhibited by Mr. Thomas Birdsey of 
Leighton, Beds ; she was five years old, and shows both size and 
symmetry. She is a capital specimen of a dairy cow, and is very 
rightly placed at the head of her class, which is good throughout, 
having many first-class milking animals amongst them. In the Ayr¬ 
shire classes there is not a large competition, Mr. George Ferme of 
Streatham Hill being the principal exhibitor, and takes nearly all 
the prizes. 
The Channel Island classes we consider to be the feature of the 
Show. A very large entry in the Jersey classes excited the keenest 
competition, which gave the Judges some considerable difficulty in 
deciding. The well-known breeder, Mr. George Simpson of Reigate, 
carried off the two first prizes for cows with two especially fine 
animals, while Mr. Cardus of Southampton took the third prize with 
a cow not at all deficient in good points. Most of the animals showed 
both colour and breeding, and the class was a very good one. In 
the heifer class, in which there is the large number of forty-eight 
entered, Mr. Cardus was successful with a heifer not quite twenty 
months old, having not long calved. The only fault we could find 
with the winner was its being perhaps rather light behind the shoul¬ 
ders, but this may be remedied when it reaches the age of the other 
competitors, though we consider it young to have bred a calf, and 
question whether it is sound policy. The second prize belonging to 
Mr. Simpson, and the third to Mr. Le Brocq of Jersey, are both fine 
specimens of Jersey stock, while the whole class is especially good. 
Amongst the bulls Mr. G. Simpson was again successful with a 
capital animal of good colour, while several animals ran him close 
for the prize. The Guernseys were good, Mr. J. James’ cow and 
Mr. E. P. Fowler’s heifer being really first-class animals and good 
illustrations of the breed. The Kerry cattle are not numerously 
represented, but some good animals are shown, and they are no 
doubt good dairy stock. 
Of foreign cattle some fine animals from Holland attracted our 
notice as combining great size with apparently good milking qualities. 
The prizes for Goats attracted an entry of 114 animals, and the 
various breeds are well represented. 
The poultry and Pigeon Show is held in the gallery, and is very 
large, there being nearly two thousand entries in the numerous 
classes, which are exceptionally good. 
The numerous classes for cheese and butter are also well filled, and 
all kinds of English and foreign dairy produce are represented, there 
being several rows of cheese, while in the centre a large pyramid of 
foreign cheeses attracts considerable notice. 
FAMOUS POULTRY YARDS. 
GARTHMYL HALL (MRS. TROTJGHTON’S). 
It is a pleasure to us to resume a work which circumstances 
have for some time interrupted—viz., the description for our 
poultry-fancying readers of some of the best and most successful 
poultry yards. Through several seasons the name of Mrs. 
Troughton has often appeared high in the prize lists of our great 
shows, specially in the classes of Dark Dorkings and White 
Leghorns ; rumour reached us that the homes of these winners 
were among the prettiest and best arranged of poultry yards, and 
we gladly accepted a hospitable invitation to Garthmyl Hall to 
inspect them. We have described establishments on various 
scales, from the modest abodes of one breed up to those of 
princely magnificence where almost every variety may be found, 
Each has had its own characteristic features, and so have the 
Garthmyl yards. They are large yet manageable, and though 
there is much variety in the breeds kept, they are not so numerous 
that interest cannot be taken in individual birds. Their origin 
has been the same as that of the establishments of many a lady 
fancier—the country was dull, and Mrs. Troughton needed occupa¬ 
tion. This she found, and useful occupation too, in the superinten¬ 
dence of her poultry. Their houses and yards, well ad apted to the 
purpose, are for the most part of her own contrivance and the 
work of her gardeners ; the poultryman is a native of the place, 
who has learnt his business in them. 
The chief interest of such undertakings lies much in their 
gradual arrangement and expansion, and the pleasure of looking 
round places which are the result of home ingenuity is far greater 
than that of walking through the most costly erections of pro¬ 
fessed carpenters. We have seldom seen a place more suited to 
poultry than Garthmyl; it is situated in a richly timbered valley 
of Montgomeryshire. We entered by a drive curving through 
shrubberies and woods ; Deodars are prominent on each side ; 
then on the right appears a charming pool, trees feather to its 
edge, and it is broken with Reeds and Sedge—a veritable Paradise 
for waterfowl. Further on, as we approach the house, paddooks 
open on the left, and we catch the first glimpse of poultry. Here 
and there under trees are houses, each surrounded by its yard of 
wattle hurdles. The inmates were chiefly cockerels. We first saw 
Dark Dorkings, strong and promising birds, revelling in the shade 
of the spreading Oaks. Likenesses run through strains of poultry 
as well as through human families, and it interested us to recog¬ 
nise in some particular points of resemblance to their ancestors 
in our own yards. Among them were three or four Courtes- 
pattes cockerels, pretty, sprightly, saucy little fellows, with the 
characteristics of their breed strongly developed. It has been 
asserted that this is but a mongrel race, which will not breed 
true to its points ; such cannot be the case when the veritable 
stock is procured. Mrs. Troughton brought her stock birds from 
a famed French yard, and the produce seem exactly to resemble 
their parents. Terrible little Turks they appeared, continually 
chasing the big Dorking cockerels about till they sank down 
exhausted. Doubtless their high spirits are somewhat due to 
their luxurious fare, for the next morning we saw such a meal of 
bread, and milk, and eggs, going to them from the breakfast table 
as few fowls ever taste. 
To the south and front of the house were these scattered poultry 
houses ; westward through the conservatory we came on to a fine 
lawn, with huge trees here and there on it, and delicious views of 
a long valley broken with wooded knolls. Beyond in a paddock 
are many yards, not the cramped places often so designated, but 
each a grassy enclosure, with more spreading trees, large enough 
for many birds to live in in health ; these, too, open again into 
the open paddock, and by turn all the birds can have full liberty. 
First were a quartette of yards, one house in four divisions serving 
for them. This is an economical plan of construction. In one 
were a group of Golden Poland cockerels, then White Leghorn 
cockerels in numbers (among them one superb bird), then Silver- 
laced Bantams, then Golden Poland pullets. From these yards 
we emerged into an immense enclosure, more like a field than a 
yard, all backed to the north by the shelter of a dense wood. 
Here were many birds, chiefly Dark Dorking pullets ; and then 
came a troop of Ducks from a large pond abutting on this great 
run—such a troop of Ducks as we have seldom seen ; not obese 
exhibition creatures, the very sight of which we abhor, and whose 
appropriate abodes are usually pigstyes, but the most active, hard- 
feathered, glossy-plumaged flock. These were white Call Ducks 
and sheeny black Ducks, and most numerous of all wild Ducks, 
the Mallards, in the fullest glow of their new plumage.. We 
were greatly delighted with the busy quacking throng, again and 
again turned back to watch them, and the next morning counted 
no less than eighty-five at once on the water. Next on the edge 
of the deep wood, in a kind of bower, we visited the old Dorking 
hens, in warm retirement for the moult; and then there were 
many neat arrangements to be seen—a home-made artificial 
“ mother,” in which all Mrs. Troughton’s birds are reared ; most 
of them are hatched, too, in an incubator. One long, house, too, 
specially took our fancy. All appliances for an exhibitor were 
at hand—pens for the private judgiDg of several birds, meal tubs 
and corn bins and a vegetable slicer, and then on each side of . a 
central passage larger pens for birds fresh from show, or in 
inclement weather, or during the moulting season. Thence we 
came to a particularly pretty run, a large long enclosure, pro¬ 
tected from east winds by a high garden wall ;. two or three 
thatched sheds open into it, and some moulting birds were bask¬ 
ing on the sunny side of fine thick Conifers. Among them, his 
career over, a grand old Dorking cock ; in his chickenhood a 
