AMEKICAN AGBICULTUKIST 
195 
THE DORKING FOWL, 
We are glad to meet with the following com¬ 
mon sense article in an English publication, the 
Derby and Chesterfield Reporter , on the Dorking 
and Game Fowls. It will be seen that it almost 
exactly coincides with our views as expressed 
on the same subject, page 104—column third— 
of the current volume of the Agriculturist. 
When we first met with the Dorking Fowl in 
England, we made up our minds that it was the 
best and most scientific bred bird wc had ever 
seen—its fifth toe only excepted, which is an 
excrescence that ought to be got rid of in future 
breeding. A little knowledge in keeping them, 
justified us in pronouncing them entitled to the 
same rank among barn-door fowls, that Short¬ 
horns have taken among cattle; and years of 
experience in breeding them, have confirmed us 
in this opinion. The only trouble we have ever 
met with them is, in too close breeding, which 
it is essential to obviate. We, however, greatly 
esteem the cross with the Game Fowl as detailed 
in our article above alluded to, and yet we de¬ 
sire to see both the Dorking and Game perpet¬ 
uated, and kept up pure and distinct by them¬ 
selves. 
The time will come when people will get sick 
enough of those great, coarse, ill-shaped Asiatic 
Fowls. We have expressed our opinion very 
plainly of these fowls ever since we met with 
the first importation. A more unscientific bred 
domestic bird we do not know. For the food 
consumed, it is utterly impossible for such a 
modeled machine to give the same amount of 
good flesh and eggs, that the finer and juster 
bred fowls will, such as the Dorking, the Game, 
the Spanish, the Poland, the Dominique, and 
many other varieties we could mention. But 
to the article alluded to. 
The common sense of the public has brought 
back the Dorking Fowl to its wonted preemi¬ 
nence. , At the sale after the Metropolitan 
Show, and also at the Birmingham Exhibition 
of this year, the Dorking Fowl met with readier 
disposal at large prices than any other bird. 
The public voice has recognized it as the bird 
for the English farm-yard; it is altogether the 
pet of John Bull, as possessing great and good 
qualities, without ostentation, and clamor. The 
history of our county town records no less than 
three poultry sales by public auction, and at 
each of those the Dorking Fowl obtained the 
highest bidding—good hens selling for as much 
as thirty shillings each; and further, the most 
successful breeder of Dorking Fowls is at this 
moment selling their eggs readily at three gui¬ 
neas per dozen. These and the Game Fowl, are 
the true British poultry. They are racy of the 
soil, and come down to us, like many other good 
things, from a remote antiquity. If it were 
possible to engraft the hardihood and quality of 
the latter upon the size and early maturity of 
the former, perfection would be obtained. The 
veriest gourmand could ask no more, for there 
would be quantity and quality enough to satisfy 
the most capacious and capricious of appetites. 
Tenderness and plumpness would go hand in 
hand with a juiciness fitted to enrapture an al¬ 
derman who had passed the chair, or even a 
Metropolitan bishop. These are great and crit¬ 
ical authorities in matters of taste. Bland, unc¬ 
tuous, and rosy as they appear, they are never¬ 
theless excessively fastidious, the terror of 
cooks, and the final appeal in all matters apper¬ 
taining to gustativeness and alimentary delight; 
but even such an ordeal could be borne by the 
fowl that combined in itself the respective ex¬ 
cellencies of the Dorking and Game breed. The 
delicate taste of an Ariel, who could sit only 
where the bee sipped, and the greediness of an 
Esquimaux, might be contemporaneously grat¬ 
ified under such a combination, and short only 
of this, the Dorking Fowl stands pre-eminent as 
the fowl for the table. Those persons, and 
those only, who saw and studied pen 160 at the 
Birmingham Poultry Show of 1853, can form 
an accurate idea of the size, quality, and beauty 
of a first-rate Dorking Fowl. They wero the 
birds of the exhibition, and befoi’e them the 
whole tribe of Spanish and Cochins, black, 
white, brown, and bu£F, “ paled their ineffectual 
firesthirty-five pounds weight of the most 
delicate meat under heaven were there enshrined 
in beautiful forms, and robed with a plumage in 
which richness and grace struggled for ascen¬ 
dency. 
Although this fowl was described by Pliny, 
by Columella, and by Aldrovandus, “ a thousand 
years agoalthough it has been long known 
to naturalists as the “ Gallus Pentadactylus,” 
or five-toed hen, and recognized through this 
quality by every good housewife, who sought a 
good fowl in Leadenhall Market, yet, strange to 
say, it has been little patronized by the farmers 
in general, or even by persons of greater pre¬ 
tensions. Mr. Trotter, who has recently re¬ 
ceived a prize from the Royal Agriculturel So¬ 
ciety for the best essay on Poultry, devotes 
eighteen lines only to the Dorking Fowl, and in 
this quarter page commits several errors res¬ 
pecting them. He says, “ This breed degener¬ 
ates when removed from its native place.” Now 
it is a fact, that birds bred in Lancashire have 
hitherto beaten all competitors. The Rev. Mr. 
Boys, of Biddenden, in Kent, took the chief 
prizes at Reigate, in Surrey, (the very home of 
the Dorkings;) but his birds, which he valued 
at £200, were beaten utterly at Birmingham by 
fowls from Lancashire, Derbyshire, and Shrop¬ 
shire. If I were to rvrite that the Dorkings of 
Derbyshire may challenge the world, it would 
appear like a big, burly, blustering sentiment, 
“ full of sound and fury signifying nothing;” 
but it is nevertheless not very far from truth. 
Take not one county away, or one division, or 
one town, but remove the birds of one individual 
from the competition, and then it is the modest 
opinion of a Derbyshire yeoman, that the Dork¬ 
ing Fowl, within a ten-mile radius of his county 
town, may safely vie with all England, and 
therefore with all the world. To the proof; in 
judging of public questions, we can be guided 
only by public results. If asked, where are the 
best Leicestershire sheep in England, the reply 
at once is, at Mr. Sandy’s, Holme Pierrepoint, 
Nottingham — and why? because, in a royal 
competition open to the United Kingdom he 
carries off the prize. People may hug them¬ 
selves with self-complacency, and flatter them¬ 
selves that they have letter at home; but let 
them compete, and perhaps they will discover 
that there is something in a home atmosphere 
which leads to optical illusions, and thereby to 
defective judgment. A little solitary hill in a 
wide plain looks wonderfully large, for want of 
others with which to compare it; and both cat¬ 
tle and poultry have been known to look much 
larger by themselves than by the side of their 
rivals. But to return to the Derbyshire Dork¬ 
ings ; it was something that, in our county 
show, open to general competition, the first and 
second prizes in the adult classes, and the first 
prize in the chicken class, should be borne away 
by the native birds of the district, more espe¬ 
cially when it is known that they evoked the 
admiration of so experienced and able a judge 
as Mr. Bond, of Leeds, and that not simply in 
comparison with the birds with which they 
were then in competition, but as fine specimens 
of their class. The Cottage Gardener (a great 
authority) moreover stated, that the prize 
chickens “were admitted by all to be the finest 
pen of young Dorking Fowds ever exhibited.” 
In the show of world-wide reputation, and al¬ 
most world-wide competition at Birmingham, 
the fowls from this neighborhood were only sec¬ 
ond to those of which exception has been made, 
and indeed the first prize for the best cock and 
pullet was carried off by Mr. Drewry, of Fewton 
Mount, near Burton. These facts are related 
to show, that the Royal Agricultural Society’s 
prize essay was incorrect in speaking of the de¬ 
generacy of the Dorking Fowl when removed 
from Surrey, and justify the opinion of a Der¬ 
byshire yeoman, that (with the exception of the 
Knowsley breed) there are three poultry yards 
within eight miles of each other, and all within 
ten of our county town, that might safely chal¬ 
lenge any other three yards in the United King¬ 
dom for the display of Dorking Fowls. 
- • e • -- 
AMERICAN INSTITUTE REPORT, 1852. 
CHEESE MAKING. 
We have received a copy of the Annual Re¬ 
port of the American Institute for 1852, which 
is just issued. Almost all such Reports are far 
too slow in making their appearance. The 
matters of which they are composed lose much 
of their interest, when, as in the present in¬ 
stance, a whole year’s transactions have inter¬ 
vened. Some delay is, generally, unavoidable, 
but we earnestly look for and counsel improve¬ 
ment in this respect. This Report gives, in the 
compass of 512 pages, a general view of the 
transactions of the Institute during the year— 
more than half of the volume is devoted to re¬ 
ports of the meetings of the Farmer’s Club. 
The more important portions of this part were 
published in our own and other journals at the 
time of these meetings. 
The only criticism we would now make upon 
this report is, that in looking through its pages 
we find some little grounds for a feeling that 
prevails to some extent out of the immediate 
vicinity of New-York, viz., “that the benefits 
of the Institute, or especially of the Farmer’s 
Club, are chiefly confined to a special few, who 
constitute a kind of ‘ mutual admiration so¬ 
ciety.’ ” Some parts of this report published at 
the expense and with the sanction of a great 
public association, savor too strongly of private 
puffing of goods and wares. 
As appropriate to the season, we copy: 
Process of Making Cheese, by John 0. Dale, 
Western, Oneida Co., U. Y., to whom the first 
premium of the American Institute was 
awarded, October, 1852. 
I milk 30 cows, averaging one year with an¬ 
other, 3 lbs. of cheese per day to a cow. Last 
year the season being very dry, the average 
was less, say 24 lbs per cow. My cheese-mak¬ 
ing season is about six months, commencing 
about the 1st of May. Put the rennet into the 
milk when it is as warm as it comes from the 
cow; if the weather is cold, the milk will re¬ 
quire heating to about the temperature named 
above, before putting in the rennet. My mode 
is to take five rennets and put them into a stone 
jar, holding about three gallons, and fill the jar 
with strong brine; and this I frequently fill up 
the second time, as the strength will not be ex¬ 
hausted by using the fluid the first time out; 
but this, of course, depends upon the strength 
of the rennet. The rennet from a calf four days 
old is much better, purer, and stronger than 
one from a calf four weeks old ; and in saving 
the rennet from a young calf, part of all the 
contents of the stomach should be saved, mix¬ 
ing with the contents of the stomach half as 
much pure salt as the stomach contained of 
curd ; but if the rennet is taken from a calf fit 
for veal, no portion of the contents of the stom¬ 
ach should be saved. The quantity of rennet 
used should be such as would coagulate the milk 
in about thirty minutes, say about a pint and a 
half to the milk of the above number of cows. 
If this does not effect the object, increase the 
quantity a trifle. There will be a difference in 
the strength of the rennet at different times. 
Cut the curd carefully with a wood knife, 
