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AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
PIGEONS—THE FLYING TUMBLERS. 
Under this denomination it is my intention to 
include all the varieties of the most interesting 
and amusing kind of pigeon with which I am 
acquainted. The fancy Almond and the high¬ 
bred short-faced Tumblers I mentioned briefly 
in my last, referring those that require a fuller 
description to Mr. J. M. Eaton’s work, where 
they will find full particulars as to their manage¬ 
ment, breeding, &c., as also accounts of the 
trouble and difficulty of rearing “a little won¬ 
der;” but such pains will, I fear, be only be¬ 
stowed by a few enthusiastic fanciers. The va 
rieties of this breed that now come under our 
notice, are very numerous ; their soaring flighi 
and their aerial gymnastics will call forth much 
admiration, and are, I conceive, well calculated 
to enlist the sympathies of the student of na¬ 
ture. The Tumbler pigeons are well known in 
most of the countries of Europe; in France 
they are called “ Voltigeurs,” or “ Culbutants;” 
in Germany, “ Burzel,” “ Umschlager,” or 
“Tummler-Tauben their name is derived from 
their throwing a summersault while flying, 
which they sometimes perform three or four 
times at a single spring, clapping their wings 
together over their back, then suddenly bring¬ 
ing them down with force, they throw them¬ 
selves back on their tails and roll over back¬ 
wards. Young birds may frequently be seen 
trying to tumble, throwing themselves back on 
their tails, but fearing to go over, and some are 
a long time before they can overcome their 
fears ; this is called “ backing.” When young 
birds fly well and back much, without going 
over, (a great defect,) I have found it useful to 
pull out the middle of their tail, so that the 
next time they back they often fall over, and 
from that learn to tumble well; some tumble 
too much at a time, and thereby lose their flight, 
or cause the others to come down to them, 
which is very objectionable. I have heard of a 
new sort (at least new to me,) called rollers, be¬ 
cause they roll along with the flight, but never 
having seen them, cannot describe them; per¬ 
haps some of the readers of the “Poultry 
Chronicle" may know them, and oblige me by 
a description. The Tumblers should be kepi 
in a house by themselves, and only let out once 
a day; the best time is in the morning before 
the sun is very hot, and when they have had 
their fly, they should be shut up for the rest of 
the day, and not allowed to associate with the 
other pigeons, or they will contract a habit of 
low flying, which would spoil thorn; they 
should be kept in a commodious house, and in 
constant daily exercise, or they become lazy. 
Their house should be provided with plenty of 
food, clean water, and grit; a “salt cat” will 
be found very useful, made of old mortar, coarse 
sand, clay, and a little salt; nor should green 
meat be omitted, such as lettuce, cabbago, &c., 
and an occasional bath is very beneficial. 
They are excellent breeders, and do not re¬ 
quire so much attention as most fancy pigeons; 
keep them clean and in exercise, give them good 
food and water, and materials to build with, 
and they will do well. Although their young 
are small, they are excellent in pies, and are 
produced in abundance, provided they are not 
cramped for room. 
The Tumbler should have a nice round head, 
a pearl eye, a short beak, a full chest, and a 
consequential deportment; they assimilate to 
the Almond short-faced in properties, but if in¬ 
tended for the flying fancy, must be stouter 
and of stronger constitutions—in fact, not so 
high bred. They may be met with of various 
grades of goodness, like most other fancy arti¬ 
cles ; their plumage is the most varied of all 
pigeons; there are whole colors, of black, blue, 
white, red, yellow, or buff, silver, dun, ash-col¬ 
ored, and kite ; also mottles of all these. There 
are two kinds of mottles, dark and light; the 
dark have only a few feathers of white about 
head and shoulders; the light mottles must 
have the whole of the flight and tail dark, the 
rest of the body white, interspersed with a few 
colored feathers. Then there are the pieds; 
first, the magpie tumbler, black, blue, red or 
yellow, with white wings, breasts, thighs and 
vent, evenly marked without one colored 
feather, the rest of the body being dark without 
any white. 1 have also seen reds and yellows 
with quite white shoulders like shields, and the 
Germans have a variety with white bodies but 
dark heads and tails. Baldhead Tumblers are 
very pretty ; their bodies are of various colors, 
as black, blue, &c., from which they receive 
their name, as black Baldheads, and so forth; 
the head must be perfectly white, evenly marked 
all round, and not “slobered;” from seven to 
ten flight-feathers must be white in each wing, 
and the tail, rump, thighs and vent must also 
be quite white and clear from “foul feathers ;” 
the eyes, too, must be pearl, as a black eye is a 
great blemish. Bearded Tumblers are also very 
interesting pigeons; like the foregoing, they are 
of various colors, and must have clean white 
flights, tails, rumps, thighs, &c., and pearl eyes ; 
their heads are dark above, the upper mandible 
is dark, but the lower should be white, or flesh- 
colored, and under the beak should be a triangu¬ 
lar white patch, from which they derive their 
name. The Blue-Bearded Tumblers are con 
sidered the best flyers, but they are not now of¬ 
ten seen of accurate markings, more attention 
being paid to breed them delicate and short¬ 
faced, than to maintain a clear beard and clean 
thighs and rump, a fact I much regret. A 
small, delicate bird with a tiny beak, looks well 
in the show-pen, but very few of them art 
strong enough to take a lofty flight of two or 
three hours, oft rising above the clouds, and fre¬ 
quently lost to sight; such are the delights of a 
flying fancier. I am aware that the head and 
beak fanciers consider that every thing else must 
give way before these points, and to a certain 
extent this is quite right; but those gentlemen 
that admire the short-faced Tumblers will, while 
they enjoy their fancy, allow others to enjoy 
theirs, and not exclude, as some seem to wish, 
the flying birds from all exhibitions; for birds 
with such short beaks that cannot rear their 
own young, or so delicate that they must not 
be trusted out, are certainly'- not fitted for lofty 
flights; but good Tumblers are rather scarce, 
they being either too delicate to fly, or too 
coarse to be admired—a medium sort is the 
kind best adapted for good flyers. 
The Germans have a large variety of Tumb¬ 
lers, which fly well and tumble very nicely'; 
they are of various colors, either whole colored 
or dark with white flight and tails, often with a 
small beard, and their feet are covered with 
very long white feathers, many of the feathers 
on the toes measuring four or five inches in 
length. I kept a flight of them when in Ger¬ 
many, and was agreeably surprised to find them 
excellent high flyers, and very prolific ; but to 
my great discomfiture, when I had got them al 
most to perfection in flying, a large hawk made 
daily descent upon them, and so reduced their 
numbers that I was obliged to leave off flying 
them. These rough-footed Tumblers I found 
very plentiful in and about Coblentz, on the 
Rhine; in other parts of Germany they have 
many clean-footed Tumblers of various colors, 
as magpies, helmets, and beards, but their 
beards have only a white beard and flight 
feathers, the rest of the body being dark, of 
various colors.— B. P. B., in Poultry Chroni¬ 
cle. 
- •••- 
EXPERIMENT WITH NITRATE OF SODA AND 
GUANO ON A PEAT BOG. 
The land on which the following experiment 
was made, was a peat bog reclaimed in 1850, 
thoroughly drained, and six inches of clay ap¬ 
plied over the whole surface; the only crops 
raised upon it had been oats, turnips, and again 
oats sown out with grass. In March last I 
sowed on one portion of the new grass 224 lbs. 
of nitrate of soda, with 112 lbs. of salt; on an¬ 
other portion 448 lbs. of guano ; and on the re¬ 
mainder of the field no manure was applied. 
The nitrate gave per imperial acre 6600 Ihs.ofhay, at $56 00 
Guano gave 5940 lbs., value.. . 50 40 
Nothing gave 3080 lbs . 26 13 
Independently of the increase of weight of 
hay from nitrate, I prefer that manure for either 
new or old grass, as it appears to require little 
moisture to put it down to the roots of the 
plants. A strong dew in the course of one 
night appeared sufficient for that purpose, and 
in about 86 hours after its application the grass 
turned to a luxuriant dark green color, whereas 
the guano requires a good shower of rain to put 
it dowm ; unless it gets such fall of rain it does 
little good. 
My trial of nitrate on oats and barley last 
year leads me to prefer guano for these crops. 
1 applied 168 lbs. of nitrate on one portion and 
336 lbs. of guano on another, but the oats top- 
dressed wfith nitrate kept a blueish sort of color 
throughout the season, and did not ripen 
equally, and the ear soft; while those which 
nad guano ripened equally, had a harder, crisper 
ear, and weighed belter. The land upon which 
that experiment was made had not been previ¬ 
ously cropped, and was of a mossy loam with a 
mixture of clay.— James Dyce Nicol, in Jour¬ 
nal of Royal Agricultural Society. 
THE CURRANT CROP IN ZANTE, 
Our Zante correspondent, under date of June 
21, says: “The disease of the currant vine has 
ilready made great progress. Many think that 
4 will be more severe this year than in previous 
years, but I believe that this will not be any 
worse than the last one. As it is, however, it 
is bad enough. The misery attending such a 
•date of things is of course on the increase. Oui 
rich land-owners are doing all they can to econ¬ 
omize. They deny themselves every comfort, 
and even what are considered indispensable ne- 
nessities. Thoy are now selling their equipages 
as fast as they can get buyers; while the poor 
people who had, before this calamity, fared as 
poorly as they well could, have had lately to 
give up regular meals and feed upon the coars¬ 
est materials, whenever and wherever they were 
to be found. These poor people are now suffer¬ 
ing extremely. Our condition, indeed, can 
scarcely be worse; and yet to a worse state it 
must come, particularly in the coming winter. 
What is to become of us I cannot see, unless we 
turn cannibals and feed upon each other. 
A farmer here pretends to have discovered a 
remedy for this currant disease, and asks the 
Ionian government to give him $5,000 in case 
his discovery proves a remedy. This is, how¬ 
ever, very doubtful, to say the least. This pre¬ 
tended discovery consists in dipping each sepa¬ 
rate bunch of currants in a mixture of clay and 
cow’s dung moistened with water, and so great 
is the anxiety of the people here, that they have 
seized even upon such a forlorn hope as this. 
Thousands have actually set to work in good 
earnest to give the experiment a fair trial.”— 
Boston Traveler. 
This currant disease shows the folly—nay, ab¬ 
solute wickedness of people depending upon a 
single crop for their support. The vine-grow¬ 
ers in some parts of Europe, are now suffering 
nearly as much as the currant-growers, on ac¬ 
count of the vine disease. Let them reflect on 
the horrors of the late Irish famine, in conse¬ 
quence of the peasantry placing their whole de¬ 
pendence on the potato crop. Our southern 
planters formerly suffered somewhat in purse, 
though little in body, on account of devoting too 
much of their attention to one sole crop—cotton. 
Now, many have learned better, and raise their 
ow ? n corn and make their own bacon, and occa¬ 
sionally produce other things which enter into 
the consumption of their families. 
--- 
Wherever there is flattery, there is sure to 
be a fool. 
