September 23. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
when 1 had taken all her lards away, but tolcl her I should 
send her some more. 
“ ‘ Do (she said), but please don't send me any Cochin- 
Chinas.’ 1 pay her according to the number of eggs she 
gets for me, and therefore said—“Why Dame! they are 
the best layers." “ True (she said), they do lay a few more, 
but they eat more than double. They ruin me.” 
“ I am thus explicit, because J believe, if you are going to 
j fatten Cochin-Chinas, you will meet only disappointment 
with them. Not so with the Dorkings; and my proof with 
i any dissentient, should be—let them send to Leadcnhall 
twelve Dorking chickens, twelve Cochin-China chickens, and 
twelve of any other breed. Let them be the same age, and 
fatted alike, I will acknowledge myself beaten, if the 
Dorkings do not make considerably more money (most 
likely one-third) than any of the others. They will there 
be purchased by practical men, who are, or should be, 
perfect judges of the articles they deal in, when they see 
them dead. 
“ I remain, & c., 
“Sept. 1st., 1852. (Signed) John Baily.” 
1 wish somebody would give us their opinion about 
“ a hen laying twice a day.” 7 certainly have known it done, 
but my belief is, that when such. a thing occurs, there will 
be no egg the next day; and that, far from being a cause for 
congratulation, is a sign that the hen is in an improperly 
excited state. A medical man would describe it “ as the 
secretion being unhealthy, and excessive.” In these cases, 
or when a hen lays soft eggs (I have known a hard 
proper egg enclosed in a soft one), I have treated both 
patients alike, by separating them from the flock, giving 
them no dry corn, but bread sopped in water, or other cool, 
soft food, and plenty of lettuce leaves. I have now a hen 
under this treatment. The cure has always been effectual. 
I have now only to thank you for inserting my letters in 
The Cottaoe Gardener, and to bid you heartily, farewell. 
G ALDUS. 
RAISING A STOCK OF BEDDING-OUT 
PLANTS. 
(Continued from page 371.) 
IIAVIno filled two of the glasses with Verbenas, 1 next 
take that most useful class of bedding plants, the shrubby 
Calceolarias, and proceed with them exactly in the same way; 
I choose four of them, Amplexicaule , and a dwarf yellow, a 
very dark brown one, and Kentish Hero. I had only one 
plant of the last-mentioned last year. In the autumn I put 
in every cutting I could take from it, and, on removing the 
glass this spring, I found that I had enough good, strong, 
healthy plants to fill a bed, and certainly a most beautiful 
bed it is. It came in very early, and is still a mass of bloom. 
These Calceolarias require no attention through the winter, 
the glass being a sufficient protection, and I can always 
depend upon preserving from forty to fifty plants under each 
light. 
The next glass I fill with different varieties of Penstemons, 
and another with the Double Feverfew, Chelone barbata, and 
the more tender Phloxes; and the last 1 keep for experi¬ 
ments. I noticed what Mr. Beaton said about Shrub/and 
Rose, and I have some hope of adding this little favourite to 
my list. 
About the middle of March the glasses are all taken off, 
and then I take a large table-knife and cut deeply between 
every row of plants each way, this gives them a salutary 
check and prepares them for transplanting. I seldom cover 
them after this, night or day; and towards the end of April, 
if the weather is showery, I plant out in the beds, having 
for the two previous evenings given a thorough good soak¬ 
ing of water. If the plants are removed very carefully, 
many of them may be taken up in the little squares ot earth 
made by the cross cuttings. I forgot to mention, that if 
the mildew attacks the Verbenas, a slight dusting of sul¬ 
phur now and then may be useful. T. B. 
401 
FURTHER NOTES ON THE NEW SYSTEM 
OF MANAGING SWARMS. 
After a close and attentive observation of some years 
I have pretty nearly come to the conclusion that the main 
laying of bee-queens is generally by Jits and starts, and 
probably a good deal dependent on the state of the weather. 
It appears to me pretty certain that there often exist con¬ 
siderable intervals of repose between the layings, even in 
April and May, for 1 have several times observed, that when 
a queen has laid her eggs in the cells generally in any part 
of the hive, although from sudden and, perhaps, severe cold 
these may have perished, and after a time, therefore, have j 
been carried off by the bees, yet these cells have remained 
for many days, even for a fortnight, or more, unoccupied by 
either honey or eggs. Whether, however, this fit-and-starl 
laying be voluntary, or involuntary, on the part of the queen, 
in most hives, it certainly is a fact, that long intervals do oc¬ 
cur in which but few eggs, comparatively, are laid in a hive; 
for, as a vigorous queen will sometimes lay as many as eight 
hundred or a thousand eggs a-day, and continue this pro 
digious fertility for many days in warm weaklier in spring, it 
is clear that ordinary hives, with fertile queens, will soon get 
so filled with brood, that weeks must elapse before any eggs 
in considerable quantities can be again laid in these cells. 
Now there is a practical lesson to be learnt from this, which 
may be acted upon by all apiarians who have glass hives 
( i.e., hives of wood or straw well supplied with good-sized 
windows), or who have time and courage to examine their 
common hives by looking into them from the bottom now 
and then. And the lesson is this—that if a swarm issues 
naturally, or can be forced out artificially from a hive about 
the time when the young bees are every day beginning to 
leave their cells in large numbers, then the old slock (as well 
as the swarm which issues from it) must do well, even 
though there be no royal brood in the hive, and though it 
be entirely deserted by its full-grown population; for there 
will be, every day, a largo addition to the population from the 
continual hatching of young full-grown bees, who will im¬ 
mediately set about rearing a new queen in the place of the 
old one—the hive being always carefully closed up for at 
least one entire day, if the swarm have been forced out by 
artificial means. Whereas, if the swarm had issued natu 
rally, or been artificially driven, and made to take the place 
of the old stock, at a time when the young bees were mostly 
hatched out, and the cells begun to be occupied .again with 
eggs or very young brood {unceiled), then there would be 
great danger of no young queen being satisfactorily reared 
(though of course the attempt would be made), and of the 
hive never recovering its great depopulation at the time of 
its transfer to a new stand, because of the very few young 
boes that would afterwards come to maturity in the hive. 
This, I believe, will quite satisfactorily explain to your 
correspondent, “B. B.” (and one or two others), the failure 
of their old stocks treated on my plan. One thing, how¬ 
ever, I have been certainly more strongly impressed with 
from my experiments this summer, that, save when the 
bee-master has abundance of time to bestow on his bees, 
and is most careful to adhere to the rules laid down for his 
guidance in bee-books, it is far more for his benefit to trust 
to the natural process of reaiing queens than generally to 
adopt the artificial process, which, in the most experienced 
hands, will often fail. But yet, I think the diligent bee- 
master will in future see it to bo to bis interest at least to 
anticipate the issue of his natural swarms, i.e., to make them 
swarm at a right lime, viz., just when the royal brood has 
begun to be generally ceiled in (between the seventh and 
twelfth day after eggs have been laid in the royal cells), i.e., 
if the slock is otherwise ready from the slate of the brood comb 
(see what has been said above) to have a swarm taken from 
it. I shall best explain what I mean by adducing an 
instance of fact. At the end of May I observed that one of 
my glass hives was making preparations for swarming, in 
spite of the quantity of room in a super with which I had 
supplied them, and where they had begun to work. There 
were no less than four royal cells visible near two of the j 
windows, the last of which wars finally ceiled over on the , 
night of the 31st of May. Being in daily expectation, there¬ 
fore, of the issue of a swarm, and not wishing that my bees 
should escape me, for I could not watch them well, I deter- 
i 
