February 28.1 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
200 
not earthing up ? I have not tried the latter. 
M. E. A., near Hastings. 
Cochin-China Fowls. —For the information of your 
correspondent, Mr. Mngridge (page 240), and others 
who may he interested in the above breed of fowls, I beg 
to offer my ideas upon the various properties as they 
have come under my notice. None of mine have ever 
had five toes; the colour of'the legs always yellow ; and, 
I should sav, the hen with blue legs, mentioned in Mr. 
Mugridge’s letter, could not be at all the correct breed. 
1 have a young cock-bird hatched last March, who stands 
upwards of two feet in height, and I do not consider him 
full grown. Your correspondent mentioning the circum¬ 
stance of having bought the eggs ot a dealer, ot the name 
of “Baker,” has been, 1 confess, an inducement to answer 
these queries, to the best of my ideas, of the breed. I 
bought a cock and hen of him about two years since, for 
which T paid him £2 10s., and when I offered some of 
the progeny of the same fowls to him for sale, he pro¬ 
nounced them “ spurious.” Such an answer somewhat 
surprised me, more especially as I kept no other breed. 
I expressed my doubts to Baker, in the first instance, of 
the stock being “pure,” to which he had not the courtesy 
to reply. — H. Youell, Great Yarmouth. 
Draining. —My garden is situated on a flat, with no 
fall on either side for draining; and I have been sorely 
puzzled to drain my flower-borders, the seal being so wet 
that I could get no flowers to bloom as they ought; at 
last, I hit on the following plan, which has answered ex- 
ceedingly well:—I had all the soil taken out to the depth 
of two feet, and then placed on the bottom brick-bats and 
large stones ; these were put for the purpose ot support¬ 
ing a rough flooring of coarse slates, leaving under them 
a clear space of about four to five inches; thus, all the 
superfluous water drained through the interstices ot the 
stones, and my beds are always dry. You will readily 
perceive that no water could lodge in the borders until 
the four or five inches under the slates wer 6 full of water , 
which was next to an impossibility. The slates, were 
allowed to overlop pretty much, to prevent the soil get¬ 
ting through. Another benefit resulted from this, nanielv, 
having all my borders about 18 inches deep, with a good 
slate bottom, prevented the roots of the larger plants from 
penetrating to the subsoil.—J. A\. Flamank, Tavistock. 
To Convert Standard into Pillar Roses, —I once 
overheard a liorsedealer say to a person, who returned a 
horse upon his hands, “ It’s all right, the horse has not 
yet found his proper berth.” It is so with some descrip¬ 
tions of roses, when they are budded upon stocks for 
standards ; such, for instance, as the hybrid Chinas. 
There are many of them so rampant in then growth, and 
impatient of pruning, that you must either sacrifice bloom 
to form, or form to bloom; in fact, they are not in their 
proper berth; and a good plan is to take them up, pre¬ 
pare afresh the place where they stood, or any other, and 
insert an iron rod in the centre of it, say eight teet high. 
Dig a trench from this rod the length of the stock or 
stem, lay the plant along it, and fasten down with a peg 
the roots at one end, and the collar at the other, adjust¬ 
ing the head at the bottom of the rod, so that the shoots 
stand upright, and are just covered by the soil; then fill 
in. If this be done in the autumn, and the branches are 
tied up to the rod till the spiing, and pruned back to two 
or three good eyes, they will break strong, and in the fol¬ 
lowing season form a noble plant. I served a Malton, or 
Fulgens rose thus some years since, and it became a 
perfect pyramid, blooming from top to bottom. S. I ., 
JRitshmere. 
Bees. —I have upon my stand a wooden bee-box, about 
twice the size of a common straw-hive; the top and bot¬ 
tom take off. It gave me two enormous swarms last 
summer, and weighed at the commencement of winter 
about 501b. It has not been touched for the last seven 
years, and wants examining; besides which, I wish to 
make a square hole at the top, to set on a bell-glass. I 
do not like to destroy the bees, and simply desire to re¬ 
move them to a fresh hive. By doing this in the spring, 
will not the young brood be injured? and if left till the 
autumn, may it not prevent their obtaining a proper win¬ 
ter supply? Can any of your apiarian friends inform me 
how to act ? 
Fattening Pigs. —A widow lady, who occupies a farm 
near me, engaged, a few months since, a new bailiff. 
“ Flow is he likely to answer?” I asked. “ Well,” she re¬ 
plied, “lie fattened me four hogs in about half the time 
I ever had them fattened before.” “By what means?” 
“ Simply,” she observed, “by giving them their food in a 
drier state.” On conversing with the bailiff a few days 
after, he said “it was a great error to give pigs, when put 
up for fatting, so much liquid food; it scoured them, and 
that if supplied drier, and in smaller quantities and 
oftener, they would fatten as fast again.—S. 1*., Bush- 
mere. 
Greenhouse Coverings. —Speaking of protective co¬ 
verings for .greenhouses, pits, and frames, I will advance 
a little beyond what Mr. Fish has stated upon the sub¬ 
ject, and will endeavour to shew the practicability of 
preserving from injury, by frost, plants in conservatories 
and greenhouses without additional heat, and without 
those unsightly materials—asphalte, felt, Russia matting, 
Ac. But these remarks chiefly apply to those of ample 
means, where external appearances are a great considera¬ 
tion, and expense a minor one. We all know that where 
horticultural buildings are seen from the family resi¬ 
dence, which they mostly are, that to have during an 
inclement season a conservatory covered over with mat¬ 
ting, Ac., or the plants literally baked within, is not. only 
highly objectionable, as being offensive to the sight., but 
bad in practice ; being detrimental to the plants, either 
from too high a temperature, or from darkness, when, at 
this season, they require all the light they can possibly 
have; but, of course, out of two evils we always choose 
the least. Now, in my opinion, rough plate glass, from 
three-sixteenths to tliree-eightlis thick, which effectually 
prevents the sun’s rays from scorching the leaves of 
plants, would as effectually keep out frost; but then it is 
opaque, and consequently, in the winter time, a deal 
of light would be lost. The plan I recommend to be 
adopted is one which I have seen tried with good suc¬ 
cess with cold pits and frames—that of double glass. 
Now, the principle upon which this acts is one of science, 
and found to be good in practice; but, before I go any 
farther, let me explain how it is to be applied: let the 
ridge of the house stand up above the ordinary level— 
about six or eight inches—with weather boards attached, 
and the rafters to be of sufficient thickness to correspond 
with the ridge, to allow of grooves being made in them 
for the sashes to slide in; and when the sashes are all 
drawn up close to the ridge under the weather boards, 
there shall be a clear space of three or four inches be¬ 
tween the inner and outer glass ; the lower ends to be 
fitted with fillets of wood, to exclude the external air, tor 
upon this depends the chief point of success. The same 
non-conducting medium may be presented to the front 
lights of the house, by having glazed shutters made to 
slide in grooves, and the ends of the house by erecting 
lobbys, which could be made ornamental, and available 
for those plants which only require slight protection. 
Mr. Errington (in another horticultural work) speaks ot 
this principle, and recommends its adoption in the con¬ 
struction of pits, Ac., by the building of hollow walls, 
which, he says, “ are well known non-conductors of heat. 
It has been stated by practical men, that single glass will 
keep off five degrees of frost; but, for example, 1 will say 
four degrees ; that is to say, that a thermometer being 
placed inside a close frame, with a single glazed light, 
and another one placed outside, if the mercury stood at 
28 degrees, it would only be 32 within the frame. Thus 
we find, in the adoption of double glass, a resistive power 
of 12 degrees is attained. And supposing that a steady 
temperature of 40 or 45 degrees was maintained in the 
house, there could not be any fear ot injury from Irost,; 
and whether by flue or liot-water pipes, a considerable 
saving in the quantity of fuel would be effected; and 
