January 5. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
257 
has been move directed towards collating these scattered 
incidental allusions ; and the result has been to give us 
quite a new notion of the every day life of times too 
hastily considered days of violence and blood only. 
A gay Parisian about to settle in life, as we say, con¬ 
sulted a leading French doctor, having reason to dread 
hereditary consumjition, a disease which carries off one- 
fourth of the people of Paris. “ Never fear,” was the 
reply, “spend six or eight months in the year in the 
country, and lead a patriarchal life when you are there.”* 
This is the great secret. We cannot “lay in a stock of 
health ” during a hurried excursion from one luxurious 
hotel to another. A lodging at a fashionable watering 
place is not much better. “Talk about rus in urbe ,’ 
once observed a classical friend of ours, “ I call this 
urbe in rus!” If the country is to restore us, we ought 
to catch somewhat of the sweet infection of its every¬ 
day life. A country cottage home, the care of the 
domestic animals, the garden and kindred avocations, 
besides bringing us out to enjoy the fresh air, are ol 
themselves eminently healthful. Besides, we contend 
that they afford the means of studying the very laws of 
life, just as comparative anatomy has elucidated the 
secret of the whole human frame. And we think they 
enable us the more aptly to comprehend the significance 
of many of the deep sayings of old. 
We cannot accept without protest the dogma of the 
day—that civilized man should be perpetually inventing 
artificial wants to be the incentives and also the rewards 
for increased exertion. On the contrary, we believe that 
the many and distracting cares and pursuits of trade 
and. commerce are, if not destructive, at least severely 
trying to the health of both body and mind. 
The whole current of these remarks, together with 
certain speculations on the life of trees, have called to 
our mind the following magnificent passage from 
Louth’s Isaiah, and it is peculiarly appropriate to the 
season, many happy returns of which we wish our 
readers. 
“ I will exult in Jerusalem and rejoice in my people, 
And there shall not be heard any more therein 
The voice of weeping and the voice of a distressful cry ; 
No more shall there he an infant shortlived , 
Nor an old man who hath not fulfilled his days. 
For he that dieth at an hundred years shall die [young], 
And the sinner that dieth at an hundred years shall be accursed ; 
And they shall build houses and shall inhabit them, 
And they shall plant vineyards, and shall eat the fruit thereof. 
They shall not build, and another inhabit, 
They shall not plant and another eat. 
For as the days of a tree shall he the days of my people^ 
And they shall wear out the works of their own hands. 
My chosen shall not labour in vain, 
Neither shall they generate a short lived race." 
A Metropolitan Poultry Show, at the Baker Street 
Bazaar, is anuouuced for the 10th of January next, and 
the three following days. The prizes are liberal, and 
will, doubtless, invite competition, since no less a sum 
than T17 is allotted to Spanish, and T21 to Dorkings. 
* The following singular authorities, among others, appear somewhat 
to favour this notion. Herodotus, on the Macrobian or long-lived 
Ethiopians—a dogma of the Etruscans quoted by Niebuhr: Louis Cornaro 
referred to by Abernethy ; Clerk's^'Fleury’a) Ancient Israelites; Lingard 
on the Primitive Church at the destruction of Jerusalem, with a reference 
to these words, “ the meek shall inherit the earth Dean Gravely on the 
state of the Holy Land at its first colonization at the time of the Judges : 
Pictorial History of England on our own Saxon times: and lastly, Dr. 
Van Oven, Lee, Chadwick, to Dr. Cumming, and the Bishop of London. 
For both these families a new class lias been formed, j 
namely, one for “ the best Cock (or Hen) of any age” a wise 
step, wherever the funds may allow of it. At the end of 
Shanghaes we have Class 22 for “ Brahma Pootras,” so 
we apprehend that the framers of this list have satisfied 
their minds on a point on which our own are still in 
grave doubt. Game Fowls and Hamburghs are arranged 
as usual, but Polands are granted a fourth class for 
those of “ any other colour ” beyond the Gold, the Silver, 
and the White-crested Black. 
Class 50 offers prizes “ to the most useful cross-bred 
fowls,” a novel feature in our principal Poultry Exhi¬ 
bitions, and which we should like to see accompanied 
by the warning, that such crosses must not be bred from, 
but devoted wholly to the kitchen. Geese have only 
an equal premium with each variety of Bantams, FI 10s. 
being all that is offered for them. They would have 
merited, we think, greater liberality, and the neighbour¬ 
hood of London can produce specimens of the highest 
excellence. 
The owners of Pigeons have great inducements laid 
before them; and “ Rabbits ” also are invited. 
Prohibitory prices, we are glad to find, are here dono 
away with; and “not for sale" may be affixed to pens 
with which the owners have no desire to part. 
We are glad to find that the experience of the 
Secretaries, Messrs. Floughton and Catling, will secure 
to exhibitors that care and attention for their birds, 
without which great hazards must always be incurred. 
We must not, however, refrain irom the repetition of 
our strong reprehension ol the Show being continued 
for four days. For a whole week must the birds be shut 
up in the pens, lor they are to be in the Bazaar on one 
Saturday, and cannot be released until the Saturday 
following! If they have to travel from a distance they 
must be in their basket on the Friday previous, so that 
for nine days they must be in close confinement! Now, 
at Leeds, where there there was similar imprisonment, 
we know of birds that arrived dead and dying—birds, 
too, that had taken first prizes ! 
We have been applied to for information as to who 
form the Committee of the Metropolitan Show, but we 
are not able to give such information. It would be 
satisfactory to the public if the names were published. 
Neither does the disparity in the Prize List give 
general satisfaction, as the following letter testifies. 
“As the organ of the Poultry Fanciers, I beg to draw 
your attention to the Prize List of the approaching Exhi¬ 
bition in Baker Street, and would, through the same 
medium, urge on breeders the propriety of withholding all 
specimens of the Poland, Hamburgh, Game, and Bantam 
species, for which you will see that the prizes offered are 
little better than one-third of those for Spanish, Dorking, 
and Cochins. Promoters of these shows should bear in 
mind that they are rendered attractive to the public in 
proportion to the variety of the birds, and that, although a 
Spanish breeder pays comparatively little attention to other 
breeds, it is not so with the mass of the visitors. The 
question is entirely in the hands of exhibitors, who have 
only to resolve to exhibit at no show in which the prizes 
are not equal for all. 
“In this particular case I know one very successful exhi¬ 
bitor who will not have a single pen, although before seeing 
the fist he had intended to send several. It is always an 
