THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION.— August 20, 1850. 091 
“ 1 Erom the preceding statement, which I believe to be 
strictly accurate, it is quite clear that unless the wife earns 
more than the sum above stated, they cannot pay their 
way.’ ”— Mr. Mechi’s Second Paper. 
Weekly wages and expenditure of a family, consisting of a man 
and his wife, a girl, three boys, all under fourteen, and a 
servant; none of the children capable of doing any house¬ 
hold work. 
Weekly wages 
£ 
8 
s. d. 
13 8J 
Income-tax .. 4 
Rent of house 7 
Taxes, poor's 
rate, A water 
rates. 2 4jJ 
Meat and bacon .... 6 0 
Coffee, 8d., cocoa, 3d. Oil 
Eggs. 0 
Tea, 3s. !Jd. per lb. .. 1 
Sugar, 4Jd.0 
Vegetables. 0 
Butter, lid. and 8d. 
per lb. 
Milk, 3£d., cheese, (id. 
Treacle for pudding, 
Ac. ... 
Rice, sago, and farina 
Coal and wood. 
Soap, 5d. 
Candles. 0 
Gas, 4s. Cd. per 1000 ft. 0 
Fruit, dried . 0 
Beer . 1 
Bread, 5s., Flour, Is 
Clothes and shoes ..10 
Schooling . 6 
Omnibus hire .1 
Chapel rent . 1 
Books, paper, Ac. 1 
Doctor and medicine 1 
Servant .. 2 
Charities . 0 
Insurance, house .... 0 
Ditto, life. 2 
Sundries . 2 
C 
0 
9 
7 
3 
3 
3 
3 
9 
U 
7j 
5 
0 
0 
6 
0 
0 
0 
0 
6 
4 
9 
4 
8 
0 
£3 8 1 
ArHonisMS on Drawing.* —There is a great deal of good 
sense in this little volume, and we can best enable our 
readers to judge whether we are not correct in our opinion 
by giving an extract. The work is composed of Aphorisms 
and comments like the following :— 
“Form your own style upon Nature. 
“ Learn the principles of art of whom you may best, and 
follow good advice as to your work; but educate your taste, 
train your eye, and form your hand on Nature. It is the 
only perfect master. For even the best of teachers cannot 
be followed implicitly, since they show, side by side with 
flashes of genius, proofs of oversight, or of inferiority in 
some things. Raphael, for instance, ought never to have 
attempted landscape in any way ; his back-grounds often 
kill his perfect figures. Thus, on the cartoon of the mira¬ 
culous draught of fishes, not only is the perspective of the 
water incorrect, (judging, at least, from the copies I have 
seen,) but both Our Saviour and St. Peter are put together 
in a boat too small to carry one man in safety, much less 
two. In the celebrated fresco of the Lord’s Supper, by 
Leonardo da Vinci, the table, as it is drawn, cannot possibly 
stand, for the trusses on which it rests have only one side. 
Our Saviour’s head, also, is drawn in the centre of a square 
window, the opening of which takes from the effect of the 
light and shade on that Divine head. The whole picture 
would have been better if the table had been laid in the 
length, and not in the breadth, of the room. In like manner, 
that great master, Salvator Rosa, often painted trees and 
rocks of his own, with a masterly touch, it is true, but still 
not always after the model of Nature. 
* Aphorisms on Drawing. By the Rev. S. C. Malan, M.A. London: 
Longman and Co. I 
“ So true it is that style in drawing proceeds from the 
mind of the artist more than from practice, that a want of 
uniformity in it is both apparent, and unpleasant to the eye. 
Thus, we find that pictures in which the trees are done by 
one artist, and the figures or the cattle by another, in 
general do not answer. They are wanting in uniformity, 
because they are not wholly done by the same mind. And 
since one man does not know what, or how, another man 
feels ; and since the minds of no two men are entirely alike, 
it follows that the figures or the cattle in such pictures, do 
not, in fact, belong to the rest. This defect will not strike 
everybody; because few persons, comparatively, are good 
judges of drawing. But the defect exists, nevertheless.” 
PROLIFIC HIVE OF BEES. 
I do not know whether the following account of the very 
great, and, as far as my experience extends, unusual pro¬ 
lificacy of a swarm of this season possesses any interest; if 
so, it is much at the service of The Cottage Gardener:— 
On June the 3rd I hived a very strong swarm into a 
broad, shallow, flat-topped straw hive, with a four-inch 
aperture in the top. (The swarm was so large, that the old 
lady who had the management of the hive from which it 
issued insisted that it was a double swarm, or a first and 
second swarm coming away together.) The hive was placed 
on a stand in the open air, with a due south aspect, and 
protected by a zinc shade, made on the plan recommended 
by Mr. Taylor in his “Bee-Keeper’s Manual.” After hiving 
the swarm, there was, if I remember rightly, a long con¬ 
tinuance of fine weather, and the fields around abounded 
with Clover and Buttercups, furnishing both honey and 
bee-bread. In about eighteen or twenty days after being 
hived the bees showed symptoms of crowding; the mat 
covering the aperture was removed, and an adapting board 
and glass super placed on the hive. Not having a piece of 
guide-comb placed in the glass, the bees worked from the 
old comb upwards, not taking possession for a couple of 
days, and up to the present time (August 18th), the glass 
is only half-filled with comb. 
On the 1st and 2nd of July a swarm issued from the 
hive, and, taking me rather by surprise, I was obliged to 
place it in one of the common sort of hives. After hiving 
it there was a continuance, for a few days, of dull weather, 
and that the swarm might not lose time in wax-making, I 
supplied it freely with barley sugar, made, as directed in 
my last communication on this subject, with vinegar. This 
was greedily devoured, and the progress of the hive was 
very satisfactory; the weight increased rapidly. 
On the 17th of August this hive was accidentally thrown 
over. On going to it, I found it lying top downwards, 
filled with comb and bees. I instantly lifted it up, and 
turned it over on the lloor-board; a few of the bees were 
unavoidably crushed between the bottom of the hive and 
the board, although, with the exception of a very few, they 
clustered inside around the combs. On being replaced, a 
large number of the bees issued out, clustering around the 
entrance, and honey ran forth from beneath the hive. 
Fortunately, the day being wet, no robber bees were attracted, 
not even from the adjacent hives. The operation of re¬ 
placing the upset hive, which was very heavy and awkward 
to lift, I performed without any bee dress or other protection 
either to hands or face, and succeeded without receiving a 
sting. I believe, with quietness and fearlessness, all needful 
operations may be performed without risk of stinging. 
Nevertheless, through my own folly, I got stung on the 
face, in consequence of dipping my finger in some of the 
honey running from the hive and tasting it, when several 
bees immediately settled on my lips, and I was stung in 
three places; the result being, when 1 awoke the following 
morning, that my head resembled, in size and symmetry, 
a very large plum pudding boiled in a cloth, one eye being 
nearly closed, and considerable swelling extending down 
the neck. 
This accident to the first swarm and to myself has, how¬ 
ever, carried me forward in point of time, and to refer back 
to the start in Taylor’s hive. This, after swarming, rapidly 
increased again in numbers, and stored some honey in the 
glass super. On the morning of the 23rd of July, on 
