150 
THE COTTAGE GARDENEE. 
Novembeh 9J). 
I 
Jo; anJ we say, at least clear out water courses, mouths of 
drains, or anything else that tells of a stagnation; in fact, 
any houndai-y matter also ; and if scourings, dubbings, 
ditchings, or any bulky vegetable matter comes to hand, 
pray secure it; try to mellow, and to decompose it. 
in conclusion, we advise, make up your rolutions betimes ; 
proceed with not only improvements where possible, but 
j necessary business, ridging and digging, if feasible, for early 
I spring cropping. And, above all, look to your manure- 
! heaps ; if not yet wanted, throw them U25 into steep conical 
I heaps, in order to keep the rain out. If any one doubts the 
j effects of much rain on a heap of muck, let him look at 
I the colour of the water in the nearest ditch below the muck 
heap, or watch his wife’s te.apot. 1!. Ekeington. 
THE APIARIAN’S CALENDAR.— December. 
By J. II. Payne,Esq., Author of‘^ The Bee-Keeper's Guide," Ac. 
Answers to Many Questions. —Numerous have been the 
questions to me of late : “ What am I to do with my weak 
stocks ; how can I keep them through the winter ?" To all 
I would say, as I have already repeatedly done, feed them 
well, in the manner already directed in the pages of The 
Cottage Gardener, and you may keep them through the 
winter. 
Enemies. —Guard w'ell against birds and mice ; except a 
vigilant eye is kept upon these, sad inroads may be made 
amongst your stocks, especially in exposed situations, and 
at this season they are most to be feared. 
Ventilation. —Look well to this matter for the next two 
months, where the bees are in boxes or straw hives with 
wood tops ; hives entirely of straw will not require it. A 
small opening at the top of each box, with an inverted 
, tumbler placed over it, will be sufficient. 
' Floor-Boards. —Give the floor-boards a cleaning, and, at 
the same time, see that the hives have not suffered from 
the late unusually heavy rains. Freeness from damp is 
essential to their prosperity, for with it the richest stocks 
are sometimes destroyed. 
Snow. —Be particularly careful to shut up during Die 
j time that snow lies upon the ground, for when the sun 
shines upon the hives at that time the bees are induced to 
I come out, when numbers xierish, by which the hives are 
much depopulated. 
Driving Bees. —Thanks are due to “ Investigator ” for 
his paper in The Cottage Gardener of the 11th instant. I 
willingly tender him mine; many practical hints maybe 
gathered from it, even by those who are far away from the 
“ Moors.” 
Erratum. —In my last Calendar, in Mr, Taylor’s letter, 
for workiiiy read making. 
COST OF KEEPING SHANGHAE FOWLS. 
Although, Sir, I am, with yourself, very willing to credit 
the accuracy of “ Gallus’s ” report of his experiments on 
feeding, and feel, as must all interested in the subject, much 
indebted to him for the trouble he has taken in the matter, 
I must, for one, confess that I am very far from thinking 
those experiments conclusive on the points attempted to be 
definitively settled by them—namely, as either showing that 
the Cochin-China breed are larger consumers of food than 
either the Spanish or the Dorking; or, supjiosing this to be 
so, as proving that, therefore, the former is a less jirofitable 
breed for the cottager than either of the latter. I think, 
indeed, that very few of your unprejudiced or disinterested 
readers will be inclined to admit that those trials, opposed 
as they are in their results to the experience of so many 
equally reliable authorities, are of so satisfactory a nature 
as to justify “ Gallus’s ” opinion of them—that they will of 
themselves suffice to plead the cause he has undertaken; 
and, with your permission, I will endeavour to point out 
in what ^larticulars they appear to me wholly unsaDsfactory. 
First, then, and in addition to the exceptions taken by you, 
I altogether object to chickens, or any but full-grown birds, 
forming part of experiments made to ascertain the points 
in question. It will hardly be mamtained by Anster Bonn, 
or any other champion of the large breed, that birds which, 
when full-grown, weigh as much as twelve pounds, will re¬ 
quire no more food to bring them to maturity tlian others 
wliich, wlien full-grown, only attain half that weight, which 
is not far from the relative difference in the weights of 
Cochins, on the one hand, and Spanish and Dorkings on 
the other; consequently, if the rapidity of growth is in at 
all proportionate rates in the large and smaller breeds, it 
cannot but follow that chickens of the larger breed will 
consume most food. But it does not necessarily follow, as 
I will presently attempt to show, that the largest consumers I 
of food, when chickens, are therefore the least remunerative i 
breed to keeii. j 
A less obvious, but not on that account a less valid ob¬ 
jection to admitting any but full-grown birds into these 
experiments, is the fact, sufficiently notorious to observant 
amateurs, that at different and uncertain periods of their 
growth, chickens, particularly of the Shanghae breeds, in¬ 
crease in weight very much faster than at others (this is 
partly seen by a comparison of the weights in tables •’! of 
“ Gallus’s ” experiments) ; and not unfrequently, after con¬ 
tinuing for a time in a slowly-growing state, they will, with 
a sudden impetus as it were, “ go ahead,” and develop so 
rapidly in shape and size as in a few days almost to outgrow 
the recollection of the feeder. At such times their appe¬ 
tites are most voracious, and the amount of food consumed 
is in no jiroportion to what might have been a fair estimate 
of it before this impetus in growth set in. Hence, results 
derived from experiments with birds subject to such adven¬ 
titious influences must be of questionable authority. These 
objections are, I think, insuperable to the conclusiveness of 
“ Gallus’s ” experiments; but there are others which, though 
they may appear to some captious and tri\ial, to those who 
are aware of the difficulty of obtaining reliable results in all 
experiments on the feeding of animals, will of themselves 
be thought sufficient to preclude safe deductions being 
drawn from a consideration of the abstract results of these 
trials. Such are—the want of sameness in the condition 
of the old birds, some being in moult, some laying, and 
others not; the unequal advantages to which the different 
lots were subjected—one lot having the run of a large 
plantation and stubble field, and another access to a large 
grass field and plantation, while two more lots were confined 
to a wire cage, and occasionally fed with bread by children ; 
apparently, too, some litDe difference in the description of 
food given to one or two lots, and a few days variation in 
the date of commencing the trial in lots 4,—none of them, 
perhaps, very important circumstances individually, but in 
the aggregate, and whether regarded as in favour or against 
any particular view of the subject, must, from the want of 
uniformity and precision in the details, militate against the 
accuracy of the results. 
I suspect that the objectors to the Shanghae and Cochin- 
China breeds, on the score of their being such large con¬ 
sumers of food, have come to this conclusion from their 
experience of what the young birds of these breeds are 
capable of in this way, when contrasted with those of the 
smaller breeds; but surely this is an unfair comparison, 
unless the much greater weight of animal food obtained as 
an equivalent, and the rapidity with which that food is j 
produced in the one case over the other, is also taken into | 
account and compared. It is a well-known law in the \ 
economy of healthy-growing animals, that Die great bulk of 
the nutriment of the food consumed, or all but a minute 
portion of it, is applied to build up the various textures of 
which the body is composed; and as in edil)le vegetables, 
so in the case of animals used as food—the more rapid 
the growth and formation of these textures the better 
will be the quality, the more delicate the consistence and 
rtavour of the food so jiroduced. Looking, therefore, at 
the “ chicken” merely as a machine for the conversion of 
cheap materials into a costly article of animal food, the 
point to be considered by those who have tliis object in 
view, and would be guided by motives of economy in their 
selection is, not which machine will consume least of the 
raw material (for, in any case, the equivalent in the manu¬ 
factured article will be in a fixed proportion to the amount 
of materials employed), but which will manufacture the 
article most expeditiously, and give the quickest return of 
serviceable food. Here, I think, it will not be questioned. 
