44(3 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
March 10. 
primitive conveyance—an omnibus of the roomiest ima¬ 
ginable dimensions, drawn by oxen. Into this all-capacious 
receptacle they packed their families, their goods, their 
house itself,—all and everything was put upon its wheels. 
And thus, say the historians, they preserved their liberties. 
They had no towns, no fortresses to leave behind ; and by 
retreating into the interior, they either eluded the enemy, 
or else led him into some desperate scrape, and then fell 
upon him when they liad liim in a fix. 
AVonderful is the heriditary force of habit. Look at an 
unwieldy four-wheeled affair of the present day; every pos¬ 
sible advantage taken of its capacity by stowing into it “ my 
sister and my sister’s child, myself and children three,” and, 
may be, a nursemaid or two, articles of millinery, bonnets, 
* the groceries, the butcher’s basket, aud what-not besides 
(the driver was almost forgotten, a man of fourteen stone). 
Call this one-horse carriage of eleven hundredweight what 
you will—a Clarence, a double Brougham, a fancy lly, a 
demi-fortune, a britscka,—it is in realiy a Scythian waggon, 
and should be di'awn by a team of oxen. It is for some¬ 
thing more than for relaxation, or the excitement of the 
thing, tliat an Englishman drives this mystic van. There 
I is some remote traditional impression in liis mind; some 
mysterious, long-forgotten association of ideas reipiired to 
j account for this characteristic national trait. I have said 
I something about names; but surely the name of Phaeton, 
j the fastest of all fast young men, should never be associated 
■ with such an equipage as we have been contemplating. 
[ A country gentleman’s coach of the last century was a 
I ponderous machine of about a ton-and-a-half in weight; and 
I being suspended on leathern braces, the weight was made 
j to tell as unfavourably as jiossible upon the horses’ shoulders 
at every jolt of the road. But nothing less than a certain 
j conventional weight of iron and timber W'otild do to set 
I forth in due form the rank of the occupant, and for this 
purpose the thing worked very well; as a locomotive, per- 
iiaps, it might have been improved, but that was a secondary 
consideration. Pour horses were required for travelling, 
and i'or state occasions. Afterwards, bad times compelled 
a retrenchment of the leaders. 'The next generation saw 
our great people painfully dragged .about by two horses set 
to do the work of four, in our day this, at last, has been 
righted, and our pair-horse equipages are generally well- 
arranged, not too heavy, fully as convenient as before, though 
made at oiie-third the cost, aud of half the weight. But the 
dignity of oim one-horse carriages is something positively 
oppressive; half-a-century behind all received theories of 
modern progress. They are just where the old chariot was 
when first reduced to its single pair of horses. The coach- 
builder must yield to the times ; our great middle class 
must not be sulferod to cherish the exploded theory that 
the weight of a man’s character has any relation to tlio 
weight of his one-horse chaise. You may bo worth half a 
plum, aud 1 wish you joy of it; but half-a-ton of wood, iron, 
and leather, is too much dead weight behind any one horse. 
Brother Jonathan sent over pretty clearly his ideas upon 
the English horse-slavery ‘ question,”’ when he packed off 
a few of his trotting waggons for our great Exhibition. 
There was an Irish car or two, 1 believe, also to be seen, 
whicli might have been studied with advantage. One of 
the American little phaetons was afterwards exhibited abotit 
the Houses of I’aiiiament, and seemed to run remarkably 
light: it was drawn by a potty. The real Irish horses arc 
mostly uitdersized; even the Russian drosky is often run 
by a potty. Think now, for otte moment, of the Emperor 
of all the Russias wriipped in his cloak, seated on the scanty 
bench of his drosky, his feet let dowtt in a sort of well 
between the fore aud hind wheels, with a driver perched 
upoit the daslt iron before hittt, the whole concern drawn 
Ironi otte post to another by a little scampering Cossack tiag 1 
Sir Gardiner Wilkittson has given us his ideas of the ex¬ 
treme lightness of the Egyptian chariot. It might be earned 
across the country when the roads became impassable. It 
was a mere shell of a thing, like an Irish car without the 
let-down sides; the getitleman mostly stood to drive, and 
the floor was elastic. Juno’s car, in Homer, was much the 
same, w'ith a scat across, suspended by thongs, after the 
fashion, it may be, of our farmer’s shandraydans. 
■ Last, not least, of the light cavalry. Our British ancestors 
I were famed for their handy little cars; and a London-built 
I carriage excited as much admu’ation in Rome in Cicero’s 
I time as it does now. I have before me a paper on ancient 
British chariots, upon which I could found my case for a 
complete reconstruction of modern ones. I 
Our “pony” is quite as large as the original car-horse; ^ 
and horses, we all agree now, were put in harness centuries ■ 
before men mounted upon their backs. But the first saddle- 
horses were not very tall; it took about a thousand years to ! 
invent stirrups, aud you cannot mount the high horse 
without them. 
Our “ pony,” then, should be about fourteen hands and a 
half high (Bucephalus himself was no bigger), aud the 
carriage now hardly be above a quarter-of-a-ton in weight, 
and if on two wheels, and without a head, it may be made 
considerably lighter. If on one pair of wheels, these should , 
be 4 feet high; if on four wheels, the front pair 2ft. Gin., ^ 
the hinder ones 3ft. Gin., or thereabouts. 
Tlie farmer invariably roots up the last crop, and clears | 
his ground well before he begins to sow his seed; so I wish | 
to disencumber my subject from many superstitious essays 
which, I believe, date from the time when oxen were em¬ 
ployed for draught—a practice now decidedly on the wane. 
Even our ploughs are now greatly lighter than fonnerly; 
so was the mail coach; so are our gentlemen’s caniages ; 
but pony phaetons, and one-horse flys, are still in want of 
reform. 'The cart too often is still very heavy. According 
to the very idea which was once predominant among his 
betters, the country farmer, if well to do in the world, sets 
up a huge state cart, which requires one horse to set it in 
motion, and he then yokes another horse in front to draw 
the load. In some parts of the kingdom they still retain 
the old two-liorse or four-horse waggon. Yet a light smaU 
cart, with a little horse in it, will get through a vast deal 
more work in proportion. Ceremonial observances have a 
' great deal to do with even carts and cart horses.— Yibgyok. 
roULTRY MATTERS. 
Engagements, of one sort or another, have prevented me 
troubling you for some time qiast; allow me, if you please, 
to bring up my arrears. 
Of the relative estimation in which the different breeds of 
fowls are hold, little remains for me to say, after the results 
which you have published of the different sales. In the 
opinion of the public every one must admit th.at the Cochins 
“have it,” and I still think deservedly. I am not, however, 
one of those who believe that the enormous prices lately 
given are at all likely to bo maintained. A good kind will 
always fetch a good price ; but those prices to which I have 
alluded are quite ridiculous. 
AV'ith the question of mmcnchxlKrc, I am not about to 
trouble you further than to express my concurrence with 
those of your correspondents who contend that it ought to 
; bo uniform. You, for instance, think “ Shanghae ” i)roper; 
I still incline to the old name of Cochin. My principal 
reason is that I have been told by those who brought tlieni 
over that they ai'o called, at Shanghai, “ Cochin-China 
fowls;” aud that the original stock came from that country. 
You have reasons, no doubt, the other way ; but it is desir¬ 
able, I think, that all should understand the same name to 
mean the s.ame thing; aud should, therefore, caU the same 
thing by one name. I 
I have to express ray acknowledgments, and those cT 
several brother amateurs, to your correspondent “ AV. C. ti.,” 
for his information respecting the “ Brahma Pnalra ” fowl, 
from which, and the result of other inquiries, I am led to 
believe that this will prove to us a valuable variety. Any 
other facts relating to it will be interesting, I doubt not, to 
many of your readers. i 
'This induces mo to notice the subject of cru.is-hrccils, 
referred to by another correspondent (A. S. AA'.). 'Though 
fairly resorted to for the purposes of experiment as of the 
table, such trials should be made with caution and judg¬ 
ment ; and I would express a hope that those who prcpiure 
prize-lists for I’oultry Shows, will, for the future, omit such 
a class as “cross-breeds,” or “any other breed;” and say 
instead, “ for any other distinct variety,” so as to let in the ! 
Brahma Bootra, for instance; or the Domerara fowl, in | 
