November 0, 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
8. If any disease appears among your stock, rather than 
doctor, kill the invalids. 
With this plan of mine I always have a good supply of 
eggs. My fowls are all healthy, and when I want any pullets 
or young roosters for table use, they are always in good con¬ 
dition—“ What's worth keeping, is worth keeping well.” 
CHURNS. 
The best churn for a small dairy, so far as simplicity of 
construction, produce, in one sense, and quality of butter, 
that experience warrants me to express an opinion of, is 
that made by Wilkinson, late Baker, 309, Oxford-street, 
London. Printed instructions for seasoning, and its after¬ 
management, are sent out with it. 
In those days when four Alderney cows were included as 
part of my employer’s domestic arrangements (and I would 
that it could be so now), two of Wilkinson’s “ patent box 
churns ”—one for churning four pounds, the other twelve 
pounds—occupied positions in the dairy. They are made of 
sycamore; the skeleton paddles or dashers (oak) are secured 
in their places by an iron screw pinion, to which a winch is 
attached; this pinion revolves in bone sockets let into the 
sides of the churn. For the purpose of inspection, the lid, 
through which there are holes admitting a constant supply 
of fresh air, can be taken off and returned instantly. The 
handle on being reversed is extricated from the dashers, 
when the whole smooth interior of the churn remains free 
for scouring or cleansing. If this part of the affair is 
properly attended to (and the cows properly fed) purer 
butter cannot be conceived than that which is produced 
from these churns. 
Frequently as little as a pound of butter has been made 
in the small one. If in very cold weather, the churn (for 
which it is so well adapted, and wherein even the most 
delicate female could exercise a skill in churning) were 
placed on a table distanced from the fire, the process is 
comfortably accelerated. 
I send you an inventory of utensils (with their costs as 
applied to them) belonging to the small dairy, mentioning 
that they once numbered a cheese press, though this, some 
years ago, was disposed of, on finding, for three or four cows 
(Alderneys in particular) the process of cheese-making did 
not answer so well as that of sending the butter to market, 
and keeping pigs to consume the refuse. Most houses 
possess a boiler—whether it is of copper or iron, for the 
purpose in question is of little moment; the one that I 
allude to was cast-iron, and measured thirty gallons. Of 
whatever composed, it should be kept scrupulously clean, 
and free from all contaminating matters, for the purpose of 
scalding the utensils each time after using. The milk- 
pans and cream-steans were brown earthenware, their inte¬ 
riors of a yellowish-white colour, and glazed; the smaller- 
sized came into work in winter. 
12 lb. large churn, £2 12s. Gd.; 4 lb. small churn, 15s.; 
scales and weights, 8s.; butter mit or tub, 7s.; butter board, 
2s.; butter slicers, 1 pair, 2s.; large print, Is. Gd.; small 
print, cut to any fancy, Is. Gd.; large wooden cream spoon, 
Is.; straining sieve and cloths, Is. Gd.; cream skimmer, Is.; 
3 milking tius, 9s.; wood stripping bowl, Is. 2d.; 8 large 
milk-pans, 8s.; 8 small milk-pans, 4s. lOd.; butter market- 
basket, 2s. Gd.; scrubbing brush, Is. Total, HG 19s. Gd.— 
Upwards and Onwards. 
NOTES. 
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium ).—While lately staying in 
the West Riding of Yorkshire for a few days, I was soine- 
I what surprised to find a man actively engaged in gathering 
the flowers and stalks of this very common plant. On 
inquiring his object in so doing, he said that it was an 
excellent remedy for colds. I found afterwards that huck¬ 
sters were regularly in the habit of collecting it for the 
Leeds market. The mode of using it is to make it into 
tea, similar to chamomile. 
Mode of Preserving Currants until very late in the 
Year. —If a common garden net is spread around and all 
over a collection of currant-bushes the currants will be 
kept in a state fit for use for months after the ordinary 
season has passed. I have this day (September 19) par- 
91 
taken of very superior currant-pudding made from currants 
preserved in the way I have mentioned. In favourable 
seasons they have thus been preserved, in an open situ¬ 
ation at Maltou, 20 miles north-east of York, in excellent 
condition, until quite the latter part of November.—R, F. 
Wheeler. 
Bees. —Your correspondent, “ .T. II. Payne,” in his last j 
month’s communication on bees, says, “ that the honey 
season may certainly be pronounced a very indifferent one, 
and in his locality (Bury) a very bad one.” The same report 
cannot be made of the district round Ipswich; it is here 
considered good, and honey, which was sold by the cottagers 
in 1850 at lOd. and Is. per lb., is this year offered at 8d. Of 
Wasps, he also adds, that he had seen only one working 
wasp this summer; here they have been abundant, and the 
hives of cottagers have suffered severely. Weak hives have 
been taken possession of by the intruders, and others have 
been burned early, to save the honey that was fast being 
carried away. Indeed, the wasps have been most formidable 
and persevering in their attacks on the hives, owing, pro¬ 
bably, to the scarcity of our wall and stone-fruit crops. In 
some standing barley near me, the mowers were obliged to 
retreat from a portion of the field until the wasps could be 
destroyed; and the boys have had a high treat every evening 
in burning their nests. A lady’s gardener, to save the little 
choice fruit that he had, in order to send it to his mistress 
in London, finding prevention against their ravages useless, 
sought out their nests, and destroyed, in the vicinity of his 
garden, twenty-seven. One fact is curious—the wasps, though 
so abundant out-of-doors, have seldom entered the houses, 
and the grocers’ shops in the neighbouring town have been 
comparatively free from them. 
Scythes. —Mention is made in your last number of “ Boyd’s 
self-adjusting Scythe.” A complaint is often made by work¬ 
men of their scythes not acting well, of the edge not cutting 
uniformly, and the form being wrong, &c.; now the form 
may be tested by a very simple experiment. Let a man, 
with a piece of chalk in his hand, walk up to a high wall, or 
a barn-door, and raising it as high as he can, strike a curve 
from right to left; the line so traced is the exact form that j 
his scythe should be ; and if he applies the edge of it, and 
finds it to correspond, it will cut uniformly from point to 
heel, and save him much trouble and labour. 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Mulberry ( Heigham Lodge). —Y'our Mulberry-tree (twenty years old) 
is not at all too large to move if you make a trench round it now , and 
cut all the roots at from four to five feet from the stem. It will be a 
great assistance to your operations next March, but still better if you 
could put off the work till next October ; but the Mulberry is one of the ' 
easiest to remove of all our fruit-trees. The roots are very soft, large, 
and spongy; the edges of the cuts should be made quite smooth. 
Climbers against a House (Ibid). —Four climbers to plant between 
the dining-room windows may be Jusminum nudifiorum and Chimo- 
nanthus fragruns, to flower in winter; Ceunothus uzureus, the finest blue 
we have in the autumn, and Clematis Sieboldi, a passion-flower-looking 
sort, which blooms all the summer and autumn. In the same space as 
the last we would plant Clematis azureus grundifiora, the second best 
Clematis wc have. 
Flower-garden (j!/. E. S.). —We regret that our work does not 
embrace the subject you propose, for the good reason we have often 
assigned that no one can possibly lay out a garden without being on the 
spot, or after seeing the locality. All that the best head in the world can 
do in these things is to give suggestions about a plan proposed, or altera¬ 
tions in a picture of arrangements as they stand at present. 
Magnolias (Julius).—Magnolia conspicua will do with you at Run¬ 
corn perfectly well in the open borders of a shrubbery, and will flower in 
April before the leaves come out. Andromedus and Kalmias must have 
peat to grow in. These are low borderers, and require no wall or any 
protection; and may be transplanted at any time, as they carry a bail 
with the roots. Magnolia grundifiora requires a wall to flower it well, 
except in the southern counties ; and all the Magnolias delight in deep 
light soil with a damp bottom. You ought to have Magnolia purpurea, 
a low bush for the front of a good shrubbery. Andromeda floribunda 
is the best of them, an evergreen low bush that blooms a long time in 
succession. If you make a peat bed for them, by all means have a few 
plants of Ammyrsine buxifolia round the outside ; it is the neatest thing 
among all the “Americans.” We shall this winter furnish lists of the 
best things from among the hardy trees and shrubs in the country. 
Bees.—X. Z. says, “ On August 15th I united the bees of a cottage- 
hive by driving with a weak swarm in one of Neighbour’s Improved 
Straw-hives, but found the comb so black, that I opened the holes of 
communication, and placed it over the united stock, that they might 
hatch out the brood and carry down the honey into their own hive, 
which only weighed about fifteen pounds. When had I better take it 
off?”—In all probability thcwholcof your bees will be found on examina¬ 
tion to have gone into the upper hive ; and if so, driving must again be 
had recourse to, and that as soon as the brood in the upper hive is hatched. 
