November 27. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
137 
appearance ; when there is reason to think that several are 
hatched, it is better to remove them from the nest, for they 
are large, active things as soon as hatched, and will deprive 
the remaining eggs of the mother’s warmth. Ducks are 
very cross while sitting, and will snap at any hand that 
approaches; let one person lift her off by the neck, while 
another removes her little ones. If she has been long 
without eating, place corn and water before her, and let her 
go back to her nest as soon as she likes. I do not think 
ducks the phlegmatic animals they are generally represented ; 
on the contrary they are much attached to each other, and 
very fond of their young ones; and the drake is an affec¬ 
tionate, gallant fellow, who takes no unkind notice of the 
young members of his family. Anster Bonn. 
PHYSALIS EDULIS. 
Last year one of your correspondents asked where he 
could get seeds of the Pliysalis eclulis. As they are not in 
the list even of Carter, I made a memorandum to save a few 
this year, and now enclose them. Should you know who the 
correspondent is, and think it worth the trouble, you can 
send them on. But pray keep my name quiet, or I shall 
have a host of correspondents myself. 
The finest fruit I ever saw were at Ootacamund, or the 
Neilgherry hills, where the plant is completely naturalized. 
The town is about 7500 feet above sea level. Winter just 
without frost, so that all Cape plants live out of doors, but 
summer never brings the hot weather we have here in 
: England. From these data I thought that the plant might 
do very well in the open quarters of an ordinary kitchen- 
garden, and so it did, as far as temperature is concerned, but 
the huge roots made the plants run to leaf. 
The great point in its culture is starvation. A plant in a 
five or six inch pot plunged in the ground does well. If not 
in pot, I should recommend the same treatment as Mr. 
Errington recommends (Cottage Gardener, p. 353, Sept, 
last) for that nearly allied plant, the Tomato. 
In the autumn I destroy the old plants, and keep rooted 
cuttings through the winter under glass without heat. I do 
not know whether it arises from the plants being older and 
stronger, but I fancy I never tasted any fruit produced in 
England so good as that on the Neilgherries. The plant is 
found in the warmer parts of India, but there also the flavour 
is inferior. Boiled with sugar it forms one of the most 
delicious preserves I know. Geo. Sparkes. 
[If the correspondent alluded to will send us his 
direction, we will forward to him the seeds Mr. Sparkes has 
so obligingly enclosed.—E d. C. G.] 
COCHIN CHINA FOWLS. 
As so much interest at the present time exists regarding 
l the true breed of Cochin China fowls, and so great a desire 
1 to obtain them on the part of every person at all fond of 
I rearing poultry, myself amongst the rest, that I was in¬ 
duced, a short time since, to visit Mr. Punchard, of Blunts 
Hall, Haverhill, Suffolk, who, it may be remembered, ob¬ 
tained three silver medals for specimens of this truly magni¬ 
ficent breed of fowls, at the Midland Counties Exhibition last 
year; and, indeed, I was highly gratified with the sight of his 
poultry, as well as with the good style in which they are kept. 
Their size is extraordinary, some of the cockerels weighing 
from nine to ten pounds-and-a-lialf as they run in the yard , 
and I must confess that I never before had seen a true-bred 
Cochin China fowl, although I have taken much pains to 
do so. 
Mr. Punchard, I find, kept 35 store hens through the 
winter, and he had, when I visited him, upwards of 500 
chickens hatched this year. He also kindly showed me the 
egg account in his manager’s book, which, from the first of 
J auuary to the end of September, amounted to no less than 
1158. 
The pains which Mr. Punchard has taken to improve the 
stock, by selecting the best specimens for breeders, does him 
much credit, and justly merits the thanks of every lover of 
poultry in the kingdom. He assures me that they are good 
sitters and mothers, and that they lay within t wo or three 
weeks after having produced chickens. They are also Lhe 
tamest and most docile fowl I ever met with, and are easily 
confined to the place intended for them; this I can speak 
to from my own experience, for my fence does not exceed 
three feet in height, and they have never attempted to pass 
over it. And for the table, I can also speak to their excel¬ 
lence ; they are far superior in flavour to any fowl I have 
met with, something resembling pheasant; their eggs, too, 
are particularly fine-flavoured. It appears there are two 
kinds of Cochin China fowls: the square built variety, those 
I am speaking of, which are the greatest favourites, and slso 
very rare; and those which slightly resemble the Malay, and 
which have already been figured at page 172, vol. iii., of 
The Cottage Gardener. —J. H. Payne. 
[The portraits given in our third volume, though of birds 
from Cochin China, are, we believe, a cross between the 
true fowls of that country and the Malay variety. Of the 
true, and, as Mr. Payne graphically describes them, “ the 
square-built variety,” we now present to our readers two 
drawings, copied from those in the Journal of the Royal 
Ayricultural Society, and which Mr. Trotter, the writer of 
the prize essay on poultry management, considers “ the best 
specimens of Cochin China fowls of the day.” They are 
the favourite kind bred by Mr. Punchard.— Ed. C. G.] 
HOME WINE MAKING. 
Under this head I purpose giving a few directions for the 
manufacture of some of the more usual English wines; but 
I would first repeat, that no receipt can in itself ensure yood 
vine: the various stages of the process of fermentation must 
be carefully conducted, or it matters little what fruit forms 
the basis, or in what quantities the various ingredients are 
used. 
