January 23. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
If the reader is not already surfeited with the mountains 
of meat we have piled before his eyes, let us beg his atten¬ 
tion for a few minutes to game and poultry, which we bring 
on in their proper course. Leadenhall and Newgate, as all 
the world knows, are the great metropolitan depots for this 
class of food, especially the former, which receives, perhaps, 
two-thirds of the entire supply. The quantities of game 
and wild birds consigned to some of the large salesmen 
almost exceeds belief. After a few successful battues in the 
Highlands, it is not at all unusual for one firm to receive 
5000 head of game, and as many as 20,000 to 30,000 larks 
are often sent up to market together. All other kinds of 
the feathered tribe which are reported good for food are 
received in proportionate abundance. If it were not for the 
great salesmen, many a merry dinner ■would be marred, for 
the retail poulterers would be totally incapable of executing 
the constant and sudden orders for the banquets which are 
always proceeding. The good people at the Crystal Palace 
have already learned to consume, besides unnumbered other 
items, 000 chickens daily; and from this we may guess how 
vast the wants of the entire metropolis. The sources from 
which game and poultry are derived are fewer than might 
be imagined. The Highlands and Yorkshire send up nearly 
all the grouse; and scores of noblemen, members of 
Parliament, and other wealthy or enthusiastic sportsmen, 
beating over the moors, and walking for their pleasure 
twenty-five miles a-day, assist to furnish this delicacy to the 
London public at a moderate rate. 
Pheasants and partridges mainly come from Norfolk and 
Suffolk ; snipes from the marshy lowlands of Holland, which 
also provides our entire supply of teal, widgeon, and other 
kinds of wild fowl, with the exception of those caught in 
the “ decoys ’’ of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. From 
Ostend there are annually transmitted to London 000,000 
tame rabbits, which are reared for the purpose on the 
neighbouring sand dunes. We are indebted to Ireland for 
flocks of plovers, and quails are brought from Egypt and the 
south of Europe. In most of our poulterers’ windows may 
be seen the long wooden boxes, with a narrow slit, in which 
these latter little birds are kept until required for the spit. 
Not long since, upwards of 17,000 came to London vid 
Liverpool, whither they had been sent from the Campagna 
near Rome. Of the 2,000,000 of fowls that every year find 
a resting place vis a-vis to boiled tongues on our London 
tables, by far the greatest quantity are drawn from the 
counties of Surrey and Sussex, where the Dorking breed is 
in favour. Ireland also sends much poultry. No less than 
1400 tons of chickens, geese, and ducks, are brought to 
town annually by the Great Western Railway, most of which 
are from the neighbourhood of Cork and Waterford, whence 
they are shipped to Bristol. Londoners are accustomed to 
see shops of late years which profess to sell “West of 
England produce,” such as young pork, poultry, butter, and 
clouted cream. All these delicacies are brought by the 
Great Western Railway, and are principally the contributions 
of Somersetshire and Devonshire. The bulk of the geese, 
ducks, and turkeys, however, come from Norfolk, Cambridge, 
Essex, and Suffolk—four fat counties, which do much to 
supply the London commissariat, the Eastern Counties 
Railway alone having brought thence last year 22,462 tons 
of fish, flesh, fowl, and good red herrings. 
For pigeons we are indebted to “ our fair enemy France," 
as Sir Philip Sidney calls her, but now we trust our fast 
friend. They proceed principally from the interior, and are 
shipped for our market from Boulogne and Calais. How 
many eggs we get from across the Channel we should 
scarcely like to say. Mr. M‘Culloch considers that the 
capital receives from 70 to 75 million—a number which 
we think must bq much below the mark, seeing that the 
Brighton and South Coast line brings annually 2000 tons, 
the produce of Belgium and France. At Bastoign, in the 
latter country, there is a farm of 200 acres entirely devoted 
to the rearing of poultry and the production of eggs for the 
supply of London. 
No perfectly accurate account can be given of the number 
per annum of poultry, game, and wild birds which enter 
Leadenhall and Newgate markets ; but the following esti¬ 
mate was handed to us by a dealer who turns over .4100,000 
a year in this trade. As the list takes no account of the 
quantity which goes direct to the retailer, nor of the 
thousands sent as presents, it must fall 
consumption :— 
Grouse 
Partridges 
Pheasants 
Snipes . 
Wild Birds (mostly small) 
Plovers 
Quails . 
Larks . 
Widgeon 
Teal . 
Wild Ducks . 
Pigeons 
Domestic Fowls 
Geese . 
Ducks . 
Turkeys 
Hares . 
Rabbits 
325 
hort of the actual 
100,000 
125,000 
70,000 
80,000 
100,000 
150,000 
30,000 
400,000 
70,000 
30,000 
200,000 
400,000 
2,000.000 
100,000 
350,000 
104,000 
100,000 
1,300,000 
5,759,000 
In addition to its dead game and wild fowl, Leadenhall 
market is quite a Noah’s ark of live animals. Geese, ducks, 
swans, pigeons, and cocks, bewilder you with their noise. 
Intermingled with these birds of a feather are hawks, 
ferrets, dogs and cats, moving about in their wicker cages, 
and almost aggravated to madness by the proximity of their 
prey. The major portion of the live stock is designed 
either for sporting purposes or for “ petting ’’ and breeding, 
and do not belong to the commissariat department. Of the 
dead game and poultry, the seven railways bring to London 
about 7871 tons weight in the course of the year. 
In taking leave of the poultry-yard we are reminded of the 
dairy, and of the large establishments required to fill the 
milk-jugs of London. There are at the present moment, as 
near as we can learn, 20,000 cows in the metropolitan and 
suburban dairies, some of which number 500 cows apiece. 
Even these gigantic establishments have been occasionally 
exceeded, and one individual, several years ago, possessed 
1500 milkers—a fact fatal to the popular superstition, that, 
notwithstanding many attempts, no dairyman could ever 
muster more than 099. The terrible ravages of pleuro¬ 
pneumonia, which many believe to be a contagious disease, 
have cured the passion for such extensive herds. The 
larger dairies of the metropolis are on the whole admirably 
managed, and the cows luxuriate in airy outhouses, but 
the smaller owners are often confined for space, and the 
animals are sometimes cooped in sheds, placed in tiers 
one above another. . The country dairymaid laughs at 
the ignorance which a Londoner betrays of rural matters 
when on a visit to her master, but she would be perplexed 
in her turn if told that in the capital they fed the cows 
chiefly upon brewers’ grains, and milked them on the 
second story ! A few years since Mr. Rugg appalled the 
town, which had forgotten Matthew Bramble, Esq., and the 
“ New Batli Guide," by detailing a nauseous process which 
he affirmed was in use among cunning milkmen for the 
adulteration of their milk. There was, however, a great deal 
of exaggeration in the account, and Dr. Hassel, whose 
analyses of various articles of food in the “Lancet" are 
widely known, states that the “ iron-tailed cow” is the main 
agent employed in the fraud, and that the only colouring 
matter he has been able to discover is annatto. Nearly all 
the cream goes to the West End ; and one dairyman living 
at Islington, informed us that he made £1200 a-year by the 
trade he carried on in that single article in the fashionable 
part of the town. It must be evident, upon the least 
consideration, that the London and suburban dairies alone 
could not supply the metropolis. If each of the 20,000 cows 
give on the average 12 quarts a-day, the sum total would 
only be 240,000 quarts. If we suppose this quantity to 
be increased by the exhaustless “ iron-tailed cow," of which 
Dr. Hassel speaks, to 300,000 quarts, the allowance to each 
individual of the two millions and a quarter of population 
would he little more than a quarter of a pint. This is 
clearly below the exigencies of the tea-table, the nursery, 
and the kitchen, and we do not think we shall make an over 
estimate if we assume that half as much again is daily 
consumed. Here again the railway, which in some cases 
