July 14. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
275 
tlieir own—is not the income of the Council—it is the 
income of the subscribers, and they, the Council, are 
bound to he sedulous that such income is disbursed in 
such a way as to promote the objects and carry out the 
intentions of the subscribers. “ The Exhibitors’ So¬ 
ciety” may give them some information on this point; 
and if they do, we confide in the Councils’ not allowing 
it to be pooh-poohed aside. 
On the part of the exhibitors, let us observe that it 
is unjust as well as offensive to say—“ You need not 
exhibit if you do not approve of our conditions and 
| prizes.” It is unjust, because we all know that to ob- 
I tain prizes at such exhibitions, if those prizes are fairly 
awarded, justly raises in the public estimation the skill 
of the winners. Such prizes,, therefore, should be so 
proportioned and so awarded, that no one shall be 
deterred from contending for those prizes either by 
their disproportioned amount, or by there being fair 
grounds to fear that the awards may be not correct. 
We have much more to say upon this subject, and 
may recur to it, because we would offer every suggestion 
that we can to recover Societies which should set 
an example in all that is useful and correct iu horti¬ 
culture from that decay of finances and of character 
under which they are at present suffering. 
We have received the Prize List of the Derbyshire and 
Midland Counties Poultry Society, whose Exhibition is 
to take place at Derby on the 17th and 18th of Novem¬ 
ber next. 
Slianyliaes are arranged in one class, sub-divided into 
different sections for the various colours. There are 
advantages, no doubt, in this deviation from the usual 
system, since the different varieties of each breed are 
placed in sections under a single class. But, though 
abstractedly there may thus be an appearance of sim¬ 
plicity, we question whether the number of the section 
which must be added to that of the class will not more 
than counterbalance the benefit from the mere reduction 
■ of the number of classes. 
Each section, however, has but one class for chiclcens; 
thus juvenile Shanghaes of all descriptions must com¬ 
pete together, and so on with the Dorkings, Game, 
Polands, and Hamburghs. Now, there are grave diffi¬ 
culties to be encountered by the umpires when the 
candidates for honours are thus thrown together, and 
usually, also, more than ordinary dissatisfaction on the 
part of those owners whose birds are unsuccessful; and 
all this occurs from the absence of the general standard 
for merits and excellence, which is always at hand when 
fowls of the same variety only are brought into com¬ 
petition. 
The classification of Game fowls is good; in this 
neighbourhood, indeed, some of the best specimens of 
the family might be looked for. In Polands we should 
have suggested an extra class “ for any other variety,” 
as this might have afforded admission to the Yellow- 
spangled, the Cuckoo, the White, and the Black birds 
j of this breed. These, with some other less-known 
varieties, have had great attention paid to them for the 
last two or three years, and appear in every way likely 
to repay the care that has been bestowed upon them. 
Pigeons are excluded; and, doubtless, they are a 
somewhat troublesome class to both managers and 
judges; but we regret their absence, as detracting from 
the interest taken in these exhibitions by so many of 
their owners, who possess poultry of no other kind by 
which they may attain the honours of the prize list. 
Knowing the many expenses and difficulties of various 
kinds that ever attend the foundation of these Societies, 
the present prize list must certainly be accounted 
liberal; the rules, too, wisely include some of those 
alterations that have become necessary during the past 
year; and our anticipations, therefore, of the success of 
the undertaking must be sanguine ; and sincerely, also, 
do we trust that its promoters may ultimately experience 
a full recomponce for their present labours.—W. 
The Gold Medal, offered at the West Kent Poultry 
Exhibition, for the best brood of six or more Chickens 
hatched since Christmas, 1852, has been awarded to 
Mr. Thomas Rider, of Boughton Place, Kent. We also 
see it is stated in the “Western Luminary,” that Mr. 
Channing’s, of Heavitree, Shanghae Cock was not 
awarded the Medal solely on account of the absence of 
one of the points of his comb. This point of the comb 
he lost accidentally when a chicken. 
GLEANINGS. 
The following is extracted from a very excellent 
American periodical, entitled The Western Horticultural 
Review :— 
“Circle of Dependencies. —In answer to an inquiry by 
R. L. Pell, before the New York Farmer’s Club, as to the 
restoration to the land of its fertility which is washed away 
by rivers, Professor Mapes said: That the fertile portions of 
the continents are ever being carried to the ocean ; nor is 
this confined to the soluble portions of the inorganic sub¬ 
stances only, for soluble portions of the organic parts of 
both vegetable and animal substances are carried from con¬ 
tinents by our large livers and conducted to the sea, and if 
no means were provided for their return to the dry land, the 
earth would long since have been drained of its fertile 
portions. 
“ The deltas of the Nile, of the Mississippi, and of many 
other rivers, show conclusively the immense amount that is 
daily carried in mechanical suspension in their waters, the 
heavier portions of which alone subside to form these deltas. 
The woodland estate below New Orleans, belonging to Mr. 
Johnson, of New York, was a few years since covered with 
water of sufficient depth to float the larger class of vessels. 
In addition to these deposits, the under-currents of these 
rivers are so imbued with these organic substances in me¬ 
chanical suspension, as well as with the more soluble por¬ 
tions of the inorganic constituents of soil, that any substance 
falling into the river at or near New Orleans with sufficient 
force to enter this current, will never again rise, and the 
quantity thus propelled into the ocean each day, is one 
865th part of the decay of vegetation, over a surface of 
millions of acres, added to which are the falling banks of 
rivers, bars removed by change of channel, animal ex- 
cretia, &c. That passing into the Gulf of Mexico, is subject 
to gradual dilution, separating by difference in specific 
gravity and various modifications of decay, these ultimates 
