September 15. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
471 
chapel, inside or outside car, or drag, need only cost from 
£1G to £25. 
2. The same, somewhat stronger, with a light moveable 
head, and axletree bent to keep the whole nearer to the 
ground, from £28 to £30. 
3. A very light, plain, open pony-phaeton, with a servant’s 
or child’s seat behind, comes to about the same price. 
4. A double-bodied headed phaeton, with driver’s seat in 
front, for timid ladies, or grave, elderly gentlemen, £55, and 
upwards. The latter, also, will take a full-sized horse. 
The duty on a two-wheel carriage is 15s.; on a four- 
wheel, with one horse, 40s.; wear, 20s.; man, 20s. 
Rent of an acre of summer pasture-land, in which 
the pony runs out at night, for, say 20 weeks, £ s. d. 
from sunset to 0 a.m. .. .. ..300 
Cost of two feeds of com, weighing 5 lbs., given 
in summer, during the daytime, which feeding 
is kept in a loose box, 35 lbs. per week, for 20 
weeks, at £d. a pound .. .. ..250 
A.l!. When the pony and man work 
enough ground to grow your oats this 
figure would be less. 
Man’s time—an liour-and-a-balf to two hours per 
day, or 1 day in the week in summer, at 2s. Gd. 
per day .. .. .. .. ..250 
Rent of f of an acre of meadow-ground for 
winter’s keep, at £4 per acre .. ..300 
Corn, 10 lbs. per day, for 32 weeks in winter, or 
100 stone, at fd. per pound .. ..700 
Man’s time 2J hours per day, or If days per 
week ; 32 winter weeks, at 4s. .. ..880 
Straw, lfd. per day, for 32 winter weeks .. 18 0 
Shoeing, £2 ; sadlery, harness, Ac., £2 ; tax, £1 5 0 0 
Roots for winter use; hiring of hay-makers; 
groom’s time in leading-out manure, Ac., are 
put down as nothing, in consideration of pony’s 
services in and about the allotment .. ..000 
£32 6 0 
An ordinary carriage, with care, should last five 
years, and be worth, at the end of that time, 
the amount spent in keeping it in repair. This 
gives £3 7s. for the annual use of the very 
plainest vehicle, and 15s. tax on the same .. 4 2 0 
Pony's annual deterioration, say .. .. 2 12 0 
£30 0 0 
Extra for wear and tear, and 
tax, of double-bodied phi 
(driven by Caleb) 
Horse extra 
Ditto 
Man’s wages 
Do. livery 
n 
£10 
0 
0 
. 5 
0 
0 
. 6 
8 
0 
. 10 
0 
0 
. 5 
0 
0 
36 
8 
0 
39 
0 
0 
£75 
8 
0 
Thus, a serviceable nag, and light conveyance, need not 
cost you more in the country than fifty pounds or guineas 
a-year; and, where a good deal of farm-labour is got 
through, the charge may be reduced again by one-third. But, 
where a large portion of Caleb’s time is taken up in driving, 
and a very complete little equipage is kept, the expense is 
greatly increased indeed. 
In a shilling Hand-book, recently written, in London, for 
the guidance of parties living in the country, the cost of a 
horse for a year is set down at £120. This is not made to 
include either the expense of the carriage, or the wear and 
tear and loss from buying and selling horses. On the con¬ 
trary, in Flanders it is calculated that a small farm of fifteen 
acres, paying £40 a-year rent, will maintain an industrious 
family, employ one horse, and leave a profit for the farmer ! 
My own calculation is between the two; I have partly 
pointed out, however, the secret sources of expense in the 
one extreme, and of economy in the other. Vibgyor. 
(To he continued.) 
BRAHMA POUTRA, OR GREY SHANGHAE 
FOWLS. 
I trust you will kindly allow me space in your columns 
for a few remarks in reply to your correspondent’s rather 
sweeping denunciation of Grey Shangliaes in general, and 
Brahma Poutras in particular, which I have just read, 
prefaced by a few remarks by yourself, in the present 
number (August 25th.) of The Cottage Gardener. 
I am fortunate enough to agree with your correspondent 
in the opinion that what are called Brahma Poutras, or, 
rather, the genuine birds of the strain known by that name, 
are “ nothingbut Grey Shanghaes ;” but from the unqualified 
assertion he makes that they are “ a very coarse variety of 
the ugliest of them,” and very deficient in many of the 
beauties we are accustomed to look for in bufls and other 
colours,” I beg entirely to dissent. I might, indeed, with 
equal assurance, make a directly opposite assertion; for, 
without even knowing your correspondent’s name, I will 
venture to claim, at least, an equal amount of experience 
with himself as regards this particular strain; but our 
respective views on these points being merely a matter of 
individual opinion, you will, probably, attach as much weight 
to my simply expressing a contrary opinion, as to the 
strongest assertion unsupported by argument or proof. I 
think, however, “ it will not be difficult to find arguments 
that will, if not disprove your correspondent’s assertion, 
at least, show that his estimate of these birds is quite at 
variance with the opinion of all who have had the best 
opportunities of forming a correct one; ” but before I 
attempt this, I must beg again to differ from him in another 
statement he makes, namely, that the Brahma Poutras sent 
by Dr. Bennett “ are precisely the same ” as the strain of 
Greys, known previously in this country, of whose history 
he gives, I believe, a correct sketch. I have had good 
opportunities of knowing Mr. Stainton’s breed of Greys, and 
must confess my own opinion to be, that they differ as much 
in character from the American birds as almost any two 
strains of Shangliae of somewhat similar plumage well can. 
I am here speaking only of the best samples of either strain, 
and do not, of course, include in the comparison any of the 
so-called Brahmas, and I believe there are not a few such 
that are of mixed origin. But if I am wrong in this opinion, 
and if, as your correspondent affirms, the two strains are 
“ identical,” there is something very inconsistent in the 
strong terms of disparagement in which he speaks of them 
in the first part of his letter, and in his afterwards de¬ 
scribing some male birds of one of the strains (exhibited by 
Mr. Stainton) “as splendid Grey Cocks;” nor is it easy to 
reconcile with his very unfavourable estimate of them, the 
fact he incidentally mentions, that a pen of the same 
variety, exhibited at Birmingham, 1851, the first show in the 
kingdom, were held by the judges of that show to have 
sufficient merit to entitle them to an extra prize, which 
prize birds, I may add, were afterwards purchased by one 
of our most experienced amateur judges, an undoubted 
connoisseur in poultry matters. So far, then, by your cor¬ 
respondent’s own showing, there must, I submit, be no 
inconsiderable merit in these birds. But to take the 
Brahma Poutras separately, against which strain, doubtless, 
your correspondent’s censure is intended more particularly 
to apply, if they are really so “ coarse a variety of the 
ugliest” of Shanghaes, and so “ deficient in the beauties we 
are accustomed to look for in other varieties,” it certainly 
seems passing strange that one of the best known fanciers 
in the United States of America should have selected 
specimens of this, in preference to every other variety of 
which America, equally with ourselves, can boast, as an 
appropriate present to her Majesty, and that, let it be 
understood, not under the pretence of their being a new 
breed, for they were presented to her Majesty simply as 
“ Grey Shanghaes,” but chiefly owing to their being held by 
the common consent of American fanciers (and I say this 
advisedly) to possess, in a pre-eminent degree, most of the 
very qualities which your correspondent so expressly denies 
to them; for their being, in fact, a strain of such rare beauty 
as to be deemed a fitting and a “ dainty ” gift “ to set before 
the Queen.” 
I will only further add, as some confirmation of this 
approval by transatlantic fanciers, that at all the recent 
