I 
Septemeer 22. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
thirds Cochin-China, for pure bred birds. Good Game hens, 
crossed with a pure bred Cochin-China cock, produce chickens 
scarcely to be distinguished; and these, again, with a Cochin- 
China cock, would deceive some of our best judges; and I 
observe that feathered legs are one of the features which 
they acquire and retain. They are excellent for the table; 
perhaps better than the whole blood.” 
C. H. B. informs us, “ There is already a split 
between the Dr. Bennett clique and the Burnham 
adherents. By each advocating his own opinion (single 
versus double-comb) they will soon expose all their 
follies. 
“ Seeing some remarks as to the weight of Shanghae 
fowls, I send you the weights, at different ages, of three 
cockerels, hatched from 
eggs received from Mr. 
Pun chard 
on March 11. 
No. 1. 
No. 2. 
No. 3. 
June 17. weights 
5 lbs. 
5 lbs. 
4i lbs. 
July 11. 
OjTbs, 
6i lbs. 
Oi lbs. 
Aug. 18. 
8 lbs. 
lbs. 
7'lbs. 
Sept. G. .... 
( J lbs. 
8 lbs. 
71 lbs. 
These birds were fed solely on common meal, and had no 
greaves or meat. If you would wish for any information 
as to weights of birds not unnaturally fed, I have some of all 
ages, and would give you the most correct particulars in my 
power.—W. C. B.” 
We wish others of our readers would similarly weigh 
and furnish us with a record of the progressive increase 
of specimens—pullets as well as cockerels—of other pure 
breeds. 
Potatoes and other Crops near Tiietford. —“ This year 
has been, and is now, an unparalleled one. Early in the 
year the temperature was mild, and the vegetable produce 
of Broccoli , Cabbages, &c., most luxuriant. Potatoes were 
very scarce, reaching as high as Gs. per sack; which, 1 
believe, arose more from the lessened quantity grown than 
from the disease. The common fruits are abundant. I 
never had more; and my Strawberries in profusion, viz., the 
Alice Maud ; butthe continued wet spoiled very many, destroy¬ 
ing their flavour, Ac. In this locality, the Potato tops (Aug. 
31) are dead, as at Michaelmas time; the whole of mine 
quite dead; and I at first thought, from such premature 
ripeness, that they were diseased. I was, however, agreeably 
disappointed. They are all taken up and prove very fine; they 
are a mealy sort, and rise up abundantly; we eat them daily. I 
only grew about 30 rods; and have only seen about a quarter- 
of-a-peck of slightly diseased ones; none from a light and 
sandy soil; those in vallies rise up very small, but not many 
diseased ones; on the hills they are quite sound. Among 
my asli-leaved early ones, which rose well, and from eight to 
fourteen at a root, none diseased; but I observed there 
were several misplanted, and, upon digging the spot, I found 
the potato which was diseased had from three to five small 
ones growing and attached to the old potato, but no stem. I 
never saw this before; perhaps your experience can account 
for it. They were very good when boiled. The old potato 
assumed the precise appearance of a thorough diseased one, 
and was probably so when planted. Why should it throw out 
young potatoes attached to it, and not a stem ? The present 
mode of manuring the land for potatoes, probably with arti¬ 
ficial manure, may be one cause of the disease. We find 
the best potatoes grow on light sandy soil allotted to the 
poor, who have not the means of giving it more than 
the scrapings of dung from the roads, induces me to 
think that the soil should be light and mixed; and the best 
manure is stable dung just from the stable—long as it 
keeps the land light, ancl allows the roots to traverse and 
obtain nourishment. This observation is founded upon a 
piece of land, well trenched, and a large quantity of rotten 
manure dug in, which I intended for Lucern, but I planted 
it with Potatoes. They ran to top, which never died off; 
and, upon taking the tubers up, they were very few and ex¬ 
ceedingly small, and several diseased; this piece was not 
included in the 30 rods before mentioned. I am glad to say 
the Vines here have escaped the blight, and no blight is on i 
475 
the Wheat, & c . We have a most abundant harvest, and 
never better housed or stacked.—H. W. B.” 
■ Potatoes frequently produce young tudbers from their 
sides if forced in the dark during winter, But philosophy 
has not explained why. We recently saw an old 
Potatoo which had produced two tubers internally, and 
the young ones were forcing their way out through 
clefts in the parent’s side. It was in the possession of 
j the Rev. F. Wickham, at Winchester. 
Detention of Poultry at Shows.— The Rev. G. F. 
llodson, of Chew Magna Vicarage, wroto to us as 
follows, on the 30th of August:— 
“ Allow me a few lines to state my grievances on the mis 
management, or, rather, gross carelessness, of the secretaries 
of the various poultry shows. I sent a pen of fowls to the 
late Surrey Zoological Gardens’ Exhibition, on Monday 
week, fully expecting to see my pets again on the Saturday 
night (as the show, 1 believe, closed on the Thurs.day night 
previously); but Sunday passed, and part of Momday, when 
I betook myself to the Bristol Station of the Great Western 
Railway, to make enquiries respecting my birds, when I was 
told no birds had yet arrived for any parties in or about 
Bristol, and that I was not the only one who had imade ap¬ 
plication for their birds. Having waited, fruitlessly, the 
arrival of a couple of trains, I took my departure; and this 
morning (Tuesday), at nine o’clock, my birds made their 
appearance, having taken four-days-and-a-half to> reach 
home (a distance of 120 miles) after the close of the ex¬ 
hibition. I am sure, for my own part, and I know m any who 
hold the same opinion, that if secretaries will not give 
themselves the trouble to secure a sufficient staff of packers, 
so as to ensure the birds under their care being dispatched 
as quickly as possible, we must decline contributing to their 
exhibitions.” 
We publish the preceding for the purpose of sus¬ 
taining the attention of the committees of all ap¬ 
proaching Poultry Shows to the great grievance Mr. 
Hodson complains of. We most earnestly warn them 
to make special arrangements for the undelayed return 
of the birds exhibited. Exhibitions of Poultry are 
gradually rising in importance and in conferring 
benefit by improving and increasing the cultivation of 
domestic fowls; therefore, it is the duty, as well as the 
interest, of every Committee presiding over such Exhi¬ 
bitions, to he sedulously careful to have every just ground 
of complaint avoided. 
Economy in Tobacco. —We have known rents paid 
by “ a pint of ale ” being drank less daily than in 
preceding years; and this, as well as the following, are 
only illustrations of that old fragment of economical 
wisdom,—“A pin a-day is fourpence a year.” 
“Hints are useful things, and I am going to give one. 
I am a smoker, and so are the majority of men that have 
to do with gardens. When smoking, but few people bum 
the whole of the contents of a pipe, in consequence of the 
bottom-layer of tobacco becoming wet. Now, these remains 
of the contents of the pipe are invariably thrown away. I, 
on the contrary, put them into a tin box, where it gets 
tolerably dry, and comes in very useful for fumigating, or 
making tobacco-water (and the tips of cigars aro similarly 
useful). I have, just now, about a pound of this, what 
some people call, waste, which I have been carefully col¬ 
lecting for a few months passed, besides what I have used for 
my plants. The cottage gardener, being thus careful, would 
save a few shillings in the year.—R. Hodson, Liverpool 
