August 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
289 
trict near the city from which they derive then- 
name. The turnip seed in the cottager’s garden 
near you was enough to cross and render untrue to 
stoclc all the cabbage and radish seed grown within 
miles of it, for bees travel much further. It is the 
knowledge that all seed is uncertain if not saved 
with the greatest care that compels seedsmen not to 
buy it from chance growers. How could they confi¬ 
dently sell it to their customers? —Ed. C. G.] 
Poultry Furring. —It has often surprised me 
that cottagers do not more frequently keep poultry; 
chickens are reared with little trouble, and kept at 
no expense. I now advise any young person who 
reads this to try and earn Is fid, and then to pur¬ 
chase a young cock and hen. Shut them up for a 
day or two till they are accustomed to the place, 
then let them have the run of a public road, or field 
in which cattle graze ; they will then require feeding 
but once a day. And now as to what to feed them 
on. Do not buy a pennyworth. If you dine on 
potatoes, nothing can be better than their skins. T 
hope all my readers boil their potatoes with their 
jackets on: it improves the potato, makes it more 
wholesome, and feeds your chickens. At this season 
I dare say most of The Cottage Gardener’s readers 
have peas; if so, save the shells, and after the peas 
are boiled put them back into the same water, and 
let them boil whilst you are dining, then cut them 
into little bits, and mix them with crumbs from your 
plates (remember, “ Waste not, want not”), and your 
poultry will live well on it. If this advice is thought 
worthy a place in so excellent a paper as The Cot¬ 
tage Gardener, I will next week tell you what to 
do when you have any eggs laid ; and although you 
may not “ count your chicks before they are hatched,” 
yet I think you may reckon on a dozen eggs within 
three weeks or a month.—C. M. A. 
Wet-day Gardening. —This is a wet day, and it 
has suggested to me a few hints for the cottage gar¬ 
dener on wet-day gardening. 1 am very fond of wet 
days, in a garden, at this time of the year. What¬ 
ever you may say to the contrary, I believe in the 
practicability of transplanting all annuals, even mig¬ 
nonette, by choosing a wet day for the purpose. Act¬ 
ing by your advice, I certainly did sow some annuals 
this year where they were to remain, and very fine 
clumps they have made, hut in all quarters there are 
some gaps to be filled up, some unlucky combinations 
of colour to he remedied: for such alterations, com¬ 
mend me to a wet day. In the vegetable garden I 
have followed the practice of a tribe of small occu¬ 
piers whom I believe to be lineal descendants of the 
serfs who tilled a certain monastic estate, whose 
ancient grange still stands in this neighbourhood. 
Early peas, early cabbage, early potatoes, are the 
forerunners of beet, the winter cabbage kind, and 
(on a warm border or on a hotbed) cucumbers, celery, 
&c.; and I find it best to dig in the year’s manuring 
now, before transplanting. The great advantage of 
this method, both in the flower-garden and kitchen- 
garden, is that hand-weeding can he almost entirely 
superseded by planting rather than sowing. How¬ 
ever, I believe that crops of onions, carrots, and 
parsnips, may be advantageously alternated with 
double crops, except in the case of early borders and 
favoured bits of ground protected from east and 
northerly winds, and lying well to the morning and 
forenoon sun. Such hits may always grow two crops 
a-year. I believe that some borders, .and fields too, 
in these parts have grown early potatoes every year 
for a long time back. Another favourite employment 
on a wet day is to clear off many full-blown flowers and 
all needless seeding plants; this ensures a fine flush 
of new bloom when the sun shines out again, and a 
repeated pleasure. As some of your readers have 
occasionally inquired about the economy of small 
holdings, and as I have not been wholly unsuccess¬ 
ful in my own experience of that kind of miniature 
farming or field gardening, I will at once refer with 
gratitude to the works of the Rev. Mr. Hickey, com¬ 
monly called Martin Doyle, ivhose works just give 
the right sort of information, and whose pen I dare 
say you might engage for that department of your 
work if the writer be still alive and not quite used 
up.* He is great on pigs, poultry, and cropping.— 
Vibgyor. 
To Preserve Peas from Mice. —Having seen in 
the public papers a ease of poisoning by arsenic, 
which was procured under the pretext of steeping 
peas in it to preserve them from mice, I take advan¬ 
tage of your excellent journal to mention that if the 
peas, before sowing, are soaked in a solution of com¬ 
mon Barbadoes aloes, it is a perfect protection against 
vermin, and obviates all danger.—E. J. 
Shade for Plants. —Having noticed several re¬ 
marks and suggestions in your work respecting the 
method of shading plants, I send you a rough sketch 
of a shade I constructed last year, suitable either for 
pot or border plants. It is made with two little 
hoops (one about as large again as the other) and 
four pieces of lath ; the laths are tacked inside the 
hoops, which are placed distant from one another 
about two-thirds the length of the requisite height of 
the shade, one end of each lath being set flush with 
the upper rim of the smaller hoop. \ arious modes 
of covering the skeleton suggest themselves, and a 
long-headed philosopher’s night-cap would, it made 
waterproof, serve admirably to draw over it; hut in 
practice we have recourse to a closely-fitting water¬ 
proof calico vestment, which shifts off and on, and 
is made to draw together at the top with a piece ol 
tnpe. If the shade is used for a plant in a pot, this 
dress or covering can be turned and pinned up a 
short distance at the bottom; hut il lor use in the 
open border, then it may be let down to a short dis- 
* The popular writer referred to is j we believe, long since dead. 
Ed. C. G. 
