THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, October 9, 1860, 
ia half from row to row. These tiny things will occupy little space in com¬ 
parison with your plants, and’next spring, if well managed, will beat in the 
flower garden your carefully saved plants. Do much the same with 
Verbenas, or place little cuttings thickly round the sides of well-drained 
pots, and water, shade, and give air, as you may learn how in “ Window 
Gardening.” We should not like to give a penny for your old plants at 
Christinas. If you are doubtful of cuttings from want of experience, 
examine shoots near the ground, and you will perceive many of them 
(putting out incipient roots. Supply yourself with a number of small 
; 60-pots filled with sandy loam and leaf mould, and on the top of the soil fix 
the little shoot with a peg or pebble, and sever it from the parent plant 
when there are plenty of roots in the pot. It is late enough for this ; and 
therefore we would contrive to give cuttings a little extra heat in the 
Cucumber-frame. Calceolarias lift well and thrive when taken from 
flower-beds, but we like cuttings best—we shall put in thousands in October. 
Old Verbenas want much care, and are scarcely ever worth the labour. 
;Voung plants are the best. 
Planting Ground [E. N. N .).—To let any plot lie idle is bad gardening, 
i On your three quarters of an acre where the Potatoes grew, partly plant 
! Cabbages, and partly sow Tares. They will sell if you do not need them. 
Any crop you require will do well after either Mangold or Carrots. 
: Australian Sheds (J. M .).—It would take us a week to identify the 
genera, much more to identify the species. You had better try them all, 
giving greenhouse treatment, or send them to some nurseryman and tell 
him whence they came. 
Portable House Sewage {Idem ).—The best way to effect this is by 
soaking in it ashes, earth, and refuse weeds, and then storing these under 
i shed until required, mixing with the mass a little gypsum (sulphate of 
,ime). We know those who are situated as you are, and they have a large 
hogshead on wheels, in which they convey the liquid to their land, and 
listribute it over any vacant plot as often as the tank requires emptying. 
Names of Fruits (T. M., Little Bean). — Fears.— 1. Williams’ Bon 
Chretien. 2. White Doyennd. 3. Not known. 4. Marie Louise. 5. Not 
inown, will never be BeurrC* Ranee if it should grow ever so large. We 
rannot make anything of your Apples, which appear to be local varieties, 
iome of them are only sorts grown for cider. 
Name of Apple (T. T. T .).—The Red Astrachan answers to your 
lescription. v 
Names cf Plants (iJ. M. G.). —1. Sedum Sieboldii, a beautiful pot 
riant for a cold frame, and reputedly hardy. 2. Cyanotis vittata, which 
will grow in a warm, close greenhouse, but is hardly to be expected to do 
so satisfactorily in a cold one. 
POULTRY AND BEE-KEEPER’S CHRONICLE. 
EFFECT OF THE SEASON ON FOWLS. 
Had there been such a season as the present one some years 
igo, there would have been one universal cry and c-omplaint that 
ill the fowls were roupy. We have no hesitation in saying we 
lave at that time seen yards of fowls where there was not a 
lealthy one. Many old amateurs can recollect the apprehension 
with which the moulting season was viewed, and the dismay 
vith which they saw bird after bird hill off, knowing death 
vould be the end of the attack. Now everything is different : 
uther the malady has lost much of its intensity, or the birds 
lave so improved in constitution they readily shake off that 
vhich was formerly fatal. We may thank shows for it. The 
nterest that was excited about fowls by the institution of these 
riendly rivalries caused the subject to be treated by men who 
vere able to do so scientifically. They were successful. Till 
hey took the subject in hand o suffering fowl was generally 
;iven over to the tender mercies of some one who was supposed 
o know something about them, and then they were tormented 
vith everything that was nauseous in taste and smell and violent 
n action. 
But men of skill and practice in such cases sought for pre- 
'entives rather than cures, and soon discovered in the careless 
vay in which they were treated and bred the causes of the 
disorders. Poultry bad been thought little of, but it now 
issumed importance ; still more when there came proof that 
vith painstaking those disorders that had been the bane of a 
| r ard were not only not inseparable from the pursuit, but easy to 
ivoid. 
i Just as the sanitary condition of a country is improved by 
lidopting some and avoiding other suggestions or discoveries, so 
fi like result has been arrived at in poultry. Foul smells, damp 
|>r close atmosphere, irregular or insufficient food, or want of 
xercise, were found to be as fatal to fowls as to human beings ; 
md the observance of temperance, regularity, &c., more important 
,o health than the largest or best-fitted medicine-chest. We 
nay always be guided very much in the management of our 
itock by that wdiich is beneficial to ourselves. At the approach 
if winter we adopt warmer clothing. We gradually change our 
itmosphere by using fires, and we alter our food. Let us do for 
rar poultry in like manner. Many of our broods have, perhaps, 
>een accustomed to roost out of doors : Get them under better 
shelter than that now afforded by the boughs of a tree. The 
foliage is getting thin, the nights are long and cold, the dews 
heavy, and premonitory sneezings will tell you an alteration 
must be made in lodging. We do not say you must put them 
in houses; but they must roost where "they are free from 
draughts and quite dry, their food must be increased in quantity, 
and, if necessary, of better quality than hitherto. There is a 
dearth of poultry, and whether it be for the table or sale, none 
will find it unprofitable to follow our suggestions. 
BLACK-CRESTED WHITE POLANDS. 
I have seen “W. R. E.’s” article on Black-crested White 
Polands in your paper of September the 4th, in which he re¬ 
quests any one who has tried the experiment to communicate 
the result. Though I have not tried the experiment myself, I 
happened when staying near Calais, to have met at a French 
fisherman’s two birds (both hens), one of which was of this 
much-talked-of breed. It was then (about three years ago) very 
old ; the other bird was a dark Dun-crested White Poland. He 
had bred them by crossing White-crested Dun Polands and 
some bearded White Polands, which were dark about the crest 
and beard. These dark-bearded White Polands were bred, I 
believe, between Buff Polands and irregularly marked Silver- 
spangled Polands.—A n Amateur. 
MANAGEMENT OF POULTRY IN AUTUMN. 
Now that harvest is oyer, and my corn'and fruit are gathered, 
housed, and stacked out of harm’s way from my ducklings and 
chickens, I allow them to roam again at their will till the com 
fields are resown (after the corn is up they will have their liberty 
again), and many that were sickly from being obliged to be con¬ 
fined in close quarters in the yard, and sometimes in the fowl’s- 
house day and night too, on account of being in the way of 
harvest operations, and helping themselves too freely with the 
field and garden produce, are now becoming more healthy and 
thriving, and are apparently more happy than when they were 
obliged to be kept out of their natural element. 
By constantly training them to roam for their food, and to be 
fed when and where I pleased, when young, they now, when 
nearly fully grown, are so docile as to follow me anywhere at my 
usual call, so that I am now able to entice or to conduct them to 
any one of my fields at a reasonable distance from home—say a 
quarter of a mile off the homestead, to be fed, and where they 
will remain most of the day picking up what food I had strewed 
all over the field for them, as well as shacking the corn which 
the gleaners had left, and are immensely more serviceable, and 
also more lucrative than pigs would have been, and much more 
trustworthy, and not so mischievous. They are also of great 
service in clearing off insects of various descriptions. 
Chickens are of important service if allowed to roam a few 
hours in the garden before feeding time, as they are remarkably 
fond of earwigs and woodlice. The Ducks, however, will not 
stay so long in the garden or field at one time as the chickens, 
their instinctive nature being a hankering for the water, where 
they will have a swim when they please, or they will sulk and 
fret, and not thrive so well. They are, however, equally bent to 
leave the pond or brook at short intervals in search of slugs, &c., 
or to be fed ; but they soon waddle back again to the water, and 
only feeding them at night will entice them to the fowl-house at 
night. If it were a safe course to pursue, they would prefer to 
sleep on the water, or in the sedges all night, and it would, no 
doubt, be more congenial to their growth and health. Not so, 
however, with chickens, and this causes them to be less trouble¬ 
some and more lucrative than Ducks, requiring less food ; but 
the worst of it is, they will not gobble slugs with or without 
shell, and are more delicate in their choice of other accompani¬ 
ments to cat with their corn.— Abp.aiiam Hardy, Seed Groiver 
and Merchant , Maldon , Essex. 
MANAGEMENT OF PEA FOWLS. 
I see that “ A Subscriber ” asks for advice about the 
management of Pea Fowls in a limited space. I have many 
years kept them in enclosed yards, and can give him the desired 
information. 
You are quite right in advising the use of green food; they 
