THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTS.T GENTLEMAN, December 11, 1SG0. 
153 
the second prize. The Steward considers this point well worthy 
the consideration of the Council.” This will be a great im¬ 
provement, and with the recommendation of the Steward no 
doubt the Council will adopt it. The present prizes in each adult 
class are—First Prize, £4 ; Second Prize, £1; Third Prize, lUs. 
I would suggest—First Prize, £3 ; Second Prize, £2; Third 
Prize, £l. Also, in the chicken classes, the entry-fee is the 
same—viz., 5s. 6d., but the prizes are only First Prize, £1; 
Second Prize, 10s.; Third Prize, 5s. So the winner of the third 
does not even get his entry-fee. I consider the Bantam fee of 4s. 
is quite sufficient for the chickens. Moreover, the prizes for 
Bantams are higher, although the entry-fee is lower. With such 
an obliging Steward as Mr. Pitman, who listens to and care¬ 
fully weighs any suggestions for the improvement of this first- 
class, and almost only Show of the West of England, it will, un¬ 
doubtedly, become second to none. The Society are obliged 
every year to make complaint of the unsuitable baskets used for 
the conveyance of poultry, and this year there is only a slight 
improvement. Surely exhibitors for their own sakes will pay 
attention to this next year. The Society would do well to pay 
the prize money earlier next year.—W. B. E. 
EGGS IN WINTER. 
In reference to the inquiry in the Prairie Farmer of the 18th 
of October, “How is my wife going to get eggs enough this 
winter to settle my coffee?” we will state that several means 
have been attempted to arouse hens from their torpidity when 
they cease the natural period of the year to lay, inasmuch as it 
seems very hard to pass through the winter without the luxury 
of eating new-laid eggs; and hence the importance of the 
question, “ How is my wife going to get eggs enough this 
winter to settle my coffee ? ” Now, the most practical mode 
that occurs to the writer would be to procure early spring- 
hatched chickens—the Asiatic breed are generally the best 
winter layers—and keep them in a warm, dry place, and if fed 
plentifully and attended to they will generally commence laying 
about the 1st of November, sometimes earlier. In cold and 
damp this is not to be expected, and much may in different 
seasons depend on the state of the weather and the condition of 
the birds. A poor, half-starved hen cannot be expected to lay 
eggs- 
There seem naturally two seasons of the year when hens lay— 
early in spring, and afterwards in summer—indicating that if 
fowls were left to themselves they would, like wild birds, produce 
two broods in a year. A wild hen will lay no more eggs than 
she can conveniently cover, and her periods for laying and in¬ 
cubation will be fixed and regular. Not so with the domestic 
hen : for some lay every day, or every other day, for nine months 
out of the twelve, and some varieties evince a desire to sit : 
while others manifest this desire, some at one period, and others 
at another period. Among a flock of hens these diversities will 
show themselves, and advantage may be taken of them with 
benefit to their owner. But they require as a condition that 
they be well provided with warm, dry, comfortable lodging, 
clean apartments, plenty of food—such as boiled potatoes, mashed 
and given to them warm, corn, barley, buckwheat, oats, and 
occasionally animal food. In summer, they get their supply in 
the form of worms and insects when suffered to run at large. It 
will be found that the fecundity of the hen will be increased or 
diminished according to the supply of animal food furnished. 
It is well known that hens are modest birds, and seek privacy 
while the symptoms of approaching egg-labour are strong upon 
them. It is thought by many that the production of eggs is 
like the yielding of milk in a cow—somewhat under the control 
of the creature ; so it becomes us to add every inducement to 
stimulate the instinct of nature, and coax fowls to prolificacy 
by consulting their tastes and whims by making their nests as 
secret as possible. 
Hens moult and cast their feathers once every year, generally 
commencing in August, and continuing until November, and in 
some cases still later. It is the approach, the duration, and the 
consequences of this period which put a stop to their laying. 
All the period while it lasts, the wasting of the nutritive juices 
prepared for the blood for promoting the growth of the feathers 
is considerable, and hence it is no wonder there should not 
remain substance enough in the body of the hen to cause her 
egg to grown Old hens, therefore, cannot always be depended 
on for eggs in winter, they scarcely being in full feather before 
the middle of December ; and they probably may not begin to 
lay till March or April. 
As pullets do not moult the first year they commence laying 
before the older hens, and by attending to the period of hatching 
eggs may be produced during the year. An early brood of 
chickens, therefore, by being carefully sheltered from cold and 
wet, will begin to lay in the fall or early winter. 
An ordinary breed of hens, well housed, well fed, and well 
cared for, will be of more profit to their owners than a like 
number of neglected, half-starved biddies, which may come of 
the best laying tribe. 
We have been abundantly supplied with fresh eggs in winter 
to settle our coffee from the African Bantam hens, when 
managed in accordance with what we have recommended. We 
want to be told how to make hens lay for everlasting.—C. N. 
Bement. — (Prairie Farmer.) 
RICE AS FOOD FOE POULTEY AND PIGS. 
In the Number of The Cottage Gardener, dated the 27th 
November, I notice a paragraph headed “ Bice as Food for 
Poultry,” and your remarks upon the same. You say that “Rice 
is pure starch, and incapable of producing fat in any animal. 
Fowls kept upon it become thin and low in condition.” 
Now, I have been in the habit for some years of using rice 
and ricemeal boiled, for the purpose of feeding Pigs, fowls. 
Ducks, and Geese, and have used very little or nothing else 
(certainly without any other kind of grain or meal) with it, and 
my Pigs and poultry alw'ays get fat upon it. Last winter and 
the winter before my fowls produced me quantities of eggs, 
when my neighbours’ had none. My Geese laid and hatched 
long before my neighbours, and also reared their produce, fed 
upon boiled rice, while my neighbours have been very un¬ 
fortunate. 
I never had a fowl that went blind, and I have kept them in 
town and country. 
The flesh is excellent, and my pork and bacon are always of 
first-rate quality, and the people who buy it mice are always glad 
to have it again. 
These results I have always put down to the use of rice and 
ricemeal; and knowing these results, you may judge of my great 
surprise at your remarks, which are so very much opposed to 
my own views and experience in the matter.—J. M. P., 
Lowlon. 
[What is the “little or nothing” which our correspondent 
gives bis poultry and Pigs with the rice ? If he gives them 
milk, or wash from the kitchen, or boiled potatoes, or cabbage, 
or turnips, he supplies them with fat-forming food. Rice will 
supply flesh. If a Pig or a fowl were kept scrupulously upon 
nothing but rice and water they would not fatten, or animal 
chemistry is teaching an erroneous doctrine. Poultry running 
about in pi field or yard obtain enough of animal food, in the 
form of insects, &c., to add fat to the flesh formed from the rice. 
—Eds. 0. G.] 
BLUE ROCK PIGEONS. 
In Tee Cottage Gardener of the 4th inst., I notice the 
following :—“The common Blue Roc is the best; it is prolific, 
very hardy, and inexpensive.” You will excuse my differing 
from you, and offering a correction. 
The Blue Rock Pigeon is not very common, but may be met 
with on most of our rocky coasts, and breeds, I believe, but twice 
in the season. 
The Pigeon you allude to is most likely the common checquered 
Dovehouse Pigeon, which is s orn etime3 incorrectly called a 
“Blue Rock.” This bird is pr 0 pg c an d inexpensive, but the 
young are small.—B. P. Brent. 
[We spoke of the common blue Dovehouse Pigeon, under its 
popular name of “Blue Rock.” Of course we did not intend the 
wild “ Blue Rock Pigeon.”— Eds. C. G .] 
INFLUENZA IN PIGEONS. 
The birds first are taken (both y oung and old) with moping, 
which after a day or two turns into a slight sniffle, winch 
becomes worse and worse, until it gets something like a bad 
head cold, for which so far I have found no cure. Those 
