THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, .Tune 1(5, 1857. 
11 
season of growth. It blooms from April to October. Where bedding 
is carried out to a very great extent we see no objection to this marked- 
leaved Dead Nettle as a bedder. Its white-blotched leaves are attractive 
all the year round, and its purplish red flowers are produced very freely, j 
( Mortlake ).—No. 1. Broad-leaved Birth wort, Aristnlochia sipho. No. j 
2. A dwarf shrub, Deutzia scabru. (An Old Subscriber).— Yours is ; 
Narcissus poeticus, which may be removed at any time after the leaves j 
die down naturally, and until the end of October. The whole family of | 
the Narcissus force well. 
Hardy Flowers (W. U.).—\Ve shall be much obliged by the lists j 
you offer. Let us have your name and address confidentially, and not I 
for publication. | 
Correcting Abuses (F. H. S.). —We cannot follow your advice, as i 
no good can arise from prosecuting the subject any further. Our object 
| for the present has been attained; but you may depend upon it when 
1 occasion requires, when wrongs are to be redressed or abuses checked, 
! you will always find us at our post, ready to aid in every good cause i 
' affecting the gardener and gardening. 
Rhubarb for Exhibition (Laicus). — Whoever advises you to 
1 leave only three or four leaves is wrong. Select one of the largest 
varieties, such as the Victoria, manure the ground heavily, and give, as 
| soon as growth commences, strong liquid manure twice a week, and on j 
other days an abundant supply of water. Let one flower-stem rise up, 
and remove all the others. Do not remove a leaf. Rich food and j 
moisture will produce size and crispness. 
Arum at Paris (Noah). —We think the plant you saw must be the 
Jlichardiu Mthiopica, grown of a dwarf size. 
Lawn on Gravel (O . L.). —Nitrate of soda would not prevent the | 
lawn turning brown in patches. The only remedy will be to strip off j 
the turf on those places, remove the gravel to the depth of a foot, fill 
up the hole with loam, and return the turf to its place. 
Various (An Amateur). —Look into our 254th number, and you will 
see how Geraniums or Pelargoniums are hybridised. Your grafted 
Rose does not require a sucker to be left on the Briar "stock. In our 
35th number you will find a drawing and all about the Vinegar plant. 
Woodlice (Melons ).—Pour boiling water down between the soil and 
side of the frame. 
Various (E. Simons ).—We hope to accomplish a general index. 
The “Authoress of My Flowers” will resume her pen ere long, we 
hope. What will Mr. Beaton say to our correspondent’s heterodox , 
postscript? which is as follows:—“The bedding system (bad luck to 
it !) has driven so many herbaceous plants out of cultivation, that when 
I lose a plant I find it difficult and often impossible to replace it. If ! 
the only use of plants is to produce certain effects by the arrangement j 
of different colours, why cannot those effects be produced by painted ! 
boards or posts ? ” 
Cottage Gardener at York (H. J. W .).—If by post from our ; 
' office you would have it on every Wednesday morning; and so you , 
would if your bookseller had a parcel from London on the Tuesday of j 
I each week. 
I ‘ 
I the poultry"' mmmmjz . 
POULTRY SHOWS. 
1 June 26th. Exeter. Sec., T. W. Gray, Esq., Queen Street, Exeter. 
July 8 th, 9 th, and 10 th, 1857. Leamington. Sec., Thomas Grove. 
July gth. Prescot. Sec., J. F. Ollard. 
July 28th, 29 th, and 30th. Sheffield, South Yorkshire, and 
North Derbyshire. Sec., William Henry Dawson, Fig Tree 
r Lane, Sheffield. 
August 8 th, 10 th, 11 th, and 12 th. Crystal Palace. Sec., W. 
Houghton. 
August 19 . Bridlington. Sec., Mr. Thomas Cape. 
September 2 nd. Dewsbury. Sec., Harrison Brooke, Esq. 
September 7th, 8 th, 9 th, 10 th. Gloucester. Sec., Mr. H. Churchill, 
King’s Head Hotel. 
October 1 st and 2 nd. Worcester. Sec. Mr. G. Griffiths, 7, St. 
Swithen Street, Worcester. Entries close Sept. 19 th. 
November 30th, and December 1 st, 2 nd, and 3rd. Birmingham. 
Sec., John Morgan. Entries close the 2 nd of November. 
December 16th and 17 th. Nottinghamshire. Entries close No¬ 
vember 18th. Hon. Sec., Mr. R. Hawksley, jun., Southwell. 
December 30th and 31st. Burnley and East Lancashire. 
Entries close December 1 st. Secs., Angus Sutherland and Ralph 
Landless. 
January 9th, 11th, 12th, and 13th, 1858. Crystal Palace. 
j January 19 th, 20th, 21 st, and 22 nd, 1858. Nottingham Central. | 
Sec., Mr. Etherington, jun., Notintone Place, Sneinton, near Notting- i 
ham. « 
N.B .—Secretaries will oblige us by sending curly copies of their lists 
done at the expense of the prizes in general. I quite agree 
with Mr. Hewitt that the more widely prizes are scattered 
the better it is for all concerned in shows ; and I think that 
happened to an unusual extent last year. 
A collection cup must either be given to the owner of | 
the best and most striking, and, therefore, most valuable 
birds, or else to the largest exhibitor. Both are wrong in 
my opinion. If it be given to the most valuable collection 
the richest man will get it; if to the most numerous, then 
to the owner of the largest collection. Who can or will 
decide, except upon compulsion, as to the best collection ? 
The very question as to which is the best fowl is still 
undecided. One swears by his Dorkings; another pins his 
faith to Cochins ; a third worships Spanish; a fourth will 
prove that Hamburghs are the only profitable fowls; the 
fifth, that Game are not only the best, but the original 
poultry; and so on. Judges themselves have their favourite 
breeds. Certain of them have been their pets from youth ; 
and although they try to envelope themselves in stern in¬ 
difference, yet their eyes and their inclinations are drawn 
irresistibly to them; and when decision is difficult the line 
of beauty, or the knowledge of good qualities acquired in i 
early years, is not without weight. Nor are they wrong. 
Every breed has its peculiar and exclusive merit—it has 
its own admirers; and who, then, shall decide the best i 
collection ? 
The offer of a collection cup is to induce large entries. 
Now, I think it will act in opposition to them. If a cup is 
given for the best collection it should be limited to four, or, 
at most, six pens. I prefer the former number if the cup 
is offered at all; but, as I said before, I disapprove of it. 
There are some exhibitors who are known to possess birds 
enough to enable them to send from fifteen to twenty pens 
to a show. If the judgment of a cup is to go by points, 
irrespectively of the number shown, this entry of twenty pens 
at once shuts out fourteen or fifteen exhibitors of four pens 
each. It is then a clear loss to the show. It does not avail 
to say that the owner of four pens may take a first prize in 
each; it will not help him. The exhibitor of twenty pens 
will of necessity show many in the smaller classes, and he 
must in them be more or less successful. It is easier to 
take a prize against three competitors than against thirty. 
If points are to tell, the man who in a low class shows a 
pen of average birds, and competes only against one other 
entry, will gain as much by it as the exhibitor of the best 
pen of birds in the show. 
Again, the second prize, awarded more in obedience to 
the rule that offers premiums for the best than to the merits 
of the birds themselves, and which is often given to 
creatures which, paradoxically, become the best without 
pretensions to being good, would count as much as the 
second prize gained by positive and superlative merit in the j 
teeth of the greatest competition. 
I cannot fancy anything so suicidal on the part of a Com¬ 
mittee as to publish that the most valuable prize they offer 
shall be given to the largest exhibitor. This must be the 
result if points are to tell. All large exhibitors know how 
to show their birds; and he who can show twenty pens will 
always beat an opponent who has but six. The consequence 
is to drive away all small exhibitors. Collection cups do 
more to discourage necessitous but ardent amateurs than 
any rule could do. The poor man has means or opportunity 
of breeding one sort only. I 11 this he often excels, and 
success is open to him. The proper plan is to offer a good 
prize, either in money or plate, for each breed. This is 
within the reach of all; and many who have bought very 
expensive birds can tell to their cost that success is not to 
be bought.—B. 
CUPS FOR COLLECTIONS. 
I no not approve of cups for collections of poultry, nor 
is there any satisfactory mode of awarding them. All the 
principal Judges have been glad to get rid of the difficulty 
and responsibility of the decision. Committees have felt 
they were mistakes, and hence their disappearance from 
almost all the exhibitions. Evils very often work their own 
cure, and it is so in this instance. Where a valuable cup 
is offered as an inducement to large entries it is generally 
DUCKWING GAME BANTAMS. 
Your correspondent, “ Merry Legs,” writes inquiring 
how to breed Duckwing Game Bantams. I believe he is 
no more anxious to know than many others, and, perhaps, 
not more so than the owners of the much-coveted variety. 
But let us inquire what the variety hitherto exhibited has 
been. I am not aware of more than two parties who have 
hitherto professed to exhibit them. In both cases cock 
birds, with something of the feather of the Duckwing Game, 
