THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, July 7, 1857. 
223 
RIGHT TO STRAYED BEES. 
“ I Lave a Live of Lees which swarmed on the premises of 
a farmer, and Le says lie will make me pay damage for 
following tliem. Please to say if Le can, or wliat Lold Le 
Las of me.”—A Constant Reader. 
[Blackstone, in Lis “ Commentaries,” says, “ A swarm 
wliich fly from and out of my Live are mine so long as I 
can keep them in sight, and Lave power to pursue them ; 
and in these circumstances no one else is entitled to take 
them.” Indeed, if the rightful owner quickly pursues the 
swarm, and keeps them in sight, and any one else should 
Live and keep them, it would Le a larceny. We believe 
that if the Lees Lave been quickly followed from the Live 
whence they swarmed, and have never been lost sight of, 
their owner is entitled to follow them on to another man’s 
land and hive them. If the man on to whose land the bees 
strayed took possession of the swarm, or prevented the 
owner from doing so, we think the owner would have a legal 
remedy against that man. Of this we are quite sure— no one 
who is honest will prevent the owner of a strayed swarm 
followintj and recovering it.~\ 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Laterals of Nectarines {H-. Bishop ).—If the lateral shoots are 
so placed as to be available without crowding too much we say by all 
means nail them in ; but if there is already sufficient wood on the tree 
merely cut them back, or keep them short by pinching, and you will, in 
all probability, throw them into a kind of spur called a brindle. Besides 
the young wood. Peaches and Nectarines bear also on these brindles. 
N.B.—Very many inquiries and their answers are unavoidably kept 
back until next week. 
POULTRY SHOWS. 
July 8 th, 9 th, and 10 th, 1857. Leamington. Sec., Thomas Grove. j 
July 9 th. Prescot. Sec., J. F. Ollard. 
July 20th. Royal Agricultural Society. Salisbury. The Ex¬ 
hibition will be open to the public on the 22nd. 
July 28th, 29th, and 30th. Sheffield, South Yorkshire, and 
North Derbyshire. Sec., William Henry Dawson, Fig Tree 
Lane, Sheffield. 
August 8th, 10th, 11 th, and 12th. Crystal Palace. Sec., W. 
Houghton. Entries close on the 11 th of July. 
August 19 . Bridlington. Sec., Mr. Thomas Cape. 
Aug. 29 th. Calder Vale. Sec., W. Irvine, Esq., Holmefield, Halifax. 
September 2 nd. Dewsbury. Sec., Harrison Brooke, Esq. 
September /th, 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 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Birmingham. 
Sec., John Morgan. Entries close the 2 nd of November. 
December 16 th and 17th. Nottinghamshire. Entries close No¬ 
vember 18th. Hon. Sec., Mr. R. Hawksley, jun., Southwell. 
December 30th and 3lst. Burnley and East Lancashire. 
Entries close December 1 st. Secs., Angus Sutherland and Ralph 
Landless. 
January 9th, 11th, 12th, and 13th, 1858. Crystal Palace. 
January 19 th, 20 th, 21 st, and 22 nd, 1858. Nottingham Central. 
Sec., Mr. Etherington, jun., Notintone Place, Sneinton, near Notting¬ 
ham. 
N.B .—Secretaries will oblige us by sending early copies of their lists. 
CRYSTAL PALACE POULTRY SHOW.—BREED¬ 
ING GOOD CHICKENS. 
Among the numerous Poultry Shows of the present year ! 
there certainly is not one possessing more general interest 
than the great meeting that is to take place early in August 
next at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, the entries for 
which, be it remembered, finally close on the 11th of the 
present month. One very great additional interest is un¬ 
doubtedly insured from the fact that every head of com¬ 
peting poultry must, as stringently laid down in the second 
regulation, “ be the produce of 1857.” Such appointment 
of necessity altogether excludes the presence of those pens 
of poultry so generally familiar to the practised eyes of 
both Poultry Judges and the more enthusiastic of our 
poultry amateurs as the customary prize groups of bygone 
exhibitions. All must be chicks, and thus novelty will 
be insured throughout the whole collection. That this 
will necessarily add unboundedly to the interest of both 
poultry amateurs and the sight-seeing visitors admits of 
no doubt, whilst the unequalled local advantages the Crystal 
Palace itself possesses for the purpose of triumphantly 
carrying out such an Exhibition are of the highest possible 
character. Among these, one that should be more highly 
appreciated among the owners of exhibition poultry, is tbe 
total exclusion of all draughts of cold air, though com¬ 
bined with the free admission of unrestricted light which the 
Palace affords, with the additional advantage, too, of suffi¬ 
ciently roomy exhibition pens. These are, indeed, very 
strong points in favour of this particular Show, as, un¬ 
questionably, chickens in all cases bear restraint and dis¬ 
comfort of any kind far less equably than adult birds. To 
the competing chickens of the 8th of August next all will 
be strange, and the confinement a trial to which they have 
been quite unaccustomed. It must, therefore, be a matter 
of great congratulation to their respective owners to know that 
their valuable favourites are temporarily consigned into the 
care of parties of long-practised experience in regard to all 
their wants, and who have heretofore proved themselves 
equally as anxious as they were able to fulfil properly every 
engagement their duty required. It is not needful to say 
much on another most important feature that will inevitably 
result from prize-taking at the Crystal Palace Summer 
Show, viz., how strongly it will influence the ready sale of 
surplus chickens from the yards of the successful, and like¬ 
wise enhance the money value of such extra stock generally. 
The result will prove, most probably, that chickens hatched 
very early this year have frequently been reared far more 
successfully than broods produced in March and April, and 
from this cause it is the opinion of those best acquainted 
with matters connected with poultry breeding that the spe¬ 
cimens that will then appear will greatly excel any collection 
that has been hitherto brought together so early in tbe sea¬ 
son. It is quite needless to dwell, too, on the fact of the 
varied independent sights the Palace affords, so far-famed 
as they are, and all available to those who attend the Poultry 
Exhibition. The numbers of visitors will therefore, no 
doubt, be very great, and the past experience of the Crystal 
Palace Poultry ShoAv best proves how easily pens of good 
poultry are disposable under such circumstances, and that, 
too, at prices highly remunerative to the breeder. 
Now that this brief consideration of the Sydenham Show 
brings more especially the subject of chickens before poultry 
breeders, the writer of this article, with your permission, is 
desirous of publicly laying before your readers a cause that 
seems to have almost wholly escaped the consideration of a 
large body of poultry amateurs as to an ever-decreasing 
value of the progeny of their poultry-yards, and on which 
subject scarcely of late a single week passes in which I have 
not been by private letter consulted, and advice as willingly 
rendered. Still the probability being that many others find 
themselves in the same predicament, and, from overlooking 
the cause, “ can assign no reason” for the result, therefore I 
will succinctly allude to it. To render the matter at once 
clearly understood I will repeat verbatim one of many 
queries very lately received on this subject:—“Could you 
favour me with the cause why the chickens I now breed are 
so infinitely inferior to those I obtained a year or two back 
from the same old birds ? ” I will not do more than allude 
to the everywhere accredited fact that “runs” long used 
produce sickness and inevitable injury to present stock, but 
at once proceed to another cause that, though occult, tends 
as invariably to deterioration, first passing over the habit of 
interbreeding too closely as most condemnatory throughout 
all animal creation, and worthy only of especial avoidance. 
But the querist wishes to know “ why the present infe¬ 
riority with the self-same parent birds as formerly, which 
then produced the most superior chickens ? ” I am con¬ 
firmed in this opinion by oft-repeated trials—that the 
gradual decline of individual constitution in the size of 
such poultry tends incredibly to produce such results ; 
that while the almost uncared-for fold-yards of our agri¬ 
culturists are free from such calamity, the infinitely more 
highly-esteemed flocks of amateurs, who let no expense 
deter them from adopting every available advantage, are 
constantly the subject of this most vexatious discomfiture. 
Let us cast a glance over the difference that exists among 
birds or animals in a state of nature, and those thus sub¬ 
jected to the misapplied, and, in many instances, over¬ 
anxious care of mankind. 
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