j 20 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, November 18, 185G. 
Fruit Culture ( Amator florum).— Most likely Mr. Errington will 
attend to your wishes. There have been several good articles on the Plum. 
The branches of your Plum-trees, if strong, should be shortened; if 
short and stubby, they should be laid in where there is room for them, 
and next season they will be studded with flower-buds; and in 1858 they 
will be fruitful. If there is not room they must be cut back to two or 
three buds. The bearing buds are generally the thickest on the two- 
year-old wood. If these young shoots are very strong, it shows that the 
roots had better have a cut. 
Back Numbers (J. Green). —All back numbers of The Cottage 
Gardener can now be had, and you, or any one, requiring to complete 
a set, had better apply speedily, for some of the numbers are nearly 
all sold, and will not be reprinted. In your case begin from No. 366, 
dated October 2, 1855 ; and bind in six-months’ volumes, for which you 
can have cases from our Office through any bookseller. Remove your 
Rhubarb immediately, injuring the roots as little as possible. Mulch the 
ground above the roots. 
Works on Botany (W. B. B.). —We answered this query at page 
49 of our present volume. 
Names of Plants (A.). —Yours is Nicandra physaloides. (A No¬ 
vice.). —Your tvvo specimens are from one species, Acacia armata. (The 
Doctor’s Boy).—Salvia Cammertonii. [E. A. C.). —Your fresh-water 
plant is Fontinalis antipyretica. 
Moving Daphnes, &c. (George.) —Your plant is the common garden 
Variegated Alyssum, usually called Alyssum variegatum; but you will 
find all about it in The Cottage Gardeners’ Dictionary, under the 
name Glyce. It is almost a hardy plant, if not quite, and is much 
used as a marginal plant to beds and borders, as a contrast to other 
plants or flowers of colour. It strikes freely in the hotbed in the spring 
months from cuttings. The other plant you mean is the Phlox Drum- 
mondii, of which there are many varieties of colour ; not that we call this 
an annual creeper. The common Daphne is such a good-natured plant, 
that it will flourish in any good garden-soil not too light; and where 
the natural soil is too light, add to it a portion of loam and leaf-mould. 
All the Daphnes delight in this and a cool situation; but D. cneorum 
and this pretty little gem delight to bask in the sun, and planted prin¬ 
cipally in peat, with a little loam. This is just the very time to replant 
either the old plant or the young layer that was laid down last spring. 
Planting near the Sea-shore (I. H. B .).— Stiff clay, over lime¬ 
stone, close to the sea, in the south-west of England. Who can tell us the 
best wood and underwood trees, and bushes to cover such a place, for our 
correspondent ? Your second question about plants in pots to flower in 
beds in the spring, and to take up at bedding-time, is simply answered by 
saying, practically, there are no such plants anywhere that we know of; 
but, theoretically, you can pot a thousand spring bulbs for the purpose; 
and every kind of Hyacinth, Tulip, Narcissus, and other families of bulbs 
that are now advertised, are just as good as any of the rest. You might 
shut your eyes, and choose out of a lot of kinds, and be as wise as any of 
us. Then there are many alpine plants which flower only in the spring, 
beginning with Ranunculus, a pure white, in March; and no one could 
tire of a bed of it five miles long at that season. It is followed by Ara- 
bis verna, of which we, hereabouts, could muster enough for an acre or 
two. Every house, garden, and cottage-garden is a “ shine ” with it for 
six weeks in March and April. After the middle of April the difficulty 
is to choose between autumn-sown annuals and yellow and variegated 
Alyssums, Doronicums, Veronicas, Primulas, and all the rest of them ; 
but not a pot-plant for a bed, or a really bedding-plant among them 
all, except the Doronicum Austriacum and the two Alyssums. Ane¬ 
mones will never pay for such purpose ; but they and all the above will 
move quite safe with balls the moment they are out of blossom. “ Pot¬ 
ting ” is not half so good as “chancing” them. Send your plan and 
planting, and we will criticise it. 
Boilers {Amateur). —We do not know what one of Weeks’ smallest- 
sized boilers would be in price : why not write to them? You will see 
something about their boiler in our paper to-day. A conical boiler of 
Rogers’, to suit you, would, we believe, be between 50s. and 60 s. Mr. 
Thompson’s common retort boiler is at Dalkeith. He has informed 
Mr. Fish that he is getting a smaller boiler constructed on the same 
retort principle (that is, the fire going all round, and then returning right 
through its centre), which would heat a couple of Vineries; and which 
he hopes the manufacturer will be able to send out with fire-bars, plate, 
furnace-doors, &c., complete for a little more than three guineas. We 
still want a strong, effective, simple boiler for less money than that, so as 
to be easily fixed by an amateur for his small greenhouse or preserving- 
pit, and it will come ere long. We have already said as much about 
boilers as we can well do in fairness to competing tradesmen, all of 
whom, we have no doubt, can make their own boilers work well, and each 
believes his own system to be the best. 
Heating a Pine-pit ( A Two-years’ Subscriber). —We approve of 
the whole plan, only we should like the two front pipes to be flow-pipes, 
and to bring one return from them at or in the passage behind. If from 
the pathway beneath the bottom of the bed you had several open drains 
across the house, and a shaft from these opening beneath the front pipes, 
you would have a better circulation of air in the house. Iron or other 
troughs should be fastened on the front pipes to give off vapour. With 
these little matters, and attention, success is certain. 
¥ i§nf?<e«ieLi 
POULTRY SHOWS. 
Birmingham. December 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Sec., J. Morgan, 
jun., Esq. Entries close November 1st. 
Crystal Palace. January 10th, 12th, 13th, and 14th. Grand Ex¬ 
hibition of Poultry, Pigeons, and Rabbits. Secretary to the Poultry 
Exhibition, William Houghton, Esq., The Sands, Runfold, near 
Farnham, Surrey. Entries close December 13th. 
Essex. At Colchester, December 31st, 1856, and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of 
January, 1857 . Secs., G. E. Attwood and W. A. Warwick. Entries 
close December 17th. 
Gloucestershire. Nov. 26th and 27th. Sec., E. Trinder, Esq., 
Cirencester. Entries close Nov. 1st. 
Nottinghamshire. At Southwell, December 17th and 18th, 1856. 
Sec., Richard Hawksley, jun. Entries close November 19th. 
Nottingham Central Poultry Association. January 13, 14, and 
15. Hon. Sec. Frank Bottom. Secretary to the Canary Department, 
Jno. Hetherington, jun., Sneinton. 
Preston and North Lancashire. January 21st and 22nd, 1857- 
Sec., Ralph Leigh, Esq., 125, Church Street, Preston. Entries close 
December 13th. 
N.B.— Secretariesvnll oblige us by sending early copies of their lists. 
JUDGES OF POULTRY. 
“ Ignorance in a Judge renders justice a mere accident.” 
As all poultry amateurs will unanimously admit, that to 
have the premiums honestly, faithfully, and efficiently 
awarded, is vitally important both to the present, as it is, 
likewise, to the prospective interests of our public Exhibi¬ 
tions, we need not, certainly, offer any apology for at intervals 
calling the attention of managing committees to this all- 
important, although evidently ill-considered subject. It 
certainly appears, from a cursory glance at some of the 
appointments that from time to time take place, that both 
the fitness of the individual to fulfil the office, and its 
satisfactory conclusion, are alike totally disregarded. No 
previous inquiry is instituted as to the capabilities of the 
arbitrator, or his inability would be patent to every one; 
but as a Judge is admittedly a compulsory appendage to a 
Poultry Show, some one is taken bap-hazard, and “ chance- 
work ” gives to every exhibitor—good, bad, or indifferent— 
the like probabilities of success. 
Our statement, of course, is not of universal applicability; 
for, were it so, the very existence of such Exhibitions 
would be involved in speedy and equally irrevocable ruin. 
Still, as the indifference displayed seems to be rather 
on the increase than otherwise, the following “illustration” 
placed in the hands of our interested readers will, most 
probably, prove sufficiently explanatory. It is the effusion 
of a would-be—and, as will be seen, an about-to-be —official, 
whose duties impose the affixing of the Society’s premiums 
at sight to the best specimens that may be competing. 
We will simply state it was addressed to one of our most 
experienced and generally approved poultry Judges, and 
received from his hands, by the same day’s post, a very 
courteous and fully explanatory reply, detailing the parti¬ 
culars sought for. We print it without any alteration or 
correction:— 
“ Sir,—I am about to officiate at a poultry exhibition 
whare the Sebright Bantams is to be showen, but with all 
the points of this class I am not not so well acquauted as I 
could wish to be and being desiours that the cause be not 
injured by me I have daired to approach and solicit you to 
answer the following questons 
first 
suposing the birds to equal in lacing brilliancy coulor and 
make but the one single and the other rose combed which 
of the two ought to be declaird the best 
second 
suposing the birds as above the one having the fan tail and 
the other having soward feathers fully or partially developed 
which of the two ought to be declaird the best 
third 
suposing the birds to be equal in all other points but one of 
them well laced, but not verry pure in coulor the other pure 
in comb but not so well laced which of the two ought to be 
declaird the best 
fourth 
suposing one of the birds having all the points good but 
large in size, the other small but not so good as the other, 
which of the two ought to be declaird the best ought the 
ground coulor of the golden, to be yellow or a deep red 
brown or brownish yellow coulor 
Sir by answering the above questions you will greatly 
oblige you obedient 
Humble servant 
The above is by no means a solitary exception; frequently 
has the knowledge of similar incompetency reached our 
Not very long since, a long-practised arbitrator, 
ears. 
at the very moment their united duties were commencing, 
was paralyzed by the tremulous query from his colleague, 
“ Mr. -, which are the Grey Dorkings, for I know 
nothing about them ? ” concluding the unlooked-for appeal 
