154 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY 
few fowls we had plenty of eggs and chickens; now the 
place is overrun with them, and I cannot get one or the 
other." 
“ My dear,” said I, mildly, and with my most honeyed 
voice, “ see the prizes I win with them. Look at your side¬ 
board.” 
“ There may he something in that,” replied my wife; “ hut 
half the eggs you refuse me will never hatch, and half the 
chickens will come to nothing. Recollect what I showed 
you in The Cottage Gardener last year." 
“ I am sure I do not recollect,” said I. 
“ Listen,’’ said my wife. “ ‘ Now is the time when the 
future winners should be chosen, and every doubtful bird 
mercilessly disposed of. They will now furnish a delightful 
meal in exchange for their food; but, if they are kept till 
unfit for the table, they will not only have cost more, but 
they will be worth nothing.’ ” 
“ Very true, my dear,” said I. “ You may have a dozen 
eggs, and I will this year supply you plenteously with 
chickens.” 
“ I hope you will," was the reply; but I fancied the tone 
said “ I know you won’t ” as plainly as possible. 
April, 1850. “ My dear,” said Mrs. Briggs, with the most 
heart-broken face imaginable, “ I am sure I cheerfully give 
up anything to your pleasure, and do all in my power to con¬ 
tribute to it; but here is my lawn in front of the drawing¬ 
room window's tenanted by three hens w'ith chickens, and 
lodged in rickety, shabby, old coops. It is too bad.” 
“ It is only for a day or two,” said I. I thought she 
would get reconciled to them. 
June, 1856. “ What am I to do for the children?” asked 
my wife. “ The weather is so hot, the meat is so hard, the 
children are tired of it. They must have a change of diet, 
for they eat nothing, and I am sure the younger ones fall off 
daily.” 
I saw the blow, and tried to parry it. 
“ Get them some fish,” said I. 
“ No,” replied my wfife; “ let them have some poultry. Tell 
your man to kill half a dozen chickens." 
Did I hear aright ? Kill half a dozen chickens ! Speak 
of my pedigree-fowls as though they were mere articles of 
food ! All my painstaking to end in growing an extra fowl 
or two! I was confounded; but, recovering myself, I said, 
“ I will get you some chickens." 
“But surely,” said my good partner, “you will not buy 
when you have so many running about ? ” 
For once I assumed the dignity of the “head,” and said 
something about the superiority of our judgment. 
October, 1856. Have too many fowls decidedly—must 
get rid of some—killed half a dozen cocks—they were hard, 
being too old. My wife remarked how much better it 
would have been to have killed them when they were young. 
I explained it was necessary they should attain a certain age 
before I could make a selection. 
“ And what does your selection end in ?” said she. 
“ This,” was my answer, holding up a handsome and large 
Silver Goblet. 
She laughed, but said, “I do hope you will sell some of 
them. They overrun the garden, they eat the vegetables, 
and they make such a crowing in the morning.” 
I could not help seeing there was much truth in what my 
dear one said, and I resolved to be wiser for the future. 
I was fortunate in knowing one of our best poultry Judges, 
and I invited him down to go over my stock with me. What 
a wretch lie appeared to me ! What a barbarian! I had 
made a little scheme of my own; I would show him first 
some very good birds, and then lead him on from surprise 
to surprise till he saw my best, which I thought would over¬ 
whelm him with admiration and astonishment. My illusion 
was destroyed at the first pen. Instead of approval, he said, 
“ There is only one hen worth keeping in this lot. The 
others should have been killed or sold long since.” 
How thankful I was my wife was not there to hear him ! 
I had put up seven pens, all, as I thought, increasing in merit 
one above the other. My friend, after shifting and changing 
almost every bird, made up two pens out of the seven. 
“ These,” said he, “ have a good prospect of success. All 
the others should be sold or killed.” 
No man likes to have his dreams dissipated at once, and 
I was no exception. I therefore fought for it. 
GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, December 2, 18 
S6. 
“ But,” said I, “ had you been in my place you wo n ifi have 
kept them till now.” 
“ No,” said he, “ certainly not. More than half the poultry 
amateurs destroy the pleasure of the pursuit, and often give 
it up, by their own obstinacy. In every hobby it is absolutely 
necessary to be merciless, and, above all, to act with decision j 
when it is necessary to lessen numbers; more especially is it 
so in poultry. Three parts of the birds I see here ought to have 
supplied your table, or some one else’s, three months since. 
They would then have paid for the food consumed, you 
would have saved what they have eaten since, your runs 
would have been fresher, and your really good birds would 
have done better. Poultry may be made a profitable pursuit 
if people will be advised, but not if they follow their own 
crotchets. Amateurs should take a lesson from the ‘ Dig¬ 
gings,’ i.c., hail a nugget as a God send, but, in the mean 
time, be content with the dust to be found by careful and 1 
sometimes tedious washing.” 
I think I stand well for Birmingham. I have greatly ! 
thinned my stock. My wife offers me her garden during the 
winter, and, although we shall be ten (d.v.) at table on 
Christmas-day, we hope the approaching Birmingham Show 
will supply, with those we have, a Silver Cup for each. 
• I shall write again. 
POLISH FOWLS AND THEIR TRADUCERS. 
In troth, is it high time that some friend of the Polish 
race of fowls stood up for their just claims. I complain 
against such men as the Liverpool and Doncaster schedule- 
makers ; and still more do I anathematise those drawing¬ 
room writers on Polish fowls—men who really have no 
practical knowledge of what they write. 
Sitting over a warm fire, at a table covered with green ! 
baize, they either copy the inaccuracies of former writers, I 
or deal out namby-pamby sentimentalism of their own. 
Such men affect to tell you that Polish fowls, though pos- i 
sessing high claims on the score of beauty, are yet only 
fitted to be the occupants of an aviary! pets, pretty pets, 
and nothing more! their topknots wholly incapacitating 
them for the farm-yard. 
Now, though I doubt if amateurs of Spanish and Dorkings I 
really keep their crack birds in farm-yards, yet I will take ! 
our fine author at his word, and show, and that from ex¬ 
perience of three years, that of all the sorts of fowls to be j 
found in a farm-yard, none, I repeat, none are half so wild 
and absolutely inapproachable as are Polish fowds. For 
three years have I had them kept in a farm-yard in the 
country with other fowls ; but the catching of them, in the 
daytime, at least, was ever a matter of the greatest difficulty. 
Wild and suspicious, off they scampered on the slightest 
approach. “Could these really be the birds,” thought I, 
“ that but a few months before actually eat tit-bits out of my 
hand daily when kept at home ? ” Even so it was. 
“ But, Sam,” says one of your readers, “ why should these 
Polish of yours be wilder than other fowls in the farm-yard? 
Are you not proving too much ? Come, your reason.” I can 
only account for it thus : I consider that their large topknots, ■ 
which inexperienced writers thought would incapacitate them 
altogether, are really the cause of their great shyness. The 
birds, aware of the “ umbrageous canopy ’’ of topknots im¬ 
peding their sight laterally, are ever on the alert, and sus¬ 
picious ; they are constantly “ at gaze,” as the heralds say; 
and, of a verity, no fowl is quicker-sighted before; certain 
it is, they are wild as deer. They, indeed, be run over by 
carts and wheelbarrows ! they be trodden under foot by 
cows and horses ! Oh ! this green baize, parlour scribbling 
on poultry matters ! ! 
Your shrifty, pinching schedule-makers jump at such 
excuse for saving a dirty penny! “ Pare ’em down, pare ’em 
do wn—save a penny where we can; for see, Polish are but 
aviary birds, and- not fit for a farm-yard ! ” 
I affirm, on experience, that no fowls are better layers; 
none are more, if so beautiful; none can better take care of 
themselves ; and none are such delicious eating. May I 
not add, that few are rising more surely into general favour ? 
A very few years ago but about twenty or thirty pens were ; 
mustered at Birmingham, while now the number is well 5 
nigh 100 ; and certainly in no classes is the competition so 
