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THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY 
hut that equalising heat will render your propagating hed in a Peach- 
house not very warm, and we can hardly join with you in calling such 
drains polmaising, as to make that complete there should he an outlet 
from the chamber, instead of confining the heat there for a definite 
purpose. You will do no harm to Peach-trees or Vineries by keeping 
bedding-plants and other plants in them whilst they are in a state of 
rest, provided these plants are clean. We have houses crammed full at 
the present time. If the temperature is not raised above 40° at night 
artificially, and there is plenty of air during the day, there is no danger 
of starting Peaches prematurely, and you may have 5° more for Vines, 
as they seldom begin to swell their buds until the thermometer nearly 
averages 50°. 
Heating by a Hot-water Tank (W. L. D.). —We have no doubt 
you will succeed admirably, and you act wisely in having your flue be¬ 
neath the pathway; you thus lose no heat. See what Mr. Fish said lately 
of Cucumbers and their diseases. See, also, as to Pipes versus Tanks, 
page 112, and consult the plan of the tank-house there referred to in 
No. 52, for 1849. Your tanks will be quite deep enough. Use the best 
cement, that which brickmakers use for making brick walls look like stone 
ones. Slate will be a better covering than wood. Have openings to let 
out the vapour when desirable, or have communications from the slate to 
the atmosphere, so as to steam without puddling the roots ; a small 
saddle-backed hoiler—a Rogers’s conical boiler will do; but were we 
putting up such a place we should prefer Thompson’s simple retort; the 
smallest would suit your purpose, costing about ^3 we suppose. By 
having openings to the tank there will be no necessity for any steam 
from your flue. We certainly should prefer a tank for our Cucum¬ 
bers, even for the sake of giving a sweet vapour, when desirable, so 
easily; but with this exception we would just as soon have pipes below 
the beds as tanks. Bricks now cost less than they used to do, but we 
rather think 100 feet of three-inch pipe would be cheapest ; but have the 
tanks if you like them best, and we are confident you will have shoals of 
Cucumbers. The tank will also be the best for propagating. 
Cucumber-house Heated by Tanks (IF. IF.).—See answer to 
IF. L. D., and the references given. His is a span-house, with tank all 
round except at one end, where there is the doorway to the path down the 
centre, that path being above the flue that comes from the furnace that 
heats the boiler. Your house seems more like a pit than a house, twenty- 
four feet long and eight feet wide; for if you have a tank three feet wide 
in front, and one two feet wide behind, and a pit in the centre, two feet 
wide and threi feet deep, for fermenting matter, we can see no space left 
for pathway, or for getting along at all. We do not see any use for a 
great fire in your manure-pit in the centre, as manure-water will give all 
the ammonia you want; and were we to studv economics we should say 
one tank three feet wide would be quite sufficient for Cucumbers in an 
cight-feet-wide house, and the two pipes would be ample for top-heat. 
A tank all round, and a path in the middle instead of the manure-bed, 
would make the place the very thing for propagating purposes, and in 
that case, if you had means for the heat rising from the slate, you would 
need no pipes at all in such a narrow house. To your other questions 
we must be brief, just because we are not able to give you such definite 
information. See what has been said to W. L. D. about boilers. A 
small tubular, a conical, or a retort boiler would suit you. You can only 
get a certain quantity of heat out of a given quantity of fuel. If you 
want a fire to remain long without attention you must have your furnace 
large enough, and be able to regulate draught and dampers to a nicety. 
We have seldom seen boilers crack until they are worn out. There is 
little difference in this respect as regards mere form. We prefer cast 
iron to wrought iron, or even to copper. We should only be deceiving 
you if we were to tell you how much fuel you ought to burn in a week, 
for we have never had such a pit and covered with wooden shutters 
under our care, and several times when we kept an account we found 
that no two nights or two weeks were exactly alike. We have found 
a breezy night at 45° require more fuel than a still night at 32°. You 
should get the bricklayer that makes the tank to choose your cement. Of 
course the joints of the pipes must be secure. We cannot tell you what 
such slate would cost in your neighbourhood. We have no doubt you 
will succeed. 
POULTRY SHOWS. 
Crewe. February 3rd and 4tli, 185". Secs. S. Sheppard and D. 
Margelts, Esqs, Entries close January 15th. 
Crystal Palace. January 10th, 12th, 13th, and 14th. Grand Ex¬ 
hibition of Poultry, Pigeons, and Rabbits. Secretary to the Poultry 
Exhibition, William Houghton, Esq., Crystal Palace. Entries 
close December 13th. 
Kendal. At Kendal, February 6th and 7th, 1857. Sec. Mr. T. 
Atkinson. 
Liverpool. January 28th, 29 th, and 30th, 1857. Secs. Gilbert W. 
Moss, Esq., and William C. Worrall, Esq., 6, Lower Castle-street. 
Entries close on the 10th of January. 
Nottingham Central Poultry Association. January 13, 14, and 
15. Hun. Sec. Frank Bottom. Secretary to the Canary Department, 
Jno. Hetherington, jun., Sneinton. 
Preston and North Lancashire. January 21st and 22 nd, 1857- 
Sec., Ralph Leigh, Esq., 125, Church Street, Preston. Entries close 
December 13th. 
South East Hants. At Fareham, January 26th and 27th, 1857. Sec. 
Mr. James James. Entries close January 14th. 
N.B.— Secretariesvnllobtige us by sending early copies of their lists. 
WHAT DOES IT MEAN? 
Ay, truly, what does it mean ? Call not this tautolo¬ 
gical, for you yourselves, my dear readers, will ten times 
GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION, January 6, 1857. 
repeat the question in utter consternation when I briefly 
state the facts. 
The Liverpool Committee have given a Silver Cup for the 
best cock of every class of fowls—to 
“ Mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, 
And cur of low degree.” 
Yea, to both Pencilled and Spangled Hamburghs; yet 
Polish cocks, though there are three varieties of Polish 
shown, are wholly unnoticed! Again, in all the other 
classes, there are prizes for aged and for young birds, but 
in the Polish classes all are lumped together, or rather, 
the chickens are wholly excluded, for no Polish chickens can 
compete with aged birds; and, again, no second prize is 
given to Sebright Bantams. 
Now, honestly, my gentle readers, have you not already 
five times cast your eyes up to the ceiling of your room, 
and exclaimed, “ Well, but what does it mean ? ” But hold, 
restrain your feelings, moderate your wrath-flame, and give 
not utterance to those indignant words already on your lips. 
Call it not beggarly thrift, mean, shabby, niggardly; hut you 
may call it, must call it, injustice, frantic injustice ! 
“ But, Sam,” say you, “ is it not worse still ? Would two 
Cups have been given to Hamburghs, since the poor fellows 
can’t afford one to Polish, if some motive had not been at 
the bottom of it—self-interest for instance—for many of 
the Committee keep crack Hamburghs?” No, no, my 
friends, the committee is guilty of shameful injustice, gross 
unfairness, hut say not, I beseech you, of self-interest, 
though, well-a-day! Burns probed human nature to the 
quick when he wrote— 
“ But eh ! mankind are unco’ weak, 
And little to be trusted ; 
If self the wavering balance shake 
It’s rarely right adjusted.” 
And who knows, after all, hut that, had there been any 
Polish fanciers on the Liverpool Committee, the balance 
would have been differently adjusted? But ’tis a festive 
season, my dear readers, so I’ll tell you an allegory, and 
“ let the gall’d jade wince.” 
At the nativity of a certain dozen of individuals, Pate 
gave a frolicsome nod to Nature. ’Twas enough, and the 
good Dame Nature, in sportive mood, gave them strange 
heterogeneous endowments. To some she gave parsimony, 
to others ignorance, to others self-interest, to others blind¬ 
ness to general interest, to others self-will, to others self- 
sufficiency, and to all she gave injustice. Fate gave another 
nod of satisfaction, and, in course of years, she fulfilled the 
destiny of these men, and put them on a Poultry Show 
Committee, thau there they might— 
“ Dress’d in a little brief authority, 
Play such fantastic and unjust tricks 
As should make exhibitors weep.” 
Ay, and make Mr. Samuel Slick show up their injustice 
in his own delicious, peppery manner.— Sam. Slick. 
P.S.—As to punishment, let all Polish and Sebright 
Bantam fanciers determine not to send any of their birds to 
the Liverpool Show. Let the Show, I say, lack the attraction 
of these birds, and how will the accouut stand with dis¬ 
appointed visitors ? It was a saying of Napoleon, that he 
could do better without Erauce than France could do with¬ 
out him; so may Polish fanciers say of the Liverpool Show. 
HAMBURGH FOWLS. 
In your number of Dec. 23rd, your Oxford correspondent 
seems astonished at my asserting the non-productiveness of 
Hamburghs, and he will be, doubtless, further astounded at 
my confession of being utterly ignorant of the qualities of 
the birds in question, although your pages have published 
many articles of mine, signed “ W. H.” The plain truth is, 
until lately an impression had taken possession of me that 
their habits were so restless and uncontrollable as not to 
permit me a chance of letting them range beyond a pen and 
netted yard. My usual plan has been to have the eggs set 
for me to hatch in my own yard, and then, after killing all 
the suspicious birds, and parting with others, to return to 
the farm those especially selected for myself, and, as occasion 
required, to take them up for no longer than circumstances 
needed. In this manner my stock has been, if not ex- 
