THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, January 20, 1857. 260 
one does not like to name; but you know what I mean. 
The two liens in this pen were otherwise beautifully 
matched, light buff, and very large birds; but, like 
most of the liens there, and like my own hens, their necks, 
just behind the ear, were too thick for my ideal beauty 
of symmetry. The cock in the second prize pen was the 
best there for symmetry, and the colom' was perfect, and 
the only cock there of that breed that was really perfect. 
What I call perfect colour is to have all the feathers on 
the back of exactly the same tint. Most of them had 
three shades of colour on the back, and some only two 
shades, that on tho wings being the darkest; but 1 am 
so certain as to the value of colour that I shall never 
be a judge on florists’ flowers or on poultry till they 
make colour the first point of importance. In flowers 
substance should bo tho next point, and before symmetry ; 
but in fowls I would agree to let symmetry have the 
same value as colour; but, to show you how people 
differ on these things, I must mention one pen of Cochins, 
a cock and two hens, from a nobleman, who put T1000 
valuation on them, and yet the three birds between 
them had not one single point of symmetry or colour 
to recommend them to a stranger; but they might bo 
transition birds, that is* got from extraordinarily fine 
parents, and that the qualities of these parents were ex¬ 
pected to shine forth in a higher degree in the second 
or third generation, and that the breeder might fear, if 
he lost this first generation, he should never be able to 
transmit the prized object through any other brood ; 
and that is the only way in which I could account for 
<£1000 being asked for three birds worth only about 30s. 
between them. I have some seedling Geraniums which 
you might not think worth the pots they are growing in, 
but ^61000 might not replace them in my lifetime if I 
were to lose them ; and without them I could never 
accomplish a certain object which I am aiming at. 
Hence their value in my eyes, and hence, too, the value 
of those birds which we may think to be merely 
nominal. 
I now turn to a subject on which “ my word is as 
good as my bond.” They have knocked two tmauels 
through two hills on the way to and from the Crystal 
Palace across Clapham Common, where the “ west 
end line” is to join it. Visitors to the Crystal Palace 
coming by the South Western Railway may now stop 
at “ Clapham and Wandsworth ” Station, cross the 
Common, and take the new line through the tunnels 
right into the Crystal Palace, and be landed on the same 
platform as tho Londoners from the London Bridge 
Station. That is the way we went, which brought us 
first to the bottom of the grand colonnade. The index, 
or best index plant among soft-wooded plants, to tell how 
the 17° of frost affected the plants in this colonnade 
last month is the “Cherry-pie plant;” the Heliotrope 
and Acacia lopliantlia are as good trees as any others 
of the real woody plants for the same purpose. If 
these two are safe from the frost, all the rest which I 
named long ago must be more than safe; they must be 
comfortable, and so they all are. Some of the Helio¬ 
tropes are in bloom-bud ; and the Acacia lopliantlia is 
growing, as one may see by the young leaves on the top 
of the shoots. Three or four of the large climbers have 
suffered a little, however, from autumn drought at the 
roots, which a man in a green old age might think was 
caused by the frost, when the real cause was good 
management to check late growth in the autumn. All 
half-hardy climbers, and all Grape Vines which are to 
be forced before the middle of the following March, 
should not receive water at the roots from the middle of 
September except by hand, if it could be so managed; 
and when you have to deal with an extensive border 
like that in this colonnade, it is better that some of the 
plants which have their roots near the surface should 
be allowed to flag a little for want of water than that 
the great bulk of the plants should not be set perfectly 
to rest in the autumn, be they Vines, or climbers, or 
scarlet Geraniums on Harry Moore’s method. For the 
latter I prefer such a degree of dryness in October as 
will kill every one of the very small outside-of-the-wall 
roots ; and in the spring the old roots would then produce 
fine sucking new roots for one old and useless root at 
the end of the season. 
The Cob teas and Maurandyas are as green as if it were 
summer; the Lopliospernmms just ready to be pruned; 
several plants of Jasminvm nudiflorum are in full bloom; 
the Daturas look as if they ought to bloom very early, 
and before they are pruned for the season; the Tro- 
pieolum Triomphe de Gaud, after running about all last 
season, is now in bloom-bud at every joint, and will be 
splendid in the spring; Acacia grandis makes a good 
wall or pillar plant in a conservatory. Here it is ten 
feet high already, and the young wood is loaded with 
bloom-buds. Acacia ajfinis, or Green Wattle Mimosa, 
is a splendid “ climber,” and may be used as such, or as 
they have it at the Stud House, Hampton Court, and 
be pruned every year in April, or early in May, as close 
as a White Currant bush, which is the right time to 
prune and the right way of pruning every one of the 
Acacias. Here it is nineteen feet high now, and is as 
much like a “ herring bone ” as any plant can be, the 
middle stem rising as straight as an arrow, and 
the side branches alternately are as regular as if 
they were set by the compass, those of them up 
about the middle height being the longest; thence 
they diminish both ways, the longest being about two 
feet or so, and twenty-two of them on each side. Com¬ 
pare this with any three-year-old plant of it in your 
part of the country. I once had a seedling of it 
eighteen feet high at the end of so many months. 
Plumbago Capensis is pinched by drought close by the 
side of a Heliotrope, which is as green as a Leek. 
Fuchsia Actceon, of which there are many, has cast all 
its leaves, and is in leaf-bud ready to open now, while 
F. Dominiana and Don Giovani have the old leaves 
as fresh as ever. Stauntonia latifolia does not look 
half so well here as it did in the open quarters of Mr. 
Jackson’s Nursery on Surbiton Hill. To have this 
splendid broad-leaved climber look well in-doors the air 
need be loaded with moisture; but we shall see how 
Mr. Veitcli will do it in his front vestibule. Camellia 
tricolor is very nearly open, and all of them are loaded 
with flower-buds. While Camellias are young, and 
planted out in a bed or a border like this, they want as 
much water as the Lapageria all the time they are 
making their annual growth : all the finer kinds of 
Rhododendrons the same. The best school for this 
kind of watering that I know of is Bank Grove, near 
Kingston, the seat of W. Byarn Martin, Esq., who 
learnt that system from Nature herself on the farthest 
ranges of Nepaul and Bhootan. Veronica Andersonii 
was in bloom. Dolichos lignosus is the most flourishing 
plant in the colonnade. Cantua dependens was cut down 
half way some time in the autumn, and the young wood 
is now a few inches long; but there was something the 
matter with it, else they would not have cut it down 
then, for it will never flower well if it is pruned in tho 
autumn or winter. Directly after flowering in May or 
June is the time to prune it; then to prune it as close 
as the White Currant; after that to water it so as to 
get a rapid growth till the end of August; then to keep 
it on short commons the whole winter, and up to the 
time of showing flower-buds. There is a row of low 
hybrid Rhododendrons just planted along the whole 
length of the border for the climbers. These were 
removed from different parts of the garden with good 
balls, the balls were thoroughly watered, and the holes 
under them ; but the holes were not “ filled in” till all 
I the superfluous water had time to drain off. These 
