THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, April 10, 1860. 
31 
POULTRY AND BEE-KEEPER’S CHRONICLE. 
POULTRY SHOWS. 
May 23d and 24th. Beverley and East Riding op Yorkshire. Sec., 
Mr. Fras. Calvert, Surgeon, &c. Entries close May 17th. 
June 6th, 7th, and 8th. Bath and West op England. 4t Dorchester. 
See., J. KingBbury, Esq., Hummet Street, Taunton. 
July 18th and 19th. Merthyr Tydvil. Sec., Mr. \V. H. Harris, 142, 
High Street, Merthyr. 
N.B .—Secretaries will oblige ns by sending early copies of their lists. 
EXHIBITING POULTRY PROFITABLY. 
Many people imagine success in exhibiting poultry can only 
be accomplished at great expense. This is wrong. The essentials, 
after possession of the birds, are knowledge and painstaking. If 
the exhibitor is determined to possess a prize pen, and to breed 
from it, he must buy it, and it will cost him dear. He must be 
prepared to find that even the first-prize birds do not breed all 
first-prize chickens, and that, however good the blood, neglect 
will neutralise it all. But even if the produce bo all good, 
some will be better than the others, and it is here knowledge 
is required. There is no royal road to it, and the exhibitor must 
be content to learn by degrees. Having bought a pen of un¬ 
questionable merit, and that has passed the ordeal of all the com¬ 
petent judges, he should set to work to study all the points of 
excellence till they are familiar to him. Nothing but practice, 
close observation, and, if we may use the word, study, will make 
a judge. 
We have heard of a surgeon who was a good companion, and 
liked port. He was no drunkard, but he took just that quantity 
which he defined to be excess in a patient, and his temper changed 
with eacli dose; he became low-spirited after the second bottle, 
and told with grief of the fatal mistakes he made in early prac¬ 
tice. “Ah!” he would say, “ that over-dose of calomel, poor 
young fellow! The mistake I made in bleeding that woman ! 
The profession has much to answer for;” and so on. Just so, 
we have heard from some of our best judges that it was years 
before they attained to the confidence they should possess, and 
they can recollect the mistakes they made in the early da}'s of 
judging, the faults of claws and combs that were passed over, &c. 
Now, if these gentlemen studied for years to attain the know¬ 
ledge they now exercise, then exhibitors cannot expect to attain 
it at less cost or trouble, or in less time. There is close con¬ 
nection between the knowledge that awards the first prize, and 
that which selects the pen that gains it. This knowledge is 
not enough unless there is painstaking as well, and the two 
combined will lead to as much certainty as can be in such things. 
We are dealing with profitable poultry, and therefore we tell 
those who wish to make it so by means of exhibition that all the 
pains they can take^are not too much for success. 
Money may then be made by taking prizes, by selling prize 
birds, and birds exhibited. 
The poultry market remains. This will after all be the prin¬ 
cipal source of profit; but it is useless to those who look for 
large and speedy emoluments. It is necessary to look at the 
progress of the poultry question, and we believe it is a history of 
tlie world. Many years ago fowls sold at a small price, and had 
no other vocation than to appear on table. It was of no avail 
that people a hundred miles from London heard that chickens 
were wondei-fully dear in the metropolis. They had them, but 
there was no conveyance ; the ccach was too expensive, and too 
slow. There was, besides, the uncertainty whether the coach¬ 
man could take them. The chickens were served at dinner, and 
while remarks were made on their juicy, white meat, and the 
general delicacy of their flavour, there was regret at the small 
quantity of it; and the thrifty, it maybe, anxious parents re¬ 
gretted they were not sold, and the money invested in some¬ 
thing more substantial. Among the reforms introduced by 
railways none are greater than the opening of the London 
markets to all who live on the line of rail. Those who are a 
huudred miles distant enter freely into competition with those 
who are close to London. Those who breed for exhibition will 
breed early, and many of the early chickens will have to be 
killed, not for any fault that lessens their value on the table, but 
for such as render them unfit for exhibition. Remuneration, or 
even self-support in poultry, must, like other things, be made up 
of many parts, and this is one :— A chicken aged fourteen weeks 
in April will have cost lv. 9d. at the outside;--it will realise 
3s. 6 d .—a good profit. A dozen will pay a guinea, and that 
will buy some bushels of food. But it is with poultry as with 
everything else, there is something to learn, and it takes time. 
We have often in our columns pointed out the method of 
feeding and killing fowls for the table. To insure the best price 
they must be sent in the best condition, and a deviation from this 
is a loss in money. We believe money may be made by feeding 
for the table, and our next paper will treat of it. 
FATTENING POULTRY. 
The writer, who has a large range for her poultry, which are 
exceedingly well fed, has been in the habit of having them killed, 
without having them previously put into a coop. They have not 
turned out very satisfactorily. She would be glad to know if the 
Editor of The Cottage Gardener would advise their being put 
up for a short time before they are killed, and what kind of 
food he would recommend her to adopt for her poultry at this 
time of the year. What sized eggs do large Cochin-China hens 
lay ?—A Subscriber. 
[For instructions in fattening poultry we advise you to buy 
Mr. Baily’s book on the subject. We can, however, answer 
your present question. However good your feeding may be, yet 
while your fowls are at liberty, the food all turns to hard muscle 
and growth, instead of to fat and soft flesh. Exercise is very 
good for health, but it is not a fattening process. Shut up the 
fowls you wish to fatten in a small coop, allowing them just 
room to stand and change their position, but no more. Place 
the coop in a quiet and rather dark place. Let there be a board 
in the front on which food may be placed, and let them be fed 
three times per day with ground oats slaked with milk to such 
consistence that when placed on the board it will not run off. 
Allowing this to be the test it should be liquid as possible. Let 
them have three times per day as much as they can eat, and 
when not feeding let them be covered with mats or sacking. If 
they are doing well they will heat and steam, and the heat should 
be perceptible to the hand when it is put in. This should fatten 
them in ten days. All Cochin-Chinas lay small eggs compared 
to their size.} 
GAPES IN CHICKENS. 
We have an old poultry-yard and spacious brick poultry- 
house well ventilated and whitewashed, but the young chickens 
constantly have the gapes, and die in great numbers, and now we 
have lost two sitting hens with them. Can any of your sub¬ 
scribers advise us how to get rid of this pest among poultry ?— 
C. R. 
[We cannot understand hens dying of the gapes. The malady 
is confined to chickens only, and the hens must have died of 
something else. We dread an old poultry-house. The architects 
werenot always learned in poultry requirements:—flag stones were 
laid down and carefully cemented to keep out rats ; brick floors 
to render sweeping easy, and the flooring durable ; while others 
had boards laid down that cleanliness might be observed. All 
these things are fatal to poultry in the highest possible degree* 
but they do not cause gapes. It has always been thought, and 
we think, they arise from impure water, and very often that 
which is called the poultry-yard possesses a pond, not supplied 
by a stream and constantly overflowing, but filled up by a flow¬ 
ing in of every description of liquid. We believe this will give 
gapes. The following is said to be a cure:—Dissolve 2 ozs. of 
sulphate of iron in sixty drops of sulphuric acid. After it has 
stood twenty-four hours mix it with two gallons of water. Let 
it stand two days, and then administer it by putting a tea spoon¬ 
ful to a pint of water. We have-used this with benefit, but if 
the chickens are supplied with fresh spring not rain water, and 
are kept in the fresh air, we do not think you will have to com¬ 
plain of gapes.] 
BEET ROOT AS POULTRY FOOD. 
I see in the number of your valuable paper for March 20th, a 
notice from a correspondent respecting the use of Mangold 
Wurtzel root as a food for poultry. I have used the root of the 
garden Beet (Red) for this purpose for several years ; sometimes 
in the raw state, a root being thrown down in the poultry-yard; 
but generally in the cooked state mixed with the scraps from 
meals of meat, potato, bread, &c., and in this case the Beet is 
