46 T1IE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Ami, 17, 1890. 
the beginning of winter, like Camellias and Azaleas so treated, and it is 
quite hardy. Botnnically, it is one-half an Azalea, and will breed freely 
with the beat of them. The young leaves are us much ciliated on the edges 
as eyelids, and the beautiful fringe is deciduous. It falls off aged leaves. 
AVe have constantly kept Rhododendron ciliatum before our readers from 
its first appearance seven or eight years hack. 
Chrysanthemums (IF. II. 13 .).—Your Chrysanthemums are all Tom- 
pones, and only third-rate kinds, except 1, 3, and C, which are first-rate. 
But flower them all before you discard any of them, as your own taste may 
differ widely from public opinion. Here are the right names and colours : — 
1. President Morel, Indian red, or red cinnamon. 2. Mr. Astie, a good 
yellow Anemone. 3. General Canrobert, one of the best yellows. 4. Ariel, 
a fair blush lilac flower. 5. Robert le Diablo, a bull’s-eye and salmon 
colour. 6. Mrs. Tould, “that lovely Mrs. Fould,” creamy-white. 7./foe 
Feillc, a violet rosy liliputian. 8. Reine ties Anemones, white, and pretty 
good. 9. Roquelaure, a red bull’s eye. 12. Antoinette, a white bull’s-eye. 
Sowing Gen'tianella [C. B. Johnson ).— The seeds of this ( Gentiana 
acnulis), should be sown in pots or pans as soon as they are ripe, but they 
will not vegetate till tile following spring. Plunge the seed-pots in a 
shaded place, and put a pot one size larger upside down over each of them, 
to savo them from splashing rain. When the seedlings are large enough 
to handle plant them out six inches apart, and in two years they will begin 
to bloom. Old seeds will lie dormant two or three years, and then come 
up very irregularly. We only recommend this plan to satisfy curiosity. 
Photography for the Many {Evesham). —It is published at our office. 
For seven postage stamps it can be sent to you free by post. 
Charcoal Filter (/I Subscriber). —AVe have made it as follows :—In a 
clean barrel set on end, with a tap in the side, we placed a layer three 
inches deep of flint stones ; above them a one-inch layer of pebbles ; then 
two inches of sand; then two inches of charcoal in small grains; then 
two inches of sand ; and lastly, three inches of flint stones. On no account 
paint the filter inside. 
Tiffany {R. (7.). — It is a very fine whitish cotton canvass, made at 
Manchester, admitting much light. 
Names of Plants (E. 13.). —Y'our two plants are—1. The IUicium Flori- 
damim, and 2. IUicium parvijlorum, two species of the Aniseed tree. 
(IF. A r .),—Your plant is the Acacia umbrosa, a native of New South Wales. 
The leaf of the Tydtea is infested with the thrips. (C. P.). —1. Y'ou call 
“ the podded piece” is too small for us to be able to recognise : it comes 
near to Alstrdmeria. 2. The “ flower ” is Saxifraga crass if olia. 3. “The 
leafy piece” appears to be Nepeta violacea, hut no one can be certain 
from such specimens. 
POULTRY AND EEE-KEEPER’S CHRONICLE. 
POULTRY SHOWS. 
May 23d and 24th. Beverley and East Biding of YonKsniRE. Sec., 
Mr. Fras. Calvert, Surgeon, &c. Entries close May 17th. 
June 6th, 7th, and 8th. Bath and AVkst of England. At Dorchester. 
See., J. Kingsbury, Esq., Hammet Street, Taunton. Entries close May 7. 
June 29th and 30tb, July 2nd and 3rd. Sheffield. Chairman, Mr. AVil- 
son Overend, Sheffield. Entries close June 14th. 
July 18th and 19th. Merthyr Tydvil. Sec., Mr. AV. H. Harris, 142, 
High Street, Merthyr. 
N.B.— Secretaries will oblige ns by sending early copies of their lists. 
SPRING MANAGEMENT OF CHICKENS. 
If we tvere asked whether the greatest number of human 
beings were killed by positive neglect, or by mistaken kindness, 
we should not know what to answer ; but we have no such diffi¬ 
culty with chickens. As usual, at this season of the year, we 
have numerous complaints about the deaths of chickens, and 
lamentations over disappointments. Every such letter recapitu¬ 
lates the advantages enjoyed by these chickens that will not or 
would not live. Poor little sufferers, how we pity them ! Some 
had a stable or harness-room heated with a stove, others were 
allowed to live in the hothouse or the grapery; one brood had a 
large box to live in, supplied with all nature can require, and 
covered at top with plate glass, that they might have light and 
sun without cold air; yet their owners are astonished they are 
delicate and do not grow, as one lady pathetically remarks, “ They 
do not die in the common acceptation of the word, there is no 
illness, no struggle, but they seem to perish of inanition ! ” We 
have seen many such, their heads were tucked under their wings, 
save when some excellent meal was placed before them, they 
would then drowsily wake up, and totter to their food. If such 
a chicken escaped from its prison, it seemed lost. It tried, 
perhaps, to scratch, but the poor little, white, slender toes, and 
the soft nails, refused to lend themselves to such rough work. 
Eor a moment it pursued a heedless fly, but soon gave up the 
chase in despair. It had left its artificially-heated home, and the 
chill air was too much for it. It was out but half an hour, and 
that killed it. If chickens are reared like hothouse plants, they 
must have the same treatment as they do throughout, and the 
sudden change from a heated to a cold temperature is as fatal to 
one as the other. In no instance is a tenderly-reared chicken as 
strong as one that has been taken care of only by assisting Nature. 
Let us not be misunderstood. Wc do not advise you to hatch 
chickens two or three months before the natural time, and to turn 
them out to take their chance; it would be cruel, and could end 
only in death. They must be kept warm at night, and frequently 
fed. We are more convinced than wo ever were that air is 
essential to chickens : that sun is as good as food for them; and 
that heat must be obtained by food, the natural method, rather 
than by stoves and hot water. If statistics could bo obtained 
it would he found that among the best chickens that could bo 
produced on the 1st of June, ninety out of a hundred had 
been reared out of doors entirely. While wo cannot look at the 
hothouse poultry without pity, wo can survey our out-door birds 
with pleasure and pride. Sturdy, square, clean, bright chickens 
wandering far from the hen, scratching wherever there appears 
hope of any result from it, turning over every leaf in search of 
insects, picking up the blade of grass or the speck of vordure 
that has appeared since the day before. ’ See them when the 
feeder appears, how they run to meet him—how they knock a 
large morsel to pieces; and when they have filled their crops, 
see the satisfied shake and stretch, and then they seek a sunny 
spot on a bank, if possible; they turn up the dust, they bury 
one side in the hole they have made, they cover the other with 
dust; they raise their wings, stretch out their leg, and bask and 
grow in the glorious sunshine. 
These are the chickens that have no care taken of them; and 
the owners of such send us no queries, unless it be to ask where 
they can dispose of some early birds, as they are overstocked. 
SITTING NESTS. 
The following appears to me to combine in a simple way the 
desiderata of a sitting nest. 
I have made ono or two holes in the wooden Avail of my 
poultry-house, and have put against each hole a box witli ono of 
the smaller sides knocked out. The hens take very kindly to 
these nests, as the darkness and retirement suit their instincts. 
I remove the eggs by lifting the lid of the box ivithout the dis¬ 
comfort of entering the poultry-house; and when a lion sits I 
transport her, box and all, to the quiet sitting-house in the 
evening, and place another box in the place of the one removed. 
A cheaper plan than having a box with a lid is to buy a tea- 
chcst of a grocer, put the mouth of it against the hole, cut out a 
hole large enough to admit your arm to get the eggs, and cover 
this hole with something to keep the box dark. These boxes 
cost 4 d. or 6 cl. —C. R. 
PROFITABLE POULTRY. 
We promised to look at poultry as profitable, the profits to bo 
derived from market. 
If it bo an object to make the outlay as small as possible, (o 
invest as little capital as may be, and if profit be the only thing 
looked at, then of course good, useful, sound birds will be all 
that are asked for at the outset. At the same time we Avould 
observe the process by which these fowls, bred for the table only, 
are made profitable, is equally available and efficacious for surplus 
stock of the highest character and faultless strains. One reason 
why many amateurs have been disappointed at their sales and 
frightened at their expenses has been they have determined t© 
sell stock birds only, and have, therefore, kept a much greater 
number than was necessary; have swelled the meal-bill, and 
spoiled their market by looking to sell at such prices as they 
gave for the parent birds. The return to be made by a pen of 
first-class and first-prize birds is not to be immediate; it will 
probably spread over some years, but a return is not the less 
certain if the money has been judiciously expended. We tako: 
this view because we are treating of profitable poultry. When 
hundreds of pounds are paid for a “Master Butterfly,” or for a 
stud-book short-horn heifer, tho profit is in prospective, but 
generally safe. It must be so with your poultry. Having 
secured a good breed, either an expensive one for exhibition, 
or a good hardy one for the table, you look for the beginning 
of the return. We have spoken of exhibitions informer papers 
we now speak of the market. We are writing more for the 
middle and needy than for the upper and wealthy classes; we 
shall have no difficulty in persuading them poultry is not pro¬ 
fitable on the table. Except Goose or Duck, it wants some 
other meat to eat with it; it requires gravy. Two fowls weighing 
9 his. do not offer as much resistance at table to the assaults of 
hungry hoys and girls as a leg of mutton of 7 lbs. Then every¬ 
body cats more of poultry than of meat. Home consumption is 
not then profitable. The first report of the market is not favour- 
