103 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, May 15, 1860. 
any comment upon that, we will only observe that having thereby 
deceived the purchaser, you are bound, by the dictates of both 
law and equity, to give some recompense to the purchaser you 
deceived. Reverse your position, and suppose you had pur¬ 
chased three Ganders from a pen marked “ a Gander and two 
Geeee,” would you not think yourself entitled to some recom¬ 
pense for the loss of a whole breeding season ? We think you 
ought to take two of the Ganders back, and return the purchaser 
two guineas. 
We would bring this case to the notice of Poultry Show Com¬ 
mittees. They should offer their prizes for “ Goslings ” without 
any stipulations as to their sex, for then, as our correspondent 
observes, “it is impossible for any one to tell what they are.”] 
EGGS UNPRODUCTIVE -NUMBERS FOR A 
SITTING. 
Ix reference to an article under this title in your No. 601, 
April 24th, in which a correspondent complains that he had 
only nine chickens from forty-seven eggs, I, a sufferer in the same 
way, although not to the same extent, whilst believing you to be 
very probably right in supposing that seven eggs under each hen I 
would have been preferable to eleven, now take the liberty to 
show you how very widely “doctors differ” on this, as on 
almost every other subject. 
There lies before me a quarto entitled “ Maison Rustiqus, or 
the Countrie Fame,” compiled (in French) 1582, by Charles 
Stevens and John Liebault, Doctors of Physicke, and translated 
into English (1600) by Richard Surflet, Practitioner in Physicke.” 
This curious old book is as general and comprehensive in its 
contents as King Solomon’s works on Natural History are said 
to have been. On the subject of setting eggs, the rules and 
practice are given as follows, which will be, I think, what our 
cousin Jonathan calls “ a wrinkle,” to most of your poultry¬ 
keeping readers :— 
“ There must always be care had that they be odde ; that is to 
say, in Januarie fifteene, in March nineteene, and after April 
oue-and-twentie. The greatest part of the inhabitants of Lyons 
do admit of no other number than threeand-twenlie.” 
In this “age of progress” we seem to be progressing crab- 
fashion as to poultry breeding. 
Your comment on the above will much oblige many more, 
probably, than—A n Old Readee. 
[Doctors differ, always have differed, and always will differ 
upon every subject so long as human minds are gifted with 
diverse powers of judgment; but on the question, How many eggs 
should constitute a sitting? we cannot admit the editors of the 
“ Maison Rustique” to be sufficiently learned to entitle them to 
the degree of Doctors. In a warm climate a greater number of 
eggs may be put under a hen than can reasonably be so placed 
in a cold climate; but in any climate to put twenty-three eggs 
under a hen that is not as large as a Turkey hen, is to insure 
that one-fourth of them shall be addled. We know that Mr. 
Baily, Mr. Hewitt, the Rev. Mr. Wingfield, and other first 
authorities on poultry, advocate the number of eggs for a sitting 
iu winter to be very few—seven or nine at the most. In summer 
large hens, Dorkings and Cochins, for example, may have fifteen 
eggs placed under them. We once knew' a Dorking hen “steal 
her nest,” as it is termed. She sat herself in the thatch of an 
out-house overgrown with ivy. It was high summer, and from 
seventeen eggs she brought out sixteen chickens. There is an 
additional reason against large sittings in winter-—namely, that 
even if many chickens are hatched, so in proportion is there the 
greater chance that they will not be reared. When they attain 
the size at which feathers on their bodies are forming, a time 
when they require more warmth, the hen cannot cover them, and 
the mortality arising from cold, with its preludes of cramped 
limbs and diarrhoea, warns every reflecting poultry breeder from 
adopting large sittings in winter.] 
FEEDING SPANISH CHICKENS. 
I have reared up my chickens this year in the following 
manner :—The hen is put on a grass plot under a coop, she has 
eleven Spanish chickens, and I give them an equal quantity of 
wheat, barley, grits, and hempseed, as a general food, with 
occasional feedings of bread crumbs, onion tops, barleymeal, 
and liver boiled until it crumbles. They are very fine and healthy, 
and are by far the largest in the neighbourhood at their age. Do 
you consider this good and proper food for chickens ? As there 
have been so many complaints this year in The Cottage Gah- 
denek, about the mortality among chickens, I hope you will 
not consider me intruding on your space.—W. R. E. 
[It is vain to argue against success. But wo should not have 
given the chickens either barley, wheat, or liver. A little hemp- 
seed in cold weather is permissible. We should have given 
occasionally ground oats, and eggs boiled hard and oliopped fine.] 
NEW BOOKS. 
FOWLS.* 
This contains the carefully narrated experience of one 
thoroughly conversant with poultry, and we can safely state, 
that he has succeeded in what the following sentence says lie 
attempted :—“ I have endeavoured to condense all I have learned 
from the experience of many years, and to describe it in a few 
words, and as plainly as possible.” 
The poultry-house, feeding, fattening, preparing for exhibition, 
rearing chickens, keeping breeds separate, and the description of 
the various breeds, are all excellent and full of useful information. 
On one breed only do we join issue with Mr. Baily, and claim a 
verdict against him. Mr. Baily says of Brahma Pootras, “ I at 
the outset advocated their claim to the honour of being a distinct 
breed, I now say, I have seen nothing to alter my opinion.” We, 
on the contrary, from their very first appearance in public at the 
Metropolitan Exhibition in 1853, have never swerved from the 
opinion that they are either a cross with the Cochin-China, or at 
the best a variety of that breed. 
Mr. Baily says, “ In all adverse writers there is a total absence 
of argument, but a lavish use of the assertion (hat they are 
Cochins and nothing else.” This charge we think not correct; 
but if it be correct, if we have never hitherto adduced an argu¬ 
ment against the Brahma Pootra purity, we will at once endeavour 
to remove that default. 
Now, the strongest evidence (hat can be produced of a newly 
imported pure breed is, to refer to the country whence the breed 
is said to come, and thence to bring some of the stock direct from 
its native place. Now, the writer of this lived four years iu 
India, and during that time he never saw a Brahma Pootra fowl 
in any of the Bengal Bazaars. There were Bantams, Game fowls, 
Malays, and many mixtures, but no Brahma Pootras. We have 
inquired of those whose official duties made them conversant 
with the whole course of the Brahma Pootra River, and not one 
of those officials ever saw there such a fowl. 
Let us go a step further; let us suppose that the name 
“ Brahma Pootra,” lucerna a non hicendo, was applied because 
the fowls never were there. Then where did they come from ? 
They are so recent a discovery that there cannot be any difficulty 
in answering the query. Whoever imported any from India, or 
from China? We venture to assert that none ever were im¬ 
ported, except directly or indirectly, from America. And now let 
us see what information we can gather thence as to their origin. 
Mr. Burnham in his “ History of the Hen Fever,” published 
at Boslon in 1S55, gives this narrative:— 
“ The variety of fowl itself was the Grey Chittagong , to which 
allusion has already been made, and the first samples of which I 
obtained from ‘ Asa Rugg ’ (Dr. Kerr), of Philadelphia, in 1850. 
Of this no one now entertains a doubt. They were the identical 
fowl, all over,—size, plumage and characteristics. 
“But my friend the Doctor wanted to put forth something 
that would take better than liis ‘ Plymouth Rocksand 60 he 
consulted me as to a name for a brace of grey fowls I saw in his 
yard. I always objected to the multiplying of titles ; but be in¬ 
sisted, and finally entered them at our Fitchburg Depot Show as 
‘ Burrampooters,' all the way from India. 
“ These three fowls were bred from Asa Rugg’s Grey Chittagong 
cook, with a yellow Shanghae hen, in Plymouth, Mass. They 
were an evident cross, all three of them having a top-knot! 
But, n'importe. They were then ‘Burrampooters.’ 
“Subsequently, these fowls came to be called ‘Burampootras,’ 
‘Bnrram Putras,’ ‘Brama-pooters,’ ‘Brahmas,’ ‘ Brama Puters,’ 
‘Brama Poutras,’ and at last ‘Brahma Pootras.’ In the mean¬ 
time, they were advertised to be exhibited at various fairs in 
* Fowls: a plain and familiar treatise on the principal bleed?!, In¬ 
structions for breeding and exhibition. Third Edition, revised, corrected, 
and enlarged. With which is reprinted The Dorking Fowl: its manage¬ 
ment and feeding for the table. Fifth Edition. Bv John Baily. London : 
Henningham and Hollis. 
