159 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, June 5, 1860. 
and thrips prove beyond any doubt that you have kept the air in the 
house too dry. You say you have vanquished the red spider with sulphur ; 
but that the thrips is your vanquisher. Try repeated dustings with scotch 
snuff, and keep the air in the house moister, and yet well ventilated. 
Fruit Trek Laterals (^4 Subscriber). —You have done quite right in 
cutting back the laterals of your Cherries, Plums, and Pears. Keep a watch 
over them during the growing, season; and whenever you see them making 
what are likely to become vigorous shoots, pinch them back when they 
have made three leaves. If your Vines in pots are bearing fruit, do not 
repot them now ; and whether they are or not, do not stop the lateral 
shoots. Wire two feet and a half to three feet, will keep out rabbits. \ 
Garden Plan {Novice). —All right except the large centre bed, which 
is of Scarlet Geraniums, and cuts your garden into two parts, in the eyes 
of a stranger looking out from the windows. It is not much out of place 
for you and your household, as you know the extent of your ground ; but 
visitors will run away with the idea that your garden is only one half the 
size it is, all owing to the strongest colour standing in the centre, and 
preventing the eye from measuring beyond. The strongest colours, as 
scarlet and yellow, ought invariably to be at the extremes, from the centre 
of a regular figure, and your garden is a regular and very good design, 
and what you want in the centre circle is some variegated plants, as 
Flower of the Day Geranium, with any edging you please—of Tom Thumb 
Geranium, if you like; but generally a blazing edging is preferred for 
such a bed in such a place. 
Name of Salad Leaf ( W. X . 7F.).—This plant was at one time much 
grown in gardens for culinary purposes. It was used in soups, sauces, 
and in salads. It is commonly called the French Sorrel , or llumcx 
scutatus. It is seldom seen now, as the broader-leaved varieties are more 
commonly grown. 
Names of Plants (A Subscriber). —The plant you found by a pond in 
South Wales, is the Water Trefoil, or Trefoil Buckbean, Menyanthes 
trifoliata. It is one of the most beautiful of flowers, and deserves a place 
among the Nympbmas, Ilottonias, and other exotic aquatics in our 
gardens. Poetry is not too eulogistic when it says— 
“ Oft where the stream meandering glides, 
Our beauteous Menyanthes hides 
Her clustering, fringed flowers; 
Nor, ’mid the gardener’s sheltering care, 
Of fam’d exotics rich and rare, 
Purple or roseate, dark or fair, 
A plant more lovely towers.” 
[Heiiry Holloway).— The plant from the chalk pit is the Ophrys anthro - 
pophora , or Green Man Orchis. 
POULTRY AND BEE-KEEPER’S CHRONICLE. 
POULTRY SHOWS. 
Junk 6th, 7th, and 8th. Bath and West op England. At Dorchester. 
See., J. Kingsbury, Esq., Hammet Street, Taunton. Entries close May 7. 
June 12th. Essex (Saffron Walden). Sec., Mr. Robert Emson, Slough 
House, Halstead, Essex. Entries close June 1st. 
June 20th. Thokne. Sec., Mr. Joseph Richardson. 
June 29th. Driffield. Sec., Mr. R, Davison. Entries close June 23rd. 
June 29th and 30th, July 2nd and 3rd. Shkffif.ld. Chairman, Mr. Wil¬ 
son Overend, Sheffield. Entries close June 14th. 
July 18th and 19th. Merthyr Tydvil. Sec., Mr. W. II. Harris, 142, 
High Street, Merthyr. 
July 19th. Prescot. Sec., Mr. J. Beesley. Entries close July 7. 
August 22nd and 23rd. Settle (Yorkshire). Hon. Secs., Revs. J. R. 
Blakiston and J. Robinson, Settle, Entries close August 1st. 
August 25th, 27th, 28th, and 29th. Crystal Palace. Summer Show of 
Poultry, Pigeons, and Rabbits. Sec., Mr. William Houghton. Entries 
close July 28th. 
September 19th, 20th, and 21st. Portsmouth. Hon. Sec., Mr. E. Clarke, 
2fl, Wish Street, Southsea, Hants. Entries close August 11. 
September 2.3th. Bridgnorth. Sec., Mr. Richard Taylor, Bridgnorth. 
N.B.— Secretaries will oblige tis bg sending early coj>ies of their lists. 
THE INFLUENCE OF A MILD SEASON. 
Tiie earth, released from the bands of frost, and its surface 
refreshed with warm showers, is at last teeming with fruitfulness. 
She is clothing herself witli verdure. This affords much food for 
poultry, not only in itself, but by the harbour it affords for 
insects. We know with what delight we find on some fine 
morning, that the wretched, cutting, unkind, easterly wind has 
disappeared during the night to make way for a soft and genial 
breeze from the west. We long to see the parched earth fed 
j with rain, and that dust which has been our bane for weeks laid 
by the falling moisture; and the conviction at last grows upon 
us that it is warmer. Costume is changed ; the enemy has dis¬ 
appeared ; there is, then, no reason to shut him out. 
It. is the same with our fowls. They feel the change as much 
as we do. A few days since, and when they ventured out, their 
feathers were blown inside out; and when they sought shelter 
from the wind, they were carried before it with that resisting step 
that always reminds us of a man restraining a heavily laden truck 
down hill. He does all he can do; till at last, finding himself 
overpowered, he fairly runs with, rather than struggle against, 
his load. So the fowls during the east wind, unable to stand 
about or seek their food, blinded with dust, perishing with piercing 
cold, are obliged to yield, and they run for shelter. How changed 
is it now ! How deliberately they pace along, scanning every 
new sprout or root of verdure ! How soft, cool, and refreshing 
is the earth to their feet! How pleasant the shelter of the young 
foliage! A Sybarite might envy that hen and her chickens. 
Look at her. There is a shrubbery rising upward till it reaches 
a wall; it is divided from the gravel path of a kitchen garden by 
a narrow band of grass. The sun is shining on it, and has been 
doing so long enough to dry the surface. The hen has settled 
heiselt down, has scratched her hole, and now lies on one side. 
She has partly buried herself in dust ; and while opening her 
feathers to admit the warmth of the eun, she crops from time to 
time any little tempting piece of grass. She is also on the look 
out for anything that may turn up in the way of insect life • she 
is in this respect a feathered Micawber; and hardly has it ap- 
peaied before it is devoured. She is now thriving, and will 
iorget all the trials of the long winter. And her chickens—see 
how they enjoy themselves-^how they chase every fly and every 
moth! And they, too, feel the influence of the sun. They 
mimic their mother ; and, raising their little wings, they expose 
their bodies to the sun’s heat.. Now they grow and thrive. How 
different is the feeling of their owner as he looks at them to that 
of a month since ! Then he was himself cold, although wrapped 
up. He wondered not his stock felt the same. He asked himself 
whether he should succeed in rearing them spite of all his care. 
They did uot grow. They had known none but a parched barren 
earth, and they sought nothing from its surface. They looked to 
feeding for food. Now all is altered. 
M e feel it our duty to hang advice, or admonition, on every 
change that takes place. For some time we have constantly 
urged on our readers good and stimulating food, to counteract 
the effects of inclement and trying weather. We now say. Hold 
your hands, Nature will do a great deal, and you may give up 
youi stimulants save for very young chickens. Move your hen 3 
out on grass, but do not let the chickens run where it is very 
high, it they are overtaken by heavy rain, or storm, in high 
glass, it frequently causes death from cold or cramp, as they are 
unable to reach the hen. Whenever or wherever grass has been 
cut, there is a good run for chickens, it is fresh earth and cool. 
You need not feed as often as you have hitherto done; and be 
guided now as before by the wants of your chickens, leaving off 
to feed when they cease to run for food. Scatter the hens with 
chickens as much as you can ; let them, like yourself, rejoice in the 
glorious change, and prove, like the teeming earth, that things 
are not so irretrievably ruined as our forebodings dreaded. 
USE OE UNFERTILE EGGS. 
I have seen a letter from G. Montagu, in The Cottage 
Gardener of the 8th of May. I have, also, for a long time 
taken out the bad eggs at the end of the first week ; but I never 
heard of the bad eggs being good for eating. However, I hare 
taken out the unfertile eggs from two hens since, at the end of 
their first week, and boiled them for the chickens, as I could not. 
relish them myself; but I have found no difference in them from 
new-laid eggs. I am much indebted to G. Montagu for his 
suggestion, and feel confident it will prove generally useful. 
While on the subject of eggs, let me say, that as far as the 
air-circle is concerned, it is to be found in every egg. I have a 
hen now under a coop, with chickens, which lays, and her eggs 
have all air-circles, although separated from the male bird more 
than two months. I have found that while the egg is yet warm 
from the hen there is no air-circle, but when it cools it appears. 
I selected a brood of eggs with the air-circle at the side, and 
they are all pullets but one, but I believe it is by chance.— 
W. R. E. 
AGE AT WHICH CHICKENS MAY BE TAKEN 
FROM THEIR MOTHER, 
A correspondent, “ W.,” states that a lien of his “ kept her 
brood for four months! ” Last year I made trial of taking 
chickens away from their mothers when only a fortnight old, 
during the summer and autumn, without supplying them with a 
substitute of any kind. The experiment I consider was quite 
