December 9, 1905. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
Pure o. Cross Bred. 
It' only number and size of the egg are to 1 >e 
considered then a cross between the \\ lute 
Leghorn and the Silver Wyandotte is most 
useful. When working this cross I have always 
used White Leghorn hens and Silver ’W yan¬ 
dotte cocks. This cross is very valuable 
because the eggs laid by these cross-bred 
Leghorn-Wyandotte pullets are larger than the 
usual run of eggs, they are nicely tinted, and 
there are a goodly number of them. Another 
most excellent cross is obtaiued by running a 
Buff Orpington cock with the White Leghorn 
hens. With either of these crosses one is 
bothered with the pullets wanting to sit after 
they have laid their first batch of eggs; but 
they can easily be put oft being broody. 
Another good cross is a White Y\ yandotte 
cock and White Leghorn hens. 
Another System. 
Some breeders whose sole aim and object is 
egg production adopt another system altogether. 
They commence with hens of a pure breed, and 
each season they use a pure-bred cock, but not 
always of the same breed. Thus they may 
start with AY hit e Leghorn pullets and a Buff 
Orpington cock, the next season they will use 
a Silver AVyandotte to the produce of the 
AYhite Leghorns and the Buff Orpington, the 
third season perhaps their cock may be a 
Minorca, and so they go on year by year 
changing the breed of the cock. It certainly is 
a very successful system. I have before now 
done it myself, and the results have been most 
satisfactory. 
then with good, plain food—house scraps or 
biscuit, liub a little vaseline upon the ears 
each morning, and feed carefully, and you will 
soon see improvement. 
Canary Mopy (Dicky, Northampton).— 
Your bird is doubtless moulting. Keep him 
free of all draughts and below the gas at night. 
Feed upon Spratt’s mixed seeds, and give him 
every other day a piece of sweet Apple, or a 
piece of boiled Carrot. Let him have a bath 
twice a week. A rusty nail in the drinking 
water will also prove beneficial. 
LILIES of the VALLEY- 
A Simple Method for Forcing. 
A daily contemporary mentions a method 
for forcing those justly popular and deli¬ 
ciously fragrant flowers, Lilies of the Valley, 
which is said to be practised by florists. The 
way to proceed is as follows :—Wrap each pip 
or root in moss—any moss will do. AA'et the 
moss thoroughly, and place the pips out cf 
doors, where they may experience the effect 
of freezing weather. If the damp moss which 
surrounds the pips be frozen stiff it is all the 
better. In a week bring them in. 
Put a layer of broken charcoal in the basket, 
pot or box in which the pips are to bloom, 
cover with a thick layer of moss or sand ; on 
this put the pips, just as they are, and pack 
moss between each root. 
They should be about one inch apart, and 
let the tips of the pips just reach the 
surface. Cover with a piece of board, 
and allow to thaw out gradually in a 
cool room for two days. Bring to a 
warmer room, and give them a place on a 
kitchen range or over a register will do. 
Give tepid water once a day, and keep the 
basket or pot closely covered with an inverted 
pasteboard box or a cap made of heavy card¬ 
board wrapping paper. 
In about twenty days from the time of 
planting the buds will appear. Remove the 
cover and place the pots in a cool room at 
a window with good light, but no sunshine, 
where the leaves will grow stronger and taller 
and take a good colour, and the stems of the 
flowers will lengthen and develop fully all 
their buds. 
SECOND PRIZE ESSAY. 
How To Extend The /Ae/abership 
-Jp- . • and usefulness of . . . 
LOCAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 
Is it a Question of Breed 1 
This is another question which arises, and 
naturally too. Is it breed, or is it. strain ? 
There are good laying strains _ of White Leg¬ 
horns, and there are bad laying strains, and 
the same may be said of Minorcas, Houdans, 
Hamburgh s, White Wyandottes, and other 
breeds which are held in high repute by some 
as good layers. We all know that this is true. 
Even the man or woman who keeps a few 
common birds will tell you that one or two 
certain hens in their flock have laid well, and 
that pullets bred from them have inherited 
their mother’s good qualities, that following 
this up they have created a family of good 
layers. 
Laying Strains. 
There are much vaunted laying strains, and 
advertisements appear of guaranteed 200 eggs 
a year strains. I would warn my readers against 
being misled by such. Individual birds may 
lay 200 eggs in a year, but for a whole stock to 
do so is unknown. It is not at all unusual 
when bens are in full lay for some of them to 
occasionally lay two eggs in a day, one very 
early in the morning and another in the even¬ 
ing, but no lien can keep that sort of tiling up 
any more than a whole strain can regularly lay 
200 eggs per hen per annum. A flock which 
averages 150 eggs per hen in 365 days does 
well, if the figure should reach 175 it is super- 
excellent. 
Answers to Correspondents. 
Dog Losing Hair on Ears (Terrier, Cook- 
ham).—It is due to indigestion. If your dog 
has the run of the house, as I presume he has, 
he is always picking up bits of food, and thus 
his digestive organs are never given time to 
recuperate. The constant strain on them causes 
a lot of the food which the dog eats to go 
through the system without its nutritive quali¬ 
ties being extracted. Thus the blood becomes 
impoverished, and the result is seen in the bare 
patches which you mention. To cure you must 
see that the dog is only fed twice a day, and 
An essay on “How’to Extend the Member¬ 
ship and Usefulness of Local Horticultural 
Societies ” is a large order, but the subject is 
an important one, and well worthy of dis¬ 
cussion, especially in days like these, when 
the practice and profession of gardening are 
making such rapid strides, and horticulture 
is looked upon by the many as a pleasurable 
pastime, as well as a profitable pursuit. 
I have been a member of a local horticul¬ 
tural society ever since I attained the age of 
twenty-five, was for several years president of 
the said society, have since been secretary of 
an annual provincial show, and am, at the 
present time, secretary of a county floral 
society, so that, perhaps, I may have some 
qualifications to speak on this matter. 
In commencing, a few words of advice as 
to what not to do may not he out of place, 
and here I may say at once that I am no 
advocate of the holding of a big annual show ; 
I have reason to believe that the usual cause 
of the collapse of local horticultural societies 
is due to too great ambition in this direction. 
It is a good thing to lay by for a rainy day, 
but the savings of years may be swamped by 
a rainy annual show day, and many a society 
has had cause to rue the day it decided to 
launch out into- this luxury. Neither (and 
this may surprise some people) am I a believer 
in monthly shows ; have monthly discussions 
if you like, hut the public, and the members 
themselves, unless they are enthusiasts, will 
be wearied by these too frequent and some¬ 
what monotonous exhibitions, and, if the 
public once get tired of a thing, good-bye to 
gate money, and gate money is. or should be, 
one of the principal sources for providing 
the sinews of war. 
What I advocate in this connection is (1) a 
good spring show, say, in April, at a time 
when that beautiful and fascinating flower, 
the Daffodil, is about at its best ; (2) one or 
two summer shows, the first, say, when Roses 
and Sweet Peas are in their prime, viz., early 
July or thereabouts, the second early in Sep¬ 
tember, which will embrace Dahlias, Roses 
again, Some of the hardy fruits, and other 
good things whose name is legion ; and (3) 
last, but not least, a Chrysanthemum show, 
where this grand flower will, of course, form 
a leading feature, and the autumn fruits and 
vegetables will be to the fore. I am quite 
aware that there may be some people who 
have some favourite flower or fruit who will 
complain that I am fixing my show dates at 
a bad time for them, but I have taken what 
I believe to be the times when the most popu¬ 
lar things for exhibition are at their best. I 
have named four Shows per annum, and I do 
not believe thac the usefulness of any horti¬ 
cultural society in the kingdom will be ex¬ 
tended by holding more. 
With regard to the reading of papers and 
discussions, I very much regret to say that 
in my part of the world this is a custom that 
has very much fallen into desuetude ; it would 
perliajrs be unkind to say that point-money is 
all the members think of, but I fear that 
that weighs to a very large extent with some, 
although, on the other hand, I could put my 
hand on many a man who, taking one thing 
with another, had never netted a penny from 
the society, but still continued his interest 
and enthusiasm in it. If papers are read, 
they should preferably be on some subject of 
material utility to the members, and instruc¬ 
tion should be conveyed in plain, simple lan¬ 
guage easily “ understanded of the people.” 
I have known the subsequent discussions on 
these papers to degenerate into bickerings be¬ 
tween So-and-So and So-and-So as to the 
relative merits of their pet schemes in earthing 
up Celery, in mulching Tomatos. or wliat not, 
but a competent chairman should never allow 
this, or permit the debates to fall below a 
sensible and practical level. Moral: Always 
have, a practical man of the right sort in the 
chair. 
On the way in which the committee is 
chosen, will, to a great extent, depend the for¬ 
tunes of the society as a whole, and, in par¬ 
ticular, the extension of membership, about 
which one is asked to speak. It should not 
