158 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
February  23,  1899. 
mutton.  ]\Iost  households  contain  children,  many  a  fine  percentage, 
and  a  fowl  would  prove  such  an  excellent  and  easily  digested  food  for 
the  youthful  stomach. 
Consider  for  a  moment  the  numberless  ways  and  the  different 
guises  in  which  this  oird  might  be  presented  at  table.  lie  goes  far 
because  he  brings  with  him  so  many  little  extras,  not  costly  in  them¬ 
selves,  but  forming  such  pleasant  additions. 
Be  a  bit  of  bacon  really  too  fat  for  any  other  purpose  it  goes  down 
beautifully  with  the  lean  white  meat.  Be  a  loaf  never  so  stale  what 
excellent  bread  sauce  it  will  make  with  the  addition  of  a  tiny — very 
tiny — onion,  a  little  milk,  and  seasoning  !  Or,  again,  the  same  bread, 
with  a  portion  of  the  fat  bacon  and  a  handful  of  garden  herbs,  is 
converted  into  the  most  excellent  of  stuffings. 
With  the  boiled  fowl  may  be  used  many  of  the  white  vegetables, 
which  add  much  to  the  tastiness  of  the  dish.  For  a  bird  avhich  has 
seen  several  summers  nothing  beats  a  pie.  Kill  him,  hang  him 
several  days,  gently  stew,  then  deposit  under  a  plain  but  light  crust, 
not  forgetting  the  bacon  and  plenty  of  potato. 
But  we  did  not  mean  to  write  cookery  recipes ;  we  were  going  to 
talk  of  table  poultry,  and  we  are,  well,  not  far  afield,  but,  at  any  rate, 
intruding  on  the  domain  of  the  “  Missus.”  She  will  perhaps  say  she 
can  tell  us  more  of  table  poultry  than  we  can  ever  hope  to  know.  We 
suspect  she  can,  but  perhaps  is  bashful,  and  leaves  the  work  to  our 
poor  male  pen. 
Poultry  may  be  divided  roughly  into  three  classes: — 
I.  — Poultry  for  showing. 
II.  — Poultry  for  egg  production. 
III.  — Poultry  for  table. 
The  three  classes  cannct,  and  must  not  be  confounded. 
Far  be  it  from  us  to  look  slightingly  on  the  exhibition  ;  the 
exhibitors  show  us  the  best  possible  types.  We  have  to  take  these 
types  and  adapt  them  to  our  purpose. 
For  table  poultry  w’e  must  aim  at  (1)  .  early  maturity,  (2)  quality, 
(3)  quantity.  We  want  small  bone,  much  meat,  good  meat,  firm 
meat,  and  quickly  grown  meat.  i 
A  silk  purse  cannot  be  made  of  a  sow’s  ear,  neither  can  inferior 
poultry  be  made  into  first-class  “dead  meat.”  We  must  begin  at 
the  very  beginning ;  do  away  with  all  mongrel  sorts ;  in  fact  if  we 
have  a  mixed  lot  of  ordinary  barndoor  fowl  it  is  well  to  make  a 
clean  sweep,  we  then  know  what  we  are  doing.  We  get  rid  of  all 
aged  and  unhealthy  birds,  all  crooked  breast,  and  all  bad  doers — i.e, 
tho#e  with  a  touch  of  liver  or  tuberculosis. 
To  really  succeed  our  best  plan  is  to  take  a  pure  Dorking  hen 
and  cross  Avith  an  Indian  Game  cockerel  of  a  year  old.  The 
Dorking  is  a  large  type  of  fowl  with  very  plump  breast;  the  Indian 
Game  cock  is  all  meat,  and  the  cross  produced  is,  we  may  sa_v,  a 
perfect  type  of  what  a  good  table  bird  should  be.  Some  breeders 
will  after  this  cross  mate  the  pullets  with  a  Dorking  cock,  but  after 
that  no  more  crossing  is  desirable. 
The  chicks  when  hatched  (which  they  should  be  eaily),  for  choice 
in  an  incubator,  must  be  kept  well  up  to  the  mark  by  constant  and 
judiCiOus  feeding,  and  by  a  genial  warmth.  Without  warmth  no 
little  chickens  can  live.  We  saw  an  instance  of  this  the  other  day, 
where  some  foster-mothered  chickens  died  in  a  very  short  space  of  time 
as  the  heat  of  their  habitation  had,  through  some  carelessness,  been 
allowed  to  go  down.  Chickens  are  always  glad  to  avail  themselves  of 
an  outside  run,  and  Avhenever  there  is  a  gleam  of  sunlight  they  are 
out  enjoying  and  benefiting  by  it. 
M  e  have  only  seen  “  cramming,”  so  cannot  speak  of  it  from  a 
practical  point  of  view,  but  we  know  we  can  get  chickens  (of  the  right 
sort)  very  fleshy  with  ordinary  good  feeding.  There  are  many  other 
birds,  or  rather  breeds,  recommended  as  suitable  for  table  pjurposes, 
but  the  consensus  of  opinion  is  all  in  favour  of  the  cross  of  Avhich  we 
have  spoken — Dorking  hen,  Indian  Game  cockerel,  each  the  best  of 
its  kind.  We  hear  of  Langshan-English  Game,  which  is  really 
capital,  La  Bresse,  La  Fleche,  Houdan,  and  Faverolle.  Of  these 
French  birds  we  know  best  the  Iloudan,  but  we  consider  it,  though 
large,  a  trifle  coarse  and  given  to  bone.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  an 
excellent  egg-making  machine,  and  therefore  is  somewhat  of  a 
favourite. 
We  close  with  a  description  of  what  a  Dorking  should  be,  taken 
from  the  writings  of  a  noted  breeder  thereof : — “  A  Dorking  must  bo 
large  in  frame,  long,  deej',  and  broad  in  body,  or  it  cannot  possibly 
carry  a  great  quantity  of  flesh,  and  as  breast  meat  is  especially 
desirable,  we  must  look  for  specimens  with  large  wings,  for  the  breasit 
muscks  are  the  motors  which  open  and  close  the  upper  limbs.” 
WORK  ON  THE  HOME  FARM. 
Thunder  and  lightning,  wind  and  rain  !  Floods  are  out  everywhere 
that  hoods  are  possible,  and  even  dry  lands  are  becoming  saturated. 
Farmers  who  are  always  on  the  look  out  to  keep  forward  with  their 
work  are  distinctly  getting  out  of  patience  with  the  present  state  of 
things.  As  we  are  promised  a  visit  from  the  blizzard,  which  has  played 
such  havoc  in  the  States,  there  is  a  prospect  that  their  patience  may  be 
still  further  tried.  We  are  ploughing  our  light  sandy  field  for  spring 
corn  ;  it  is  land  so  dry  that  it  never  sets,  and  it  is  turning  over  well. 
A  moderate  frost  after  ploughing  would  put  it  into  excellent  trim. 
We  have  carted  manure  out  until  the  roads,  and  especially  the  gate¬ 
ways,  are  almost  impassable  ;  however,  the  congestion  in  the  yards  has 
been  relieved,  and  we  can  leave  that  alone  for  a  time.  The  difficulty  i» 
to  find  work  for  the  horses.  We  are  carting  Thorns  about,  and  filling  up 
gaps  and  boles  wherever  Thorns  are  of  use.  There  are  heaps  of  road 
scrapings  and  refuse  to  be  put  on  the  land,  but  the  same  objection  holds 
good  here,  as  in  the  case  of  manure  leading.  Dry  high-land  grass,  how¬ 
ever,  will  carry  the  carts  without  much  damage,  and  if  the  District 
Council  is  doing  even  half  its  duty,  the  roads  should  at  any  rate  be 
passable. 
Perhaps  we  may  hear  the  remark,  “  Why  make  work  when  none  needs 
doing?  Give  the  poor  animals  a  rest.’  Well,  that  sounds  plausible 
enough,  but  it  is  not  easy  to  keep  a  horse  both  healthy  and  idle,  unless  he 
is  turned  out  to  grass,  and  it  is  absurd  to  think  of  turning  a  horse  out  for 
a  day  or  two  in  February.  It  is  difficult  to  get  the  corn  taken  off  unless 
the  master  feeds  them  himself,  and  a  horse  on  dry  winter  food,  kicking, 
not  his  heels,  but  the  stall  partitions,  soon  has  a  tendency  to  develop 
ailments  which,  with  work  and  exercise,  he  would  be  quite  free  from. 
No.  Keep  your  horses  regularly  and  steadily  at  work  ;  do  not  push 
them  too  far,  but  remember  that  one  rest  day  in  the  week  is  quite 
sufficient. 
If  records  were  kept  on  every  farm  of  ailments  amongst  the  horses, 
and  the  statistics  connected  therewith  could  be  tabulated,  it  would 
probably  be  found  that  a  large  and  undue  proportion  of  illnesses 
occurred  on  Mondays, 
OUR  LETTER  BOX. 
Books  on  Cows  (R.  A.  G.]\. — “  Cattle  :  Breeds  and  Management,** 
by  W.  Houseman,  3s.  6d,,  Vinton  &  Co.,  9,  New  Bridge  Street,  Lud- 
gate  Circus,  E.C.,  is  the  best,  if  reference  to  diseases  be  important,  as  it 
has  a  chapter  on  diseases  by  Prof,  J.  Wortley  Axe.  Apart  from  that 
branch  of  the  subject  “The  Dairy,”  by  James  Long  and  .1,  C.  Morton, 
same  publishers,  23.  6d.,  may  be  recommended  as  more  useful.  Both 
refer  to  the  management  and  feeding  of  cows  and  calf  rearing. 
METEOROLOGICAL  OBSERVATIONS. 
Camden  Square,  London. 
Lat.  51°  32'  40"  N.;  Long.  0°  8'  0"  W.;  Altitude  111  feet. 
Date. 
9  A.M. 
In  the  Day. 
1899. 
3 
2 
Hygrometer 
Direc¬ 
tion  of 
Wind. 
Temp, 
of  soil 
at 
Shade  Tem¬ 
perature. 
Radiation 
Tempera¬ 
ture. 
d 
•a 
February 
Dry. 
Wet. 
1  foot 
Max. 
Min. 
in 
Sun 
On 
Grass 
Sunday  .... 
12 
inchs 
29 '27! 
deg. 
44-4 
deg. 
41-6 
S.AV. 
deg. 
44-4 
deg. 
50-9 
deg. 
41  -9 
deg. 
75-1 
deg. 
38-8 
inchs. 
0-145 
Monday  .... 
13 
29-30t 
.50-7 
48-4 
S.W. 
43-9 
53-9 
44-1 
64-8 
37-1 
0-138 
Tuesday  .... 
14 
29-56'; 
45-7 
43-9 
s. 
44-0 
51-4 
41-1 
02-1 
37-1 
0-020 
Wednesday 
15 
■29 -SS- 
40-6 
45-1 
S.W. 
43-9 
51-2 
42-3 
57-9 
36-8 
0-313 
Thursday  . . 
16 
19-92- 
40-1 
39-3 
w. 
44-1 
.50-7 
38-1 
78-9 
33-8 
— 
Friday . 
17 
30 -05; 
39-8 
39-8 
F. 
42-8 
.53-1 
36-1 
75-9 
28-9 
— 
Saturday .... 
18 
30-07; 
38-5 
38-5 
N.E. 
42-0 
48-8 
37-4 
60-6 
31-3 
— 
29-72 
4.3-7 
42*4 
43-6 
51-4 
40-1 
67-9 
34-8 
0.610 
REMARK.S. 
12th. — Rain  from  5  a.m.  to  7  A.M.,  1.30  to  2.30  I’.M.,  and  after  10  I’.M.  ;  gale  all 
day  ;  much  bright  sun  in  morning. 
1.3th.— AVindy  vfith  occasional  sun  and  slight  .showers;  heavy  rain  at  0.50  i>. M. 
and  10.30  I'.M. 
14th. — Alternate  spots  of  rain  and  faint  sun  in  morning  ;  fair  afternoon  ;  slighu 
shower  in  evening. 
15th.— Fair  with  occasional  sun,  and  halo  in  afternoon  ;  spots  of  rain  from  5  I'.M., 
steady  rain  from  8.15  P.M. 
16th.— Heavy  rain  till  2  A.M.  ;  fine  sunny  day. 
17th. — Fog  early,  clearing  gradually  ;  sunny  from  11.30  a.m. 
18th. — Fog  early  ;  sunny  from  11.30  A.M.  to  3  P.M.  ;  more  or  less  fog  after. 
Another  warm  week,  but  not  so  exceptionally  so  as  the  preceding  week. — 
G.  J.  Symons. 
