1871.] SHELTER. 405 



appliances, are quite as much heat-conservers as they are plant-pro- 

 tectors. 



We remarked that the herring-net was, of course, of no use as a 

 protection against wasps and flies, but it is effectual against butterflies, 

 which are not quite the innocents some people imagine : just witness a 

 quarter of Broccoli or Cabbage, with its leaves reduced to skeletons, 

 at this season. Hundreds of these pretty pests may be seen on a hot 

 day alighting on the quarters of winter-greens; and depend on it they 

 are bent on mischief to the gardener ; and depend on it prevention 

 is better than cure in this instance also. I think I hear some amateur 

 expressing gratitude for this hint. 



Old herring-nets can be bought very cheap, if the business is set 

 about in a direct way. Let any gardener, who has the fortune to be 

 so situated, drive into the nearest fishing-town, after the fishing season 

 is over, with a few loose shillings in his pocket, as we have often done 

 and mean to do again, and he will have no reason to grudge the time 

 and trouble. We say this because we are certain that advertised prices 

 prevent many gardeners from using the quantity of nets they would 

 wish to have. Tradesmen who collect and repair them have a right 

 to be paid for their labour, however. 



Shelter, apart from old herring-nets and spring frosts, is a most im- 

 portant word in the gardener's vocabulary. A slight amount of shelter, 

 in the shape of a wall or hedge, may mean a fortnight or three weeks 

 in the coming in of a crop ; the difference of a few yards may make a 

 subtropical or an alpine climate : in the one instance, as we this season 

 experience, Cannas, Castor-oil plants, and others of the subtropicals, 

 luxuriate like Docks ; in the other, blown to ribbons — the difference not 

 being so much in heat as in shelter. Shelter, in the majority of in- 

 stances, determines the success or otherwise of planting, either as to time 

 or position ; at present it may be winter-greens with a broiling sun 

 pouring down on them, when the shelter of an inverted flower-pot, put 

 over each plant through the day and removed at night, would super- 

 sede hours of labour in watering. Shrubs, wall fruit-trees, and bushes 

 may now be advantageously shifted, if they be sheltered from the mid- 

 day sun by mats or canvas. Not long ago we witnessed the whole- 

 sale loss of a large extent of newly-jilanted specimen shrubs and trees, 

 especially Conifers, in which a garden architect and a gardener were both 

 concerned, from the neglect of the simple consideration of shelter : an 

 old mat on two sticks placed at the windy side of the shrub, a piece of 

 canvas, or some boughs, would have saved scores of pounds' worth, and 

 the purse of a public company replacing them. 



This season we have remarked the sheltering effect of cross projec- 

 tions built against a south wall breaking the east wind, and prevent- 



2f 



