October 30, 1873. 1 



JOURNAL OF HOETICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAKDENEB. 



33J 



pablisMng the votiug papers and Mr. Hinton'd notes next 

 Thursday. 



DESTROYING WASPS. 



I SEE some of your contributors wish to linow how to destroy 

 \rasps and to talie their nests. It is now about iifteeu or six- 

 teen years since, when as I was " sugaring " in the New Forest 

 (collectors of Lepidoptera will know what I mean by " sugar- 

 ing,") one night in September, I was rather startled by the 

 sudden blaze of a large lire a few yards off me, and to see au 

 apparition busy poking-up and adding to the conflagration. 

 On going up to ascertain what it was all about, it proved to be 

 an old keeper friend burning wasps. " Why, what the deuce 

 are you at, Jimmy?" "Burning wasps," was the reply. 

 "But I can kill them much easier and surer than that," said 

 I. " Can you now?" said Jimmy; " there is another nest close 

 here." So off we started, I having my beetle-bottle in my 

 pocket with a good lump of cyanide of potassium in it, this 

 — the cyanide — I well moistened and wrapped in a piece of 

 rag, and popped in the entrance to the nest, poked it down 

 with a piece of stick, and stopped-up the hole. In about half 

 an hour, to Jimmy's astonishment, I quietly dug-out the nest 

 and put it in his hands ; to his great delight and admiration 

 every wasp was as dead as a " red herring." I was in great 

 request for the rest of the time I was in the Forest that 

 aatamn, and whenever I have visited it since. 



But I find a far better way is to make a very strong solution 

 with water, and to pour about a quarter of a pint in the 

 hole leading to the wasps' nest. You need not mind about 

 stopping-up the hole, nor need it be done at night. Go quietly 

 and pour in the solution at mid-day, and every wasp will go 

 home and be killed. I have sometimes had to clear the en- 

 trance of dead wasps to make way for others. I have killed 

 hundreds of nests since, and dug-out scores of nests — beau- 

 tiful objects they are, varying from the size of a cricket-ball 

 to that of a bushel measure. I ought to say that the cyanide 

 is a most deadly poison, and requires very careful handling, 

 and after using it do not Uck your lingers. — W. F. 



This subject is again receiving its share of attention. The 

 best plan is to pour gas tar into the holes. If the hole de- 

 scends, and a good dose is given, the work is done ; you need 

 not, as a matter of fact, even close the hole. But our practice 

 is to dig out and thoroughly destroy every nest at a price of 6d. 

 It is well worth this expenditure. The wasps this year have 

 not destroyed a pennyworth of Grapes. This year some 

 strong nests on the opposite side, and close to a stream of 

 water, deep, and i feet wide, bothered us, but our vermin- 

 killer was equal to the occasion. He cut down a fine stem of 

 Heracleum giganteum, and removed the pith from the joints, 

 making what he called a " telescope." One end of this he put 

 across the water into the hole of the nest, and poured tar 

 into the other. The tar thus entered their habitations, and 

 although the holes were never stopped-up, the destruction was 

 complete, and a wasp never seen afterwards. 



We do not care to take the nests whole for exhibition, but 

 one was exhibited under a glass shade at the Bracebridge 

 Show in September, and certainly arrested the attention of 

 the numbers of visitors as much as did anything else in the 

 Exhibition. Perhaps, however, the ticket attached lent its 

 share to the curiosity of the thing, on which the President 

 (Rev. C. C. Ellison) had written, "For price of honey inquire 

 within." — J. W. 



NOTES AND GLEANINGS. 



A COMMITTEE has been formed for the purpose of raising a 

 Testimonial to Mr. .J.vmes KicnAims, late Assistant-Secretary 

 to the Royal Horticultural Society, by which "his friends 

 desire to express the high esteem in which he has ever been 

 held by them on account of his personal worth ; to acknow- 

 ledge the never-failing courtesy, impartiality, and thorough- 

 ness which marked all his oflicial relations with the Fellows 

 during the long period of his connection with the Society ; 

 and to record their regret that circumstances should have led 

 to the severance of his relation with the Society." 



There is to be an I.STERNiTioNAL Horticcltciul Exni- 



bition held at Florence from the 10th to the a.^th of May, 

 1874, in connection with an International Botanical Congress, 

 which will take place at the same time. The schedule which 

 we have received contains 248 classes, and it is announced that 

 prizes will be awarded consisting of 100 gold medals, 221 silver. 



and lol bronze ; and besides these, the Jury will have at their 

 disposal a number of gold, silver, and bronze medals for plants 

 and meritorious objects not comprised in the schedule. Be- 

 sides these, large gold medals will be given by His Majesty the 

 King of Italy, the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, 

 the lady patronesses, the province of Florence, and the city 

 of Florence, to exhibitors who have contributed most by the 

 beauty and importance of their exhibitions to the success of 

 the Show. Prince Paul Demidoff has placed at the disposition 

 of the Jury two large gold medals of the value of 500 francs 

 each to the winner of the first prize in Classes 114 and IIC for 

 Roses. 



It is not usually till Lord Mayor's-day that crowds 



flock to see the CHRvsiNTUEMUMs in tue Temple Gardens, 

 but last year Mr. Newton, of the Inner Temple, secured a fine 

 display nearly a fortnight sooner than ordinary, and this year 

 he is earlier still. The Japanese varieties in particular are 

 many of them already in their fuU beauty, especially James 

 Salter and Red Dragon ; but Elaine, pure white, which was last 

 year awarded a tirst-class certificate by the Royal Horticultural 

 Society's Floral Committee, is the gem of the collection, being 

 fully (J J inches in diameter, and there are several other blooms 

 of the same variety nearly as large. Of the ordinary large- 

 flowering kinds there are fine examples of Pleuipo, Lord 

 Derby, Mr. Brunlees, Little Harry, Prince Alfred, &o., and 

 next week it is expected the show will be at its best. In the 

 Middle Temple Mr. Dale has also a nice little collection, 

 which, however, is not so forward. Among Japanese varieties 

 Elaine and Fair Maid of Guernsey promise to be very fine. 

 Mr. Dale has also this year added a number of refiexed kinds 

 to give variety from the usual incurved form. 



Messes. Carter & Co. will hold their Metropolitan Root 



Show at the Crystal Palace this year. Thoy offer twenty-six 

 l^rizes for various roots grown by the farmer and gardener. 



. — - Mr. Elliott remaiks that few people know the richness 

 or delicacy of Peaks until they have eaten of a summer or 

 autumn specimen which was gathered just as soon as it would 

 separate easily and readily from the tree, and then ripened up 

 in flannel wraps and darkness. Temperature is again a point 

 in this perfecting process ; if above 80 Fahrenheit the Pear will 

 be liable to rot at the core, if below G0° it will colour, but will 

 not develope its saccharine perfectly. — {New York Tiibiiiw.) 



THE BEAUTIFUL AND USEFUL INSECTS OP 

 OUR GARDENS.— No. II. 

 I MUST confess to being one of those old-fashioned indi- 

 viduals who do not quite approve of the course of study some 

 female philosophers of our time pursue. To certain naturalists 

 it is very possible that Mrs. Mary Treat's paper on " Control- 

 ling Sex in Butterflies (" American Naturalist,'' vol. vii.,p. 129) 

 may be a treat to read ; for my own part I could not help wish- 

 ing that her sex had so far controlled her as to have led her to 

 the choice of a happier theme. After a good deal of wire-draw- 

 ing we manage to find out the gist of the paper, which is this : 

 that the worst-fed caterpillars almost invariably produced 

 males. Given a due amount uf heat and moisture, and plenty 

 of food, and there was an immense preponderance of female 

 specimens. These observations, of course, were made upon 

 individuals in confinement, but the author contends that by 

 parity of reasoning the same results would ensue in insects at 

 large. Male butterflies in truth are simply starved females ; 

 and as it must happen in nearly every brood that a part have 

 to pass through less favourable conditions than their brethren, 

 from that part males are developed. How the balance of the 

 sexes in these circumstances is maintained the author does 

 not trouble to inform us, or, perhaps, to speculate upon at all. 



As her conclusion of her experiments in reaving, Mrs. 

 Treat states rather naively as follows: — "It would seem as 

 the result of the whole that sex is not determined in the eggs 

 of insects, and that the female require more nourishment 

 than the male. Nor docs this appear stiauge when we con- 

 sider the reproductive nature of the female. It has frequently 

 been said to me, ' If your theory is true, it makes the female 

 higher in the scale — superior to the male.' I believe it has 

 always been admitted that the female gives bii-th to the young. 

 If this is considered superiority, then the female is superior; 

 but if beauty of form and colour is taken into account, then 

 the male insect is superior ; the same as with birds and the 

 higher animals.'' A Mr. Andrews, who cannot accept the 

 theory, writes to propose this crucial test — let the experimentalist 



