DECEMBER 131 



best and sunniest part of the kitchen garden, and 

 moving into it gooseberries and currants red, white, 

 and black. Round this I am going to place, after 

 considerable deliberation and doubt, a high fine -wire 

 fencing, with an opening on one side instead of a gate 

 which reduces the expense and the opening can be 

 covered when necessary with a net. The reason for not 

 wiring over the top, besides the expense, is that it causes 

 a rather injurious drip in rainy weather and breaks down 

 under the snow. I am also assured by good gardeners 

 that it is unnecessary, and that the wire netting round 

 the sides is a most effectual protection to the bushes, as 

 small birds do not fly downwards into a wire -netted 

 enclosure. My gardener is very skeptical on this point, 

 and says he thinks our birds are too clever to be kept 

 out by such half -measures. I think we have an undue 

 share of birds, as on one side of the kitchen garden there 

 is a small copse, belonging to a neighbour, which has 

 been entirely neglected for years, and presents the 

 appearance of what one would imagine a virgin forest 

 might be. This affords the most extraordinary pro- 

 tection for birds, and bullfinches and greenfinches 

 abound. They not only do harm to the fruit when it is 

 ripe, but they strip the trees of their buds in dry weather 

 in early spring. If this new wire netting answers, I am 

 told we ought to have three times the fruit for a less 

 quantity of bushes. I shall grow white currants on the 

 netting, with battens or sticks fastened to it as a 

 protection from the heat of the zinc wire, which is fatal 

 to everything. The trees are now all whitened with a 

 preparation of lime, which is distasteful to the birds and 

 insects. After all this, I shall indeed be disappointed if 

 my crop of small fruit is not larger this year. However, 

 a late frost may still defeat us altogether. 



Mr. Wright, in his book ' Profitable Fruit -growing' 



