. MOLES. 



320 



MOLES, TRAPS FOR. 



interfering with the proper and profitable 

 culture of vegetables and fruits, the kitchen 

 garden, with a little taste and far less labour, 

 may be made extremely ornamental. Let 

 the walks that need it be kept well gravelled ; 

 and as box-edging is always getting out of 

 order in a kitchen garden, substitute for 

 this a thin tile, one foot long and one inch 

 thick, and about six inches deep, scalloped 

 at the top, which may be purchased in 

 various patterns ; or a row of fine bricks, 

 laid at an angle, makes a good edging. 

 These, which are very inexpensive, and 

 last a long while, should be inserted half 

 their depth in the soil, and form a very 

 useful and ornamental division between the 

 walk and the border: a small movable 

 wooden step should be used whenever it 

 is necessary for the barrow to pass over 

 them. A broad grass-walk, also, down the 

 centre, or elsewhere in the kitchen garden 

 may be made to contribute much to the 

 beauty of it, by having rows of well-trainee 

 pyramidal pear-trees planted on each side 

 with standard rose-trees in the intervals 

 between the pears, and in a line about two 

 feet nearer than they are to the centre o 

 the walk ; wire arches, with roses ove 

 them, may in different places be thrown 

 across the gravel walks without at all inter 

 fering with the general purpose of the 

 garden, and with a very pleasing effect 

 Crocuses, narcissi, and daffodils near the 

 edging tiles will make the walks gay in th 

 spring. The piers of the walls also, with 

 out at all interfering with the fruit-trees 

 may have many pretty flowering shrubs 

 c., trained up them. 



Moles. 



The mole, "the little gentleman in th 

 black velvet coat " which was instrumenta 

 in causing the death of William III., an 

 was thus toasted by the recalcitrant Jaco 

 bites, does great damage at times t 

 meadows, grass lands, and gardens, bu 



is doubtful if the harm done to lawns 

 nd meadows is really serious. The hil- 

 >cks are unsightly, but they can be easily 

 ispersed over the grass, and the runs in 

 leir immediate vicinity trodden down. It 



in gardens, perhaps, that the mole does 

 enuine harm, when it burrows under 

 ansies, onions, &c., but it can do no 

 njury to potatoes and strong growing 

 rops. And the harm that it does in a 

 ^arden is counterbalanced to a certain 

 xtent by the fact that it eats wireworms 

 .nd large earthworms, the former of which 

 ,re injurious to many plants. These trouble- 

 ome intruders, it is said, may be driven 

 )ut of the garden by placing the green 

 eaves of the common elder in their sub- 

 erranean paths, for the smell of these is 

 >o offensive to them, that they will not 

 come near it ; or they may be poisoned by 

 Dlacing in their paths worms, which, for 

 some time, have been left in a place with 

 a small quantity of carbonate of barytes. 



Moles, Traps for. 



The old-fashioned mole trap is effective, 

 but it requires nice arrangement, and it 

 s only the professional mole-catcher that 

 can manage it with decided success. The 

 amateur gets puzzled in the endeavour to 

 prick for their runs, and this is an equal 

 objection to the iron trap sold by iron- 

 mongers for catching moles at jd. r 8d. 

 If the run can be found in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the hillock, the trap can 

 be set ; but even then great care must be 

 taken not to choke and destroy the run. 

 Some advise opening the run and firing a 

 piece of rag soaked in paraffin in order to 

 drive them away by the smell, which is 

 offensive to the moles. Others recommend 

 watching for them at about 9 a.m. and 

 3 p.m., the times when they are said to 

 heave the hillocks that they make, speak- 

 ing generally, and then to dig under the 

 place sharply and quickly with a fork, and 



