1 3 o MORE POT-POURRI 



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 sceptical 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 protection 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 ' 

 (171 Fleet Street, London) has a sentence on the pur- 

 chasing of fruit-trees which is so good I must copy it : 

 ' First look to the character and position of the vendors, 

 and deal with those who have reputations to maintain. 

 They cannot afford to sell inferior trees or, what is of vital 

 importance, distribute varieties under wrong names. It 

 is a very serious matter to grow fruit-trees for some 

 years, then when they bear find they are not the sorts 



