THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 



7 



Cu-d be said to " mope, >*i, C u we are affection ately 



_T~ibeiim subject to necessary and highly proper 



J^^SjoSer^nees,) Philomel, recognising no such 



^'WiUfiYe* ^ ^ unrestrained gaiety of spirit ; 



_i»Il the expressive language which music alone 



fenpily convey, and liberty alone inspire - the 



hi heart, the rapture of his soul. J his is 



j~~Sip, if you please. But as we are pledged not to 



r*"2|L let us travel onward. 



iBuStfto keep your nightingales in good health, and 

 JZrfo\ withal, be careful to provide them with fresh, 

 Swater, every morning,— so that they may take their 

 ST regularly. When your birds are tame, and used 

 LkL waited on, you may open the door at the back of 

 * a^ ^nd hang thereon a square mahogany bath, 

 ^^' ' " course, a size larger than the one I 



^-Bunended for canaries. Into this they will jump ; 

 JTHo thorough lv will they disguise themselves by their 

 SaHnr*. that recognition would be impossible. They 

 will WB*A***e little time in this aquatic diversion ; and 

 wbentired, they will withdraw. Some considerable 

 period will then be occupied in arranging their feathers, 

 ind completing their toilet. This done, they will com- 

 singing merrily. 



All these little minidice require to be dwelt upon ; for 



__ _£h delicate attentions, as I have hinted at, be 

 paid to your birds, and unless they see your delight 

 £|nfjf*« in studying their happiness, that cruel demon — 

 « jealou " will destroy all their serenity of mind. I 

 hive had' so many opportunities for verifying this, that I 



*k oracularly. Nor is it to be wondered at, that 

 birds of Auch extraordinary vocal powers should be so 

 "toothy," — so alive to every slight. Accustomed as 

 Ibey are to rule the majesty of night, and hold the 

 feathered race spell-bound by their nocturnal melody, it 



no more than natural that they should like to have 

 Mr supremacy duly acknowledged in the day-time also. 



If you hang them out of doors, let it be in some snug 

 corner, over- anhed by a widely-spreading tree. Shel- 

 tered from observation — these birds love retirement, and 

 rfmn the vulgar gaze — they will, towards evening, treat 

 you to some lovely music. It is, however, advisable to 

 take them in-doors before dusk, — lest, hearing their 

 strains taken up, and repeated by their brethren in a 

 state of freedom, they should pine for liberty, grow 

 solky, refuse their food — and die. 



The nightingale revels in a treat of ants* eggs ; and is 

 remarkably fond of elderberries. I should, therefore, 

 recommend one or two of these trees being planted in 

 your garden. They grow rapidly, and bear freely. As, 

 however, they are decided enemies to all other trees, and 

 carry pestilence in their wake — plant them in an out-of- 

 the-way corner, where nothing else will grow. A 

 nightingale is also very fond of flies. He will take them 

 eagerly from between your thumb and finger, and 

 •wallow them, one after the other, by the dozen. And 

 here let me give my readers a caution. 



In the summer season, when flies haunt us, and 

 render our lives burdensome — this is the case very 

 frequently in my locality — it is a common practice to 

 kill them with a mixture of Quassia-root and sugar ; 

 the former made into a decoction with boiling water, 

 the latter being added by way of a lure. The effect of 

 the Quassia is first to stupify them and then to kill 

 them. They sip it cautiously, and afterwards decamp, 

 to die more at their leisure. Now for the evil of this. 

 Your nightingales, ever on the look-out to capture as 

 many flies as they can outwit, pounce on every one of 

 these inebriated victims that blindly falls in their reach ; 

 and when swallowed, the poison is imbibed at one and 

 the same time. I once lost two splendid birds in this 

 way, and have never forgiven myself for my culpable 

 felly. It will, however, be some reparation, if by this 

 warning I prevent any further mischief. Now that 

 the " Fly papers* are invented — and fatal engines of 

 destruction they are — Quassia may be altogether 

 dispensed with ; though, let me add, the poor flies 

 undergo, when chained to these resinous papers, agonies 

 indescribable. The tortures of m the Inquisition " could 

 hardly be greater. Cicero says — " Cavendum est, ne 

 major pcena quam culp% sit." I hardly think the 

 inventor of the " Fly papers " ever studied this rhetoric. 

 With him, doubtless, " Ignorance is bliss ;' 9 and he 

 would think it " folly to be wise," under the circum- 

 stances. William Kidd. New-road* Hammersmith* 



partially closed, being elastic, but which the insect 

 from time to time pushes open, in order to discharge its 

 excrement ; the case is rather narrowed at the mouth, 

 so that the larva, although it protrudes the anterior part 

 of the body with the greatest facility, is not able with- 

 out difficulty to draw itself entirely out of its case, 

 owing to the middle segments of its body being more 

 dilated, as well as to the strong muscular power of the 

 prolegs at the end of the body, which have the hooks 

 set on so as to prevent the insect being forcibly pulled 

 out of its case. The caterpillar is of a pale dirty fleshy- 

 brown colour, the head is small and black, the upper 

 surface of the first segment, behind the head, is black, 

 horny, and shining, having a slender pale line down the 

 middle; the sides are fleshy- coloured, with a small black 

 dot ; the second segment has a small double black 

 triangular spot near its hinder margin above, and a 

 small black dot on each side above the legs, as is also 

 the case with the third segment ; the following seg- 

 ments are fleshy, destitute of transverse rows of reflexed 

 hooks, the sixth, seventh, and eighth having on the 

 under side a pair of small tubercles, armed with very 

 minute hooks, serving as prolegs ; the terminal seg- 

 ment of the body is covered by a black scaly patch, and 

 its underside armed with a pair of prolegs. When the 

 caterpillar wishes to change its position it protrudes the 

 front part of its body, and then advances forwards by 

 means of the six feet attached to the segments following 

 the head. On the slightest alarm, however, it instantly 

 withdraws into its case, the mouth of which is brought 

 into contact with the surface of the leaf, standing 

 upright at right angles, its general position when 

 walking being more oblique, 'When it has fixed 

 upon a spot to commence feeding, it does not, like 

 most other case-bearing laivw, gnaw the edge of the 

 leaf, but carefully forms a circular orifice in the cuticle 

 of the leaf (generally the lower one, as the insect prefers 

 the underside of the leaf for its ordinary abode) ; its in- 



swarmed to such a singular extent. This periodical 

 development of particular species of insects, to 

 an extraordinary degree, is one of the many pheno- 

 mena of insect life which require investigation. In 

 the present instance we can only conjecture that the 

 deposition of eggs by the female moths was in some 

 way or other prevented, or that the eggs were pre- 

 vented from hatching ; or, lastly, that if hatched, the 

 young larvae were in some manner or other destroyed 

 as soon as hatched ; the solution of these suggestions 

 can, of course, be only obtained by continued investiga- 

 tion of the habits of the species. 



As the cases are very conspicuous, vast numbers may 

 be destroyed, if again found similarly numerous, by 

 employing children to hand-pick the trees. /. 0. W. 





ENTOMOLOGY. 



The Large Pea* Teee Aittages. 



Mt attention was directed, at the end of May, 1850, 

 to the state of several Pear trees trained against a wall, 

 facing the ea^ in the gardens of the Horticultural 

 Society, at Chiswick, which at that time were deplorably 

 infested by myriads of small caterpillars, each enclosed 

 in a blackish nearly cylindrical moveable case, although 

 nothing of the kind had been observed in former 

 •fcasons. The leaves exhibited large brown patches 

 wheresoever they were attacked by the insects, and it 

 **» easy to ascertain in what manner this effect had 

 been produced, as well as to be convinced that were the 

 frees to be subject to similar attacks in subsequent 

 **sons, they would certainly be thereby destroyed, the 

 <*acoloured parts of the leaves being unable to pel 

 their proper functions. 



The eases formed by these caterpillars when full- 

 pown, are nearly cylindrical, about half an inch in 

 ■ength, and of a diameter sufficient to enclose the bodies i „ a ~ n l ar gement 



orm 



stinct instructing it not to bite entirely through the 

 leaf, but only through the surface on which it has taken 

 its place ; it then slightly attaches the mouth of its case 

 to the edges of the orifices it has made in the cuticle, and 

 commences feeding upon the parenchyme alone ; it is 

 thus enabled by degrees to introduce its head and the 

 fore segments of the body into the cavity thus made be- 

 tween the two surfaces of the leaf, and thus we find the 

 habits of the ordinary leaf-mining caterpillars (which 

 are entirely enclosed between the two surfaces of the 

 leaf), combined with the external wandering habits of 

 the majority of caterpillars, a peculiarity possessed, so 

 far as I am aware, by no other lepidopterous larva. 

 When thus fixed, the larva mines the leaf all round the 

 spot where it has fixed its case, to the diameter of 

 half-an-inch or rather more ; in fact it protrudes 

 the head and front of the body out of its case, as far as 

 it can, leaving the hind part, however, within the case, 

 so as to make good its retreat, when necessary. When 

 it has consumed a circular patch of parenchyme in this 

 manner, it withdraws itself into the case, detaches the 

 mouth from the circular orifice, and crawls off to a 

 distance sufficient to enable it to perform the same opera- 

 tion in another part of the leaf, the blisters thus formed 

 generally becoming confluent at the edges. 



When the insect has acquired its full size, it leaves the 

 leaf, to fasten the mouth of its case to the trunk of the 

 tree, in some sheltered situation, and there undergoes 

 its transformations, the moth making its appearance in 

 the middle of July following. Singular as it may appear, 

 this moth is one of our rarest micro-lepidoptera, and 

 the specimens which I reared proved acceptable to most 

 of our entomologists. It proves to be the Astyages (or 

 Coleophora) Hemerobiella ; its body and fore wings are 

 of a greyish white colour, varied with very minute black 

 specks, having an indistinct spot considerably beyond the 

 middle of the fore wings ; the hind wings are of a browner 

 tint, and the hind legs are very hairy ; it measures rather 

 more than half-an-inch in the expansion of the fore 



wings. 



Anxious to clear up several points in the history of 

 this interesting insect, such as the mode of formation 



*nd circular, out of which from time to time the 

 ^tfrpillar protrudes its head and the fore segments 



Yj and the upper or hinder extremity, which is 



Gardens towards the end of the present month of May, 

 and was surprised to find scarcely a single specimen of 

 the larvae noon the trees, where last year they had 



Home Correspondence. 



The Trentham Machine for Destroying Weeds by thz 

 distribution of Hot Water and Salt.— I have anticipated 

 the issue of the Gardeners 1 Chronicle for the last two or 

 three 1 weeks with much interest, thinking that some 

 article or articles might appear amongst the " Home 

 Correspondence" commenting upon this very original 

 piece of economy. It may be deemed presumption on 

 my part to differ with you on a subject upon which the 

 heavy artillery of a leading article has already fulmi- 

 nated (and it may be that you have in store a reserved 

 battery for the unlucky wight who shall question the 

 merits of the machine — be it m) ; but do me the favour 

 to believe that no discourtesy is intended, and that what 

 I say upon the matter is in perfect good feeling, and 

 dictated only by a regard for the holy and beautiful 

 principle of truth. " Magna est Veritas et prevalebit." 

 Premising thus much, I will only say that, having given 

 the subject the most deliberate consideration, I have 

 come to the conclusion that, when all the contingencies 

 are calculated, there can be little economy, and that 

 the little there may be is of that kind which no really 

 philanthropic man of fortune would care to have exer- 

 cised for him— a paltry saving of a sum of 80Z. a year, 

 to throw out of employment a few poor boys, old men, 

 and women, in a most populous district, where their only 

 ultimatum is the union workhouse, to which the wealthy 

 proprietor must pay his quota ; or the prison, to which 

 idleness is the high road. I envy not the man who 

 lives but for himself, and who would build up his own 

 reputation with cash (not trash) "wrung from the hard 

 hands of peasants:' When we think how small an 

 amount 807. per annum is, and how limited a sum it 

 would be thought in the purchase of a horse, a picture, 

 or an article of vertu, and put it into the balance with 

 the moral good it must do, and the social happiness it 

 must effect, in employing the poor, will any liberal or 

 well-regulated mind say that such an invention is in 

 accordance with the age, or at all worthy of the enlight- 

 ened and high-minded spirit in which the Exhibition of 

 1851 has been conceived and carried out I think that 

 gardeners have a duty to perform to their labourers, 

 as well as their employers, and while 1 would scrupu- 

 lously insist upon the employed doing justice to their 

 master, I should at the Bame time endeavour to make 

 them feel that the nobleman or gentleman for whom 

 they worked did not regard them merely as a burden 

 from which he would be free. Allow me, through the 

 medium of your columns, to ask Mr. Fleming the fol- 

 lowing questions :— Has he not had more machines 

 than one ! Was not the first one too expensive * 

 and what did machine No. 2 cost ? Has he not 

 killed his Box-edgings to some extent in the ap- 

 plication ? It is admitted that the machine must 

 not go near the edges, a part of the walk where the 

 weeds always grow in the proportion of three to one 

 with the centres. The happy accident of the man 

 " who happened to be at work w near the spot to help 

 the boy, may be very well at Trentham, but in other 

 places the men may be fewer and "far between" 

 (rather awkward this). Mem. : 1 man is equal to 3 

 boys' wages per diem— thus, 1 man at Is. 6tf., equal 

 3 boys at 6d., and each boy will weed as much as the 

 man. The machine costs nothing, coal costs nothing, 

 salt nothing,' and the thousands of gallons of water 

 which deposit half an inch thickness of salt is raised 

 without labour, or if not so, how is it ? The recom- 

 mendation to place ridges of sand to protect the edges 

 appears to me most absurd — clay would be more appro- 

 priate. The water would trickle through directly, and 

 the laying down this, and taking up, is no small labour, 

 and must leave the walks in a * pretty pickle." 

 luxuriant Dandelions must imply a state of things wide 

 of the economic point to begin with, and the dead roots 

 washed to the sides of the walks by the rain (and, of 

 course, left there on account of the expense), must have 

 rather an odd effect ; perhaps it is picturesque, and— but 



1 fear I have got into hot water, and shall be pickled. 

 Henry Bailey, Nunettam-pari, Oxford. 



Asparagus. — I have six beds of Asparagus, which hare 

 been planted, I should say, 30 years, and perhaps more. 

 The plants are not spread regularly over the beds. In 

 autumn last I raked all the soil off the plants into the 

 alleys, covered them with good rotten manure about 



2 inches thick, and on this replaced the soil to about the 

 same thickness out of the alleys. This spring I applied 

 a moderate coating of salt, and I must say that they 

 have succeeded satisfactorily. My employer desires me 

 to cut (to use his own words), u all before me ;" but this 

 I have objected to, and for the following reason : some 

 of the plants are pushing weakly, as is the case in every 

 bed of Asparagus, and by cutting the weaker one year, 

 it is my opinion they will be weaker still the following 



The 



