426 



SCIENCE OF GARDENING. 



Part II. 



every board on each side of the wall, so as the board may be projected or thrown back 

 to rest on the top of the wall at pleasure. 



2217. Protecting by transparent covers is effected with small plants by placing over 

 them a hand or bell glass ; with larger ones, by other portable bell or curvilinear shaped 

 portable cases, and with considerable shrubs or fruit-trees by moveable cases or glass 

 tents. {Jig. 226. ) For culinary seedlings, herbaceous plants in pots, and young trees 

 of delicate sorts, timber frames with glass covers are used ; or the plants are placed in 

 pits dug in the ground, over which sashes are laid. In whichever way transparent 

 protections are used, they must be partially or wholly removed, or otherwise opened, in 

 fine weather, to admit a change of atmosphere, and a free current to dry up and destroy 

 the appearance of what are called damps ; and also to harden and prepare such plants for 

 the removal of the covers. 



2218. Transparent screens are made by placing sashes not in use on edge, and thus 

 forming as it were glass walls or partitions, which, applied to green-house plants, set 

 out in the open air, have the effect of producing shelter without shade, and at the same 

 time of admitting the fall of rain on the plants. Many plants receive sufficient pro - 

 tection by being placed near to the south side of a wall, hot-house, or other building, 

 or under a tree or bush during the winter months, without any covering or guard whatever. 



Sect. VIII. Operations relative to Vermin, Diseases, and other Casualties of Plants and 



Gardens. 



2219. The casualties of gardens, from human enemies, vermin, and diseases, are nu- 

 merous, and have given rise to a variety of devices and operations. 



SuBSECT. 1. Of the Kinds of Vermin most injurious to Gardens. 



2220. The human enemies of gardens are such as break in secretly to steal clandestinely, 

 to injure, or destroy ; or, under the guise of regular operators, pilfer and otherwise act as 

 enemies to the garden and its proprietor. Tlie operations for deterring and detecting 

 thieves are, watching by men, by dogs, by peacocks and turkeys allowed to sit on high 

 trees, and by ducks. The dog is most effectual ; but peacocks and ducks are known to 

 scream or cry on the approach of strangers in the night-time ; as neither of these birds 

 scratch the earth, they are in some descriptions of gardens, especially nurseries, more 

 useful in picking up insects than they are injurious. Man-traps, spring-guns, and 

 alarums, are also set to detect and deter, and the notices of these dreadful instruments, as 

 well as the fear of the law, have considerable influence. 



2221. The brute vermin which injure gardens and garden-productions may be classed 

 as quadrupeds, birds, insects, and worms. 



2222. Of the quadriqied enemies, the larger are excluded by fences, and the smaller 

 species which are most injurious are, the hare, mouse, mole, and rat. Where the hare 

 or other similar animals are not excluded by a sufficient fence, they must be caught by 

 traps or shot. Or where the hare is chiefly injurious by barking trees, smearing the 

 stem with cow-dung, ordure, tar, or coal-liquor will deter them. Mice may be kept 

 under by the different domestic traps, or the gardeners' or fourth figure trap, or by an 

 earthen vessel with a naiTOw mouth and bellied out within, sunk in the earth, and a few 

 leaves or straws placed over it, as is common about Paris. But two or three cats kept 

 in a garden, are the most effectual destroyers of mice. The mode of setting the common 

 moletrap is familiar to every countryman ; the true mode however of getting rid of 

 moles, and one most readily put into execution is, to dig up their nests in spring. 

 The heaps of earth over these nests are easily known from common mole-heaps by their 

 size. Field rats are destroyed by dogs ; and house rats, where they are troublesome, 

 by poison and other well known means. 



2223. The feathered enemies of gardens are numerous but not very destructive, excepting 

 in very severe winters, when they eat the buds, and during the coming up of small seeds. 

 To preserve ripening or germinating seeds where birds are numerous, they must either 

 be covered with a net or watched by man. Scares of different sorts, as mock men or cats, 

 mock hawks or eagles, miniature windmills, rattles, lines with feathers, the smell of tar 

 and bruised gunpowder, &c. are of some use ; but the chief dependence must be,on watch- 

 ing, nets, and the frequent use of the gun. P. Musgrave, a practical gardener, who has 

 treated the subject of vermin in a scientific manner, has the following observation on this 

 subject. " It is a too common practice amongst gardeners to destroy without discrimination, 

 the birds which frequent their gardens. This, in my opinion, is bad policy. Although 

 I am aware some of the kinds of birds are great enemies to some crops, it certainly must 

 be a trifling crop indeed, that will not bear the expense of a person to watch it, or a 

 net to protect it, until it is out of danger: thus the gardener preserves the birds to per- 

 form a double office, — eating up the vermin from the trees, and the seeds of weeds and 

 eggs of insects from the ground. I have often stood and observed the male bird, while 

 the female was sitting upon her eggs or her young, fly to the spot with his bill full of 

 caterpillars to feed his mate, or young ; and when the young ones become so strong as to 



