FlUIITS. 



[chap. 



are exceedingly cuiiniog in their generation ; but, h?ckilj for us 

 gardeners, they do not know how to distinguish between the 

 report of a gun loaded with powder and shot, and one that is only 

 loaded with powder. Very frequent firing with powder will alarm 

 them so that they will quit the spot, or, at least, be so timid as to 

 become comparatively little mischievous ; but there is what, to me, 

 is a recent discovery in this matter, and which I have hitherto 

 practised with complete effect. It has the great recommendation 

 of good inventions, perfect simplicity : having a bed of radishes 

 or other things that you wish to keep birds from coming upon, 

 stick a parcel of little pegs about a foot long into the sides of the 

 bed, at distances of about three yards apart, and then take a ball 

 of course white sewing cotton, tie the end of it to the top of one 

 of these little sticks, and then strain the cotton on to another, 

 fatening it round the top of every stick, and going in a zig-zag 

 across the bed. What the little picking and scratching devils 

 think of these threads I know not, but it keeps them off^ and that 

 is enough for our purpose. I imagine that it inspires them with 

 doubt, and as doubt has great influence upon all the human race, 

 why should it not have the same upon these timid and watchful 

 creatures ? 



£97. MICE. — Very troublesome creatures. They commit their 

 depredations by night, and must be well looked after. Brick 

 traps are the best things ; for as to poisoning them, you may 

 poison at the same time your cat or your dog. Great vigilance, 

 however, is required to keep down mice ; but it ought to be 

 resolutely done. 



298. RATS. — If the garden be near to a house or outbuildings, 

 and especially near to a farm-yard, where dogs and ferrets are not 

 pretty constantly in motion, the rats will be large sharers in the 

 finest of the fruit that the garden produces. On the walls, in the 

 melon-bed, even in the strawberry beds, they will take away the 

 prime of the dessert. They do but taste, indeed, of each, but 

 then they are guests that one does not like to eat with. Here is 

 absolutely no remedy other than dogs and ferrets. I have seen a 

 wall of grapes pretty nearly cleared by rats, some farm buildings 

 being at the backside of the walls : these nasty things must, thci C- 

 fore, be destroyed by one means or another. 



299. MOLES. — These cannot get into a garden with a wall 

 round it. If they come through or under the hedge, and make 



