174 



BUDS, BLOSSOMS, FRUITS. 



gardens of everything green above the ground. I did 

 not finally declare war against them till I caught them 

 in the act of stripping one of my Lincoln plum trees of 

 the fruit-buds, which they did in such a thorough manner 

 that nothing was left. I have ever since warred against 

 them, and I must see more of their good acts before I 

 can entertain a treaty of peace with the little rascals. — 

 E. B. Good, Pa. 



I have not observed depredations by the sparrows up 

 to date. In 1890, I lost, as the minimum estimate, 400 

 pounds of Duchess grapes, destroyed by robins ; on very 

 many of the vines the stems were stripped clean, on 

 othersthe berries were pecked, andrapid decay followed. 

 Last year, on about 100 vines of that variety near the 

 house, I succeeded in saving about 250 lbs. , with a vigorous 

 "spraying" of stone and lead. The nomenclature of 

 birds as applied to robins is perfect ; when the aforesaid 

 is not robbin' you of sleep by his screech at 4 o'clock 

 A. M., he is ri^/i^zw' you of fruit; and he should be stricken 

 from the roll of useful or song-birds. I do not say that 

 the English sparrow is not capable of harm ; I do say that 

 he has not harmed me, and I rather enjoy his pugnacious 

 presence. — Wm. H, Stevens, Chau/auqtui Co., N. Y. 



You would like to know what sparrows are good for. 

 I think they are worse than rats or mice. They daub 

 up everything in the barn ; they steal chicken-feed . They 

 are like the human foreigners ; they drive all other birds 

 off, tear up their nests and take their places. — William 

 Laverick, Cayuga Co., N. Y. 



M. Pelicot, a French author, in a book in defence of 

 the English sparrow deprecates the slaughter of the little 

 birds by gun or poison, and gives as a sure protection 

 for fruit-trees and garden crops the stringing of threads 

 of red wool, or of any striking color, on the branches of 

 trees or on small stakes close to the crop to be protected. 

 This simple device he claims to have tested himself, and 

 found to be a perfect protection from the sparrows. — 

 H. W. E. 



Plant-Dealers and Weeds. — A recent number of 

 The Ladies' home Journal contains a communication 

 protesting in strong terms against the reintroduction of 

 Calystegia pubescetis, and the floral editor severely cen- 

 sures plant-dealers for offerirg and recommending such 

 plants as calystegia, Apios tulierosa, etc. I also noticed in 

 Popular Gardening, some months ago, an item which 

 took similar ground with regard to the introduction of 

 Helianthiis divaricatus. And yet ("Oh, tell it not in 

 Gath ! Oh, publish it not in Askelon") the editor of the 

 journal, in same issue, recommended Celastrus scandens 

 as one of the best hardy climbers, and the December 

 American Garden recommends Ailantus glandulosus 

 and the rose-acacia I These are beautiful; but if I had 

 been asked to select, from among all the shrubs, vines 

 and trees I have seen under cultivation, one in each 

 class which I considered most weedy, most aggressive 

 and most difficult to keep within bounds, I know of none 

 which would come nearer to it than the three above 

 named. I have no doubt that some of the readers of 

 those journals will act upon their recommendations and 



thank the editors for them. But I ask of our editorial 

 friends, before they indulge in wholesale censure, to 

 stop and consider the situation. Referring to the par- 

 ticular plants to which they object in these items: I had 

 Calystegia pubescens fl. pi. in Massachusetts, 40 years 

 ago, and a most beautiful thing it was, climbing a bit of 

 twine to the top of our windows, and filled with its 

 double rose-blush flowers, which, unlike the single 

 varieties, kept open all day. When I came here I found 

 it on the place which I now occupy, under the name of 

 California rose, but it only grew a few inches or a foot 

 high. No ordinary coaxing would induce it to grow 

 over two feet, and it has long since disappeared. Last 

 spring I requested my friends in Massachusetts to send 

 me some roots, but they had considerable difficulty in 

 finding it, and finally got only a dozen for me. Now I 

 do not think these facts indicate that it is very weedy 

 in either place. Foreign lists also include a single form 

 of Calystegia pubescens. Calystegia sepium, also single, 

 has been a bad weed wherever I have seen it, and it is 

 possible that one of these has been confounded with 

 the double one by some writers. Apios tuberosa and 

 Helianthus divaricatus both grow wild in abundance 

 here, but I have never seen either of them in a well- 

 cultivated field, they being mostly confined to hedge- 

 rows and thickets. What constitutes a weed? "A 

 plant out of place. " Applying this definition, what will 

 wholly escape condemnation ? Take our common car- 

 rot: straying from cultivation, it has lost its thickened 

 root, which gave it its only value, but has lost none of 

 its vigorous top-growth or abundant seed-production; 

 and acres upon acres are annually appropriated by this 

 now vile weed, to the exclusion of valuable crops ; yet 

 no one protests because every seedsman offers carrot, 

 seed in his catalogue. On the other hand, perhaps it 

 would be hard to find a weed more generally detested 

 than our common purslane, and I certainly never tried 

 my hand on any other so difficult of extermination, but 

 many people relish it greatly for boiling as "greens." 

 But what have the public a right to expect from those 

 who make a business of selling plants or seeds? It is 

 useless to deny that there are a few in this trade, as in 

 all others, who value the "almighty dollar" more than 

 the interests of their customers, and willfully misrepre- 

 sent. I have no word of excuse for such, but they are 

 the exception. Neither do I approve of the more 

 general fault of exaggeration ; but this may be consid- 

 ered the general tendency of the times and pervades all 

 kinds of business. I well remember when the simple 

 word "superfine" indicated the highest grade of flour 

 on the market ; but a recent purchaser has besides 

 some other marks, XXXX to indicate its quality I When 

 a florist finds a plant which pleases him, and which he 

 knows will please his customers, have the public a right 

 to expect that he will search out all its precedents to 

 learn whether it may not be liable to objections in cer- 

 tain places?— Wm. F. Bassett, New Jersey. 



[Because exageration is a prevailing tendency is the 

 best of reasons why dealers in products be exact. — Ed.] 



