THE CULTIVATION OF HARDY FLOWERS. 



453 



ing virtue, and in the extermination of which I would gladly 

 join. Pheasants should not be encouraged ; they annihilate 

 Scarlet Anemones — flowers, leaves, and roots — if not protected 

 within wire netting, and destroy all the flowers of Fritillarias, 

 besides doing other mischief. If there are rabbits near, the 

 garden fence must be made absolutely proof against them, as 

 they always pick out the choicest plants to feed upon. The 

 long-tailed field-mice, which dig for Crocuses, are easily trapped, 

 and are harmless compared with their short- tailed brethren. 

 If your garden adjoins meadows, these marauders sometimes 

 invade it in swarms, and eat off the young growth of choice 

 plants, especially Campanulas, in spring. Luckily their move- 

 ments are generally followed by weasels, which as well as owls I 

 always welcome as friends, and as far more effective against these 

 field- voles than any traps are. Shrew-mice, as well as frogs and 

 toads, feed upon insects, and though they destroy some slug- 

 eating beetles, the balance of their work is on the side of good. 

 Small slugs, though they seldom are seen in winter, are more 

 destructive at that season than the most severe frosts, which are 

 often wrongly accused of being the cause why Delphiniums, 

 Pyrethrums, and such-like perennials are found dead when they 

 ought to be making a show of growth in spring. Two or three 

 slugs burying themselves in the crown of a herbaceous plant in 

 autumn eat off the young shoots as fast as they try to grow, 

 and are the ruin of many choice flowers in warm and wet 

 winters. The cultivation of some herbaceous plants would be 

 impossible with me if I did not constantly use precautions 

 against slugs. A mixture of coal-ashes, soot, and lime put 

 over the crowns of all palatable perennials early in autumn, and 

 renewed from time to time, is the best remedy ; finely broken 

 coke is pretty good, when the slugs are not already hidden in 

 the crown ; but every device that has ever been recommended, 

 besides every new scheme you can invent, should be perseveringly 

 put in practice against these worst of garden, enemies. A liberal 

 dressing of finely broken stone, in sharp angular fragments, as 

 described above, may be spread over the whole surface of the 

 border. It makes travelling disagreeable to soft-bodied vermin, 

 besides keeping the soil sweet and preventing it from caking. 

 But besides these visible pests, garden plants are subject to 

 many kinds of blight and disease, some of which are within 



