JANUARY. 



13 



eatable fruits. I say, Catch, 'era and kill 'em. It will not take much time if you do it 

 properly. Look over tho trees regularly and carefully, and kill them while they are small 

 and before they have dispersed. The finger and thumb is the best trap." 



" Ants, again, do much damage to some people, and various means of getting rid of 

 them are prescribed in books. I say again, Catch 'em and kill 'em. That is the best way. 

 They came in great numbers to my house ; so I found their runs, and took a hammer, and 

 placed a mat to kneel on where they crossed the hard path, and when I went home to dinner 

 at twelve o'clock I spent some time daily killing every ant that crossed the path at that time, 

 and kept account of all I killed. One day I killed 70, another 80, another 90, and so on. 

 They could not breed so fast as that — they must diminish ; and when they changed their 

 runs, as they often did, I changed my -place of lolling them. But I found they were as 

 clever as I was : and that is not enough — they were cleverer than I was. I found that no 

 more ants came, and I supposed they were destroyed. But I was mistaken. They had 

 discovered that it was unsafe to travel at noon, and so they kept at home from twelve to one. 

 The wall is an old one and full of holes, where I suppose they breed ; but it is not mine, or 

 I would soon have them dislodged. But I was obliged to shift my time of watching for 

 them, and so managed to get them under at last." 



" Did you ever try guano f" I asked. 



" No, I never did. I have heard of its effects." And then he made me describe 

 minutely what I had done with it and what it had done with them. And then he resumed, 

 " But it does not kill except a very few. It only drives them from one place to another 

 that perhaps may be worse. My plan is best after all. It takes much less of time and 

 trouble than people imagine, if they set about it in earnest. And it is certain and effectual." 



The above is the substance of his remarks, and in many instances given in his own 

 words. The dry humour with which they were interspersed I cannot convey. Perhaps an 

 anecdote may help. At my instance he had admitted a little girl, the daughter of my 

 landlady, with my servant to see the gardens. This child, doubtless instructed by her 

 mother, on leaving thanked Mr. Weaver for his kindness, and. presented him gravely with 

 a sixpence. Mr. Weaver, much amused, said, "No, thank you, my dear, I don't want this. I 

 am a very rich man. I have as many sixpences in my pocket as Queen Victoria has in hers.' 

 And the puzzled and deferential look of the child told how great a man he was in her eyes. 



Whether his plan would generally answer with wasps I cannot say. I should doubt it, 

 for the wasp is not an intelligent insect. But with the others I have not the same doubts, 

 and his garden was an instance of its efficacy. The Gooseberry caterpillar has been peculiarly 

 destructive this year. And though a space of not more than twenty yards divides the War- 

 den's from a market garden not half the size, in the latter I had noticed the Gooseberry and 

 Currant bushes with their fruit still hanging and not a leaf on any of them ; while on those 

 under Mr. Weaver's treatment not a leaf was missing. And though I believe the system 

 would be more perfect by being carried back to the origin of the evil, in wasps and ants bv 

 searching for and destroying the nests, and in the Gooseberry 

 caterpillar by paring and binning the earth under the bushes 

 in January, yet I confess I went away much impressed with 

 the sound practical wisdom of the motto, Catch 'em and kill 'em. 

 Alford Rectory. Geokge Jeans. 



The Patent Hydrostatic Floweu-Pot. — Messrs. Brown 

 and May, of the North Wilts Foundry, Devizes, have sent us 

 a drawing and description of their new patent garden pot, 

 which is of the ordinary form as to shape, but manufactured 

 with one or more hollow rims or reservoirs running round 

 the outside, which, being filled with water when required, 

 keeps the material of the pot constantly moist, and conse- 

 quently prevents those extremes of dryness to which, by 

 exposure to a dry air or the sun, the old form of pot was 

 liable, and through which hundreds of tender plants have 

 either died annually or have become injured. Growers of 

 valuable, and particularly of those fine hair- rooted plants, 

 which suffer most by the abstraction of the moisture from 

 their balls of earth by evaporation through the sides of the 

 pots, will be glad to give this pot a trial which we think its 

 merits deserve ; as will also growers of other classes of plants 

 and fruit trees. To amateurs, having greenhouse or orchard- 

 house, the invention will be valuable, as relieving them from 

 that close attention to the requirements of their plants which 

 was necessary with the old form of pot. 



