24 
TO DESTROY MICE IN THE FLOWER GARDEN. 
with a syringe will destroy them ; but if the insects have spread through the whole 
house, it is better to fumigate. This may be either done with a detached fumigator. 
fitted on a common pair of bellows, or merely 
with a pair of bellows and a flower pot, to con- 
tain fire and tobacco, with a hole in the side, at 
which to use the bellows. 
Schizanthus retusus, and other species, should be sown about the middle of 
the month. 
Tuberoses, about the end, should be planted in small pots filled with rich loam, 
placing a root shallow in each pot ; and then plunging the pots in a hot-bed or 
pine pit. 
During February, Mice are 
often very troublesome in the 
flower garden, particularly the 
short-tailed field-mouse ( Mus 
arvalis), which devours many of 
the bulbous roots. Perhaps no 
trap is more efficacious and sim- 
ple than one invented by Mr. 
Howden, gardener at Heath 
House, Staffordshire. It merely 
consists of a large flower-pot, 
inverted on a board or slate, and 
sunk in the ground nearly level with the 
bottom of the pot, and about two inches 
from the surface or entrance, is suspended 
on a crooked piece of wire a smooth wooden 
roller, like the casto of a bed-post; this 
the mouse will leap upon, and from thence 
be precipitated to the bottom, from whence 
it can never escape. The surface may be 
sprinkled with chaff or short straw, and a 
mixture of grass and clover seeds about the 
hole. The roller may be besmeared with 
lard, and dusted over with flour or oatmeal. 
In wet weather a rough tile may be set 
over the hole to keep it dry. 
surface. Opposite to the hole in the 
