A VICARAGE GARDEN. 
205 
pilnlifera, the Roman nettle, a by no means common species, 
which I found in a Sussex kitchen garden and sowed some seed, 
with the result that I have one plant of this handsome nettle, 
four feet six in height, and spreading with many branches over 
a yard, the original plant being only three or four inches high. 
It is a very venomous nettle, and probably I shall not encourage 
it to spread. A great profusion of the Welsh poppy {Meconopsis 
camhrica) spreads far too freely. The scarce Scrophulayia vermlis 
has naturalized itself here. One year an extraordinary crop 
of very fine double - flowered Cardamine pratensis suddenly 
appeared, covering a small damp lawn, and it has enamelled that 
spot every spring ever since. Cowslips and oxlips were intro- 
duced years ago, and now require no cultivation ; so also with 
the true Cheddar pink kindly sent me by a Selbornian friend. 
In the same garden are several rare trees. Two tall fine 
tulip-trees {Liriodendron tulipifera) rear their shining green masses, 
covered with their handsome flowers of rich yellow and green, 
during two or three summer months. Owners of gardens and 
pleasure grounds should plant this noble tree more frequently, if 
not for themselves, at any rate with the hope that their grand- 
children may gather these rare flowers, for they only bloom 
when about forty years old. A young maiden-hair tree {Salis- 
huria adiantifolia) is now six feet high, and promises to be a full 
grown tree some day, having sent out six new branches this 
summer. Spiraeas of many kinds, but especially the very beau- 
tiful S. ariafolia, are a great ornament to the garden. The 
spindle tree, a native of our woods, is covered in late autumn 
with its rose-coloured berries. The curious Rosa Carolina has 
grown out of an old wall in my garden for a great many years. 
I will only add that if any Selbornian friends should happen 
to wish for such of these plants as I have mentioned as may 
be propagated easily, I shall be very happy to communicate 
some of the pleasure I have had myself. 
F. A. Malleson. 
Vicarage, Broughton-in-Furness. 
Do Insects G-row ? — The Rev. J. G. Wood, in his The Brook and its- 
Banks, .states very decidedly that they do not, but in reading White’s 
Selborne I come across the following : — “ After the servants are gone to bed, 
the kitchen hearth swarms with minute crickets, not so large as fleas, which 
must have been lately hatched,” &c., &c. If crickets are insects, which I fancy 
they are, what is the explanation of this seeming contradiction ? 
Rose Turle. 
[The apparent discrepancy is easily explained. Insects never grow after 
attaining their complete development ; but in insects with complete metamorphoses 
this means after developing their wings when they have quitted the pupa-case 
but in the case of crickets, and other insects with incomplete metamorphoses, the 
insects differ little in their various stages, except that after each moult they 
increase in size ; after the last but one, they develop wing-cases, and after the 
last they develop wings. No insect grows after the last moult, though the 
ephemeri do moult for the last time after acquiring wings. Where insects pass 
through a series of moults, like the crickets, they may be said to grow ; but even 
then, they only increase in size after each moult. — W. F. K.] 
