244 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ September 14, 1893. 
and King of Tompkin’a County. Mention of the last two reminds me 
how widely they differ in their adaptability to cordon culture. New 
Hawthornden, with Grenadier, Lord Suffield, Stirling Castle and others, 
make admirable cordons, but the King will not stoop to so modest a 
position. Cox’s Pomona and Baumann’s Red Winter Reinette display the 
most brilliant of colours. Two high-class dessert varieties which ought 
to be better known are Rosemary Russet and Egremont Russet. The 
former comes in with Sturmer and has delicious flavour, while the latter 
has soft yellow flesh of very agreeable quality. Worcester Pearmain is 
in magnificent condition. There never seems to be enough of this 
variety to meet the market demands, and 8s. a bushel is the tempting 
return which two well-known growers have received. Market men are 
taking this hint and planting extensively. Golden Spire, Queen Caroline, 
Lord Derby, M^re de Manage, and Washington form an excellent 
quintette to finish with, and all are finely represented. Of the last 
named, with its beautiful appearance and good flavour, there are some 
splendid pyramids and it also succeeds as a standard. 
Stocks—Manure and Weeds. 
There have been some complaints of the stocks not doing well this 
year, but, despite the drought, those at the Allington Nurseries are 
in splendid condition. The Nonesuch has done better than the English 
Paradise. There is a piece of 35,000 recently budded that forms a 
striking sight. The ground is well fed, A great deal more value is 
attached to cloth bits (not shoddy) than most people would give, and 
a far higher price is paid for it than the majority would be inclined 
to part with. It is a sustaining and lasting manure. As to weeds, 
Mr. Buss’s proud claim that a barrowload could not be found in the 
whole 100 acres was readily admitted. The land is thoroughly clean, 
and the whole place in admirable order. Good soil, kept free from 
weeds and judiciously fed, is one of the secrets of Mr. Bunyard’s extra¬ 
ordinary success.—W. P. W. 
[Mr. Bunyard has sent us very fine samples of Kentish fruit, with 
others of the same varieties grown under less favourable conditions. 
The former may be taken to represent profit in fruit culture, the latter 
the reverse—the produce it may be expected of exhausted trees that 
cumber the ground.] 
SUBURBAN SPARROWS. 
“Davies Duffryn” (page 214), wishes to know how sparrows behave 
in the suburbs of towns. The cheeky birds in my garden are quite 
opposite to those in Mr. J. Witherspoon’s. His sparrows appear to be 
pets, but mine are decidedly pests. They eat, or pull in pieces, what 
they ought to leave, and leave untouched what they ought to eat. They 
appear disgusted with caterpillars, and to have no taste for aphides. 
They attack yellow Crocuses voraciously, and either do not like to sec 
two flowers open at the same time, or prefer seeing the petals littered 
on the path. It is the same with Primroses, which the scavengers will 
not let alone. 
They play havoc with the buds of fruit trees of all kinds—“ a worm 
in them 1 ’’ say their sentimental friends. So far as I am concerned it 
might as well stop there as the buds be torn off ; but I do not believe 
in this worm theory. It seems a handy refuge for the destitute who 
do not know what else to say. Were there worms in the Crocus petals ? 
I bought four dozen young fruit bushes about ten years ago, and 
have certainly not had 4 lbs. of fruit from them during the whole of 
that time. If the scoundrel sparrows do not tear off all the buds in 
spring they take all the fruit that appears long before it is ready for use. 
It is wrong and cruel to shoot the birds, say their warm defenders, and 
fruit should be netted against them. Then is it not wrong to deprive 
them of food and starve them to death ? I should prefer to be shot 
quickly than starved to death slowly ; but we cannot shoot in small 
suburban gardens, where the sparrows appear to be alike masters and 
scourges. 
They take away filth, says their champion. Are flowers and fruit 
filth ? These they assuredly take or destroy, and they do not interfere 
with caterpillars and insect pests. Mr. Witherspoon is no doubt a very 
clever man, but he clearly does not understand suburban sparrows, and 
if he had them to deal with I suspect he would not care in the least 
who diminished their numbers. 
There are also, as I know, thousands of sparrows not of the caterpillar¬ 
eating kind in the country, but they devour Peas and grain voraciously, 
and strip fruit trees and bushes of buds. They are an intolerable pest 
in many places, and a price has to be put on their heads. Even bird 
lovers and humanitarians who see this depredation of the shoals of 
birds raise no protest against the practice any more than they would 
against killing rats and mice if they did half so much mischief as 
the sparrows. 
If these could be evenly distributed all over the country there might 
be less to complain about, but I am inclined even then to imagine that 
a number could be disposed of with advantage. I have read somewhere 
of a happy time when every rood of land maintained its man, and am 
inclined to think that one sparrow to the rood would be ample, and that 
one could be very well dispensed with. My unfortunate share is 
approximately about 200 to that extent of land, and I should be well 
pleased for Mr. Witherspoon to have the whole of them if I were sure 
they would change their tactics with the change of scene, or under the 
good influence of his well-behaved pets, for I do not wish him any harm. 
—An Afflicted Suburban Amateur. 
The Weather in London.— Fine dry weather still continues in 
the metropolis and the south generally. Saturday last, however, was 
decidedly cooler than it had hitherto been for several days. Since then 
the nights have been rather cold. At the time of going to press it 
is bright and clear. 
- Durham, Northumberland, and Newcastle Horti¬ 
cultural Society. — We are informed that the officials of this 
Society sent a beautiful wreath on the occasion of the funeral of Lady 
Armstrong, at Rothbury, on the 6th inst. Mr. Elliot and Mr. Bertrand,. 
Lord Armstrong’s head gardeners at Jesmond and Cragside respectively, 
were among the chief mourners. Lady Armstrong took great interest 
in gardening, and possessed considerable knowledge of plants and their 
culture. 
- Honours to a French Horticulturist.—W e understand 
that Mons. Edouard Andr6 has been appointed as Chevalier of the 
Order of Leopold. M. Andrd is a landscape gardener, a traveller, 
a botanist, a Professor in the National School of Horticulture at 
Versailles, and one of the editors of the “ Revue Horticole.” 
-Rev. Leonard Blomefield.—T he death of the Rev. Leonard! 
Blomefield, who was the oldest Fellow of the Linnean Society, took 
place recently. Mr. Blomefield was in bygone days known as Leonard 
Jenyns, he having assumed the name Blomefield at a later period, 
Mr. Blomefield, who was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society so far 
back as 1822, was ninety years of ago at the time of his death. 
- An International Exposition, it is stated, will be held 
in the city of San Francisco, State of California, beginning on January 
1st, 1894, and continuing for six months. The classification will 
include Department A—Agriculture, food and its accessories, forestry 
and forest products, agricultural machinery and appliances, horti¬ 
culture, viticulture, and pomology, Mr. M. H. de Young is the 
Director-General and President of the Executive Committee, 
- Cheap Apples. —Fruit is said to be so plentiful in Lincoln¬ 
shire this year that growers are experiencing the greatest difficulty in 
disposing of the produce of their orchards. The markets are so glutted, 
especially with Apples, that the sales in many cases have not realised 
sufficient to pay the expenses of sending to market. Plums also have 
been a bad trade, and those that were damaged at all by wasps have 
been practically rendered unsaleable. The average price of Apples is 
about 2d. per stone. This, however, applies to inferior fruit ; the better 
samples realising fair prices. 
- Pansies. —Is it generally known how rapidly Pansies repro¬ 
duce ? I broke up an old bed a fortnight ago, and made a new one with 
the seedlings I found in it. Some of these are already in flower, and 
the bed promises in another fortnight to be a mass of bloom. Of course 
they have been having as much water and almost as much sun as they 
could possibly require.—A. C. 
- Cheap Muscat Grapes.—I t is stated on good authority that 
fair samples of Cannon Hall Muscat Grapes were sold in a fruiterer’s 
shop in the metropolis the other day for 8d. per pound. The Grapes 
had been grown in Jersey, and although the bunches “ were rather 
small,” it is said that the berries were large, “ the colour fairly good, 
and the flavour well developed.” 
- Improving the Quality of Fruits.—N othing is more 
common, in conventions of fruit growers, than to hear one man say 
of a certain variety that it is tasteless and worthless, while the follow¬ 
ing speaker may laud that variety as one of the highest flavour and 
best quality. The truth is, says “ Meehan’s Monthly,” that ripening 
fruit is an art, which is only to be learned by intelligent experience. 
Some kinds of fruit require to be gathered a little before ripe, in order 
to produce the highest flavour, while others require to be dead ripe on 
the trees before they are gathered. Again, to get the best quality some 
require to be ripened in a dark and cool place, while others require a 
warmer and lighter situation. All this has to be learnt by experience, 
and one of the pleasures of amateur gardening is to study these points, 
with the view of the production of the best class of fruit. 
