May 18, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 
893 
before your Gooseberry bushes are defoliated. The loss of the 
foliage means worthless fruit and a crop of caterpillars next year.— 
W. J. Muephy, Clonmel. _ 
I AM pleased to record a break in the drought. On Monday, 
15th inst., we had a thunder shower of half an hour’s duration, in 
which O'lO inch fell. We have a very good set of Apples and Pears, 
Cherries and Plums. Blight of all kinds is very prevalent. We have 
already sprayed our trees three times, once when in bloom with clean 
water, next with softsoap and petroleum, and lastly with carbolic soap 
and quassia.— Robert Maher, Yattendon Court Gardens, JVewbury. 
NEW PANSIES. 
I HAVE recently had opportunities of inspecting the large collection 
of Pansies grown by Mr. W. Sydenham at Tamworth, on soil which 
suits them admirably—fresh loam on a newly broken up piece of 
pasture land, and the plants were strong and producing fine blooms. 
Some of these were seedlings raised by Mr. J. D. Stuart of Belfast, and 
other raisers, and several have not yet been sent out, but will be in 
the autumn should they maintain the promise at present held out of 
taking foremost rank. At the forthcoming great Midland meeting 
of the Midland Pansy Society at Tamworth a further opportunity will 
be offered of seeing them and many other new kinds, as raisers from 
Scotland, the North of Ireland, and other places will be present. 
The following notes taken at the end of April of new sorts at 
Tamworth may be of interest to many Pansy growers—viz., Emmie 
Stuart, pale yellow with carmine markings, large very solid blotch, and 
of fine form ; Mrs. Walter Fisher, white with rosy purple markings, 
solid blotch, and excellent form ; Harry Thring, a Miss French style of 
flower, very rich in colour, and of the finest form. Mrs. Chadwick and 
Andrew Allison are both promising. Dorothy Gladwin is an improved 
My Lady. Tamworth Yellow has been very good, rich in colour, 
with a large dark solid blotch. Sunlight is a pretty flower, and Mrs. 
Willie has a fine blotch and is a good all-round flower. Emily Renk, 
Thomas Garrett, and Annie Garrett are all very pleasing useful exhi¬ 
bition flowers. Andrew Frater is a Scotch variety, a great acquisition, 
the upper petals marked with rosy carmine, with large solid blotch, and 
medium pale yellow margin. Emmeline is a fine flower, top petals rich 
crimson tinted mulberry shade, with grand solid large blotch, with 
gold and rosy crimson markings. The Rev. J. Grossly and Mrs. B. Dick 
are very promising. William Adam, rich gold ground with crimson 
maroon marking, and large solid blotch ; Mrs. Thompson, and Mrs. 
Train are all acquisitions. Forbes’s Miss Jessie Campbell is rich in 
colour, and his Mrs. Street is a good flower with large solid blotch. 
William Watson is truly a grand flower in every way, a light ground 
flower with a superb blotch. William Scott is an improved Mrs. Scott, 
white self with large dark solid blotch. Mrs. William Sydenham is very 
rich shaded deep crimson violet in colour, with dark blotch and white 
markings, and very distinct. May Spence and Betsy Kelly are also 
very pretty. 
Of those already out, the following may be regarded as fair exhi¬ 
bition varieties, and very moderate in price—viz., Agnes Mormon, a 
fine light flower ; William Caldwell, Mrs. Lister, Donald Morrison, 
Mrs. Hugh Weir, John Lamont, Lord Bute, Louis Wierter, Thomas 
Hastie, Mrs. Grossart, Mrs. Henderson, Julia Goodfellow, Lieut. Mclsaac, 
Miss Helen Hunter, Mrs. C. L. Carnegie, John Coutts, Miss Hudson, 
Mrs. Patterson, Mrs. Fleming, Tom Travis, Weir’s Hugh, Mr. Maxwell, 
Mrs. Taylor, Mrs. A. Irvine (a grand white self, with an almost 
black large blotch), Maggie Pinder, May Hynd, Mrs. W. Dean, Agnes 
Mabel, David Rennie, Dusty, Royal Arthur (style of Niel McKay, good 
blotch), Kayii, William Ross, William Evitts, Mrs. Hastie, Mrs. Atkinson, 
Kate McArthur, Maggie A. Scott, Joe, Clandeboys, Robert Craw, Archie 
Buchanan, Niel McKay. From these amateurs may safely select for 
additions to collections, as well as for forming one.— William Dean. 
THE SCOUNDREL SPARROW—THINNING. 
In answer to Mr. Arnott, I cannot see the connection between want 
■of water and sparrows destroying Apple buds, for, as far as I can judge, 
they do not eat them, but simply pluck them off and let them fall. As 
a matter of fact a stream of open water runs through my grounds, and 
some of the buds I saw plucked off were actually falling into the water. 
We have a fine set of such Apple blossoms as were left, as well as of 
Pears, Plums, and wall fruit, with very little blister on the latter. Most 
of the crops will have to be thinned ; and really, if the sparrows had 
thinned the blossoms instead of absolutely stripping some trees and 
leaving others, good instead of harm would have been done this year. 
I remember that some good person or other, taking note of three 
successive operations on my Rose beds—thinning shoots, destroying 
grubs, and thinning buds—pointed out to me that if I left Nature alone 
the grubs would have done all this thinning for me. I requested him 
or her (the latter I fancy) to go and inspect certain Rose bids in 
another garden which had been left to the operations of Nature, and 
remarked that gardeners liked to do the thinning themselves. It was 
Mr. G. Paul, I think, who told me he once employed some women to 
thin the buds on some Rose plants for exhibition purposes. “ Look 
here,” said he, pulling off all the buds round the central one of a truss, 
“ I want you to take off all these.” They set to work with a will and 
left not a bud of any sort on the row I 
Mr. Arnott says he pleads guilty to harbouring the sparrow, which at 
present has not molested him. I prophesy that for him, too, “ a time 
will come.” It is only when the sparrow has been harboured for a long 
time, and has therefore increased beyond reason, that he becomes a 
plague. A neighbour of mine has done c^n illegal act. He put down a 
little poison for the sparrows, ani the next day piclreJ up on his own 
premises—doubtless many more died fuitheraway—450! lam thoroughly 
opposed to the use of poison in any way or for anything if it can 
possibly be avoided, and only menti.jn it to show that when sparrows 
have increased to such an extent they must be treated as vermin. 
—W. R. Raillem. 
Relative to the alleged depredations of “our birds,” what would we 
think of a person censuring, because it might be his coat had been torn, 
those who had saved his life. Whilst poking into the bloom truss 
to secure the snugly ensconsed caterpillar, the sparrow has been seen 
to drop a stray petal, and he is not only to be censured but he is to be 
utterly exterminated. How strange it is that the saying that “ the 
murderer secures the nearest cut to heaven” is not only justified, but it 
is equally true that those who wish to be evilly spoken of have only t» 
practise replacing evil with good tosucceel. Since reading the recent 
bird paragraphs I have been thinking you, or any of your representatives, 
might do good service by visiting and reporting on a few places where 
the two extremes are practised, and let the results declare which are the 
ways of wisdom. I enclose you a slip on which you will find my views 
more fully, and with or against, I would be glad if you would give us 
a few lines of criticism. Red spider I see has made an attack on the 
Gooseberries, and so far I regret that we have not had time to attend 
to it. 
Parent birds seek for their brool the best procurable food, but they 
will not fly half a mile for it if they can get it near at hand, and as a 
dog will eat grass for its good, so will birds devour green food if within 
their reach. For the protection of my one and a half acre of trees and 
fruit bushes, situated some 600 yards from the town, I have within the 
walls about twenty-five pairs of sparrows, and my Gooseberry bushes are 
never touched. As for sparrows eating the blooms I have as yet only 
heard of the performance. These are stern unattackable facts. During 
the first year after the serious frost previously referred to, I dusted my 
bushes with hellebore powder. Amid the shoals of dead caterpillars 
that lay under every bush, I discovered several dead sparrows which 
had evidently been killed by eating the poisoned pests, and so I had it 
proved conclusively that they did eat the Gooseberry caterpillar. I 
provide nesting places, and thus have birds so near my caterpillars and 
so far away from house morsels, that they eat the pest greedily ; but 
fruit crops being thereby secured, we must next draw on our ingenuity 
to prevent the birds taking more than their fair tithe, and this can be 
done with nets.—J. Witherspoon. 
[Our criticism will be brief. In some districts where sparrows 
abound it is a question of nets or no fruit if the birds are not otherwise 
dealt with. We have seen Gooseberry and Currant bushes ruined 
through being denuded of buds by sparrows when there were no 
caterpillars; at the same time we are always pleased to hear of cases 
where sparrows are so few, orderly, or well managed that they do more 
good than harm in gardens.] 
ANTIPODEAN APPLES—PACKING SCIONS. 
Your correspondent, Mr. W. J. Palmer, The Nurseries, Carleton 
Gore Road, Auckland, New Zealand, in his remarks on Antipodean 
Apples (page 371) kindly offers to send to me a few young trees of 
Northern Spy Apple on their own roots. I should be pleased to receive 
them, and if at the same time Mr. Palmer is inclined to send any scions 
of new Antipodean varieties I should feel a pleasure in delivering them 
to Mr. Barron at the R.H.S. Gardens, Chiswick.— Robert Maher, Ihe 
Gardens, Yattendon Court, Neiohury, Berhs. 
[We have from time to time received scions of fruit trees packed 
in various ways, for keeping them fresh during long journeys. Cherry 
scions from Australia, packed in slightly damp moss, then tightly 
enclosed in oiled silk, arrived in the best condition. They were buried 
in damp soil for a few days, as there was a slight suspicion of shrivel¬ 
ling. This freshened them, and all the varieties grew well when 
attached to the stocks. Oiled silk properly applied prevents the escape 
of moisture from the scions much better than any charcoal packing 
can do.] 
LONDON PURPLE AND GOOSEBERRY CATERPILLARS. 
For some ti.me past I have been troubled with the caterpillar upon 
my Gooseberry bushes, which threatened to destroy both fruit and leaves, 
and after trying various remedies to effect a cure I was compelled to 
resort to London purple—a preparation I have hitherto been very 
prejudiced against. Whenever I have used it before, it has burned the 
foliage of whatever I have tried it upon. Owing to this evil I had left 
off using it ; but reading the other day the method of mixing given 
by a Frenchman it led me to make a further trial, which turned out a 
success, one application clearing the bushes of all caterpillars. I have 
accordingly dressed all my bushes, and in the course of forty-eight hours 
had the satisfaction of not finding a single caterpillar alive. Those who 
fear its use owing to the arsenic remaining on the fruit, have only to wash 
the Gooseberries as they gather them, or give the bushes a good syringing 
