May 1 , 1890. ] 
JOURXAL OF HORTTCULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
8G5 
demand for sparrows the T?ritish supply would soon be exhausted. To 
begin, make some arrangement with a London pie shop to take the 
sparrows. They might be sent ready dressed, which is a very simple and 
easy matter. A conspicuous card asking customers to “try sparrow pie” 
would soon work wonders and cause other shops to demand sparrows. 
Then when once there is a demand for them, and money to be made in 
supplying that demand, sparrows will begin to have a bad time of it. 
It is no use trying to exterminate them single-handed, the stoutest 
heart would soon faint with “ all work and no pay,” but when they 
are worth so much per score and the price pays to catch them, the case 
is quite different, then there will be no lack of catchers. 
To capture sparrows I know of no plan to equal putting up boxes in 
the trees or gable ends of buildings, with a perch in front of a little round 
hole. In summer they will nest in these boxes and roost in them in 
winter. Over these holes trap wires can be arranged, so that birds may 
enter but not get out again. These wires should be so contrived that 
they may be fixed securely, so that the birds may go in and out freely 
until sufficient are using the boxes to make a good haul to fill an order. 
When nesting leave the old nest, other birds will quickly take to it; in 
fact no other bird so readily takes to or appropriates another’s nest. 
Another way to take sparrows is by mean-i of a net stretched on a 
light square frame, with a lot of “ pockets ” in the net, i.e.—baggy places 
in the net for the birds to drop in ; this is fixed to a light pole, and is 
taken at night, and “ clapped” on a stack side, or the Ivy on the walls 
of a building, and raked down. The least touch on the Ivy or the stack 
side causes the birds to bolt out against the net; a little to and fro 
movement causes them all to lodge in the [)ockets in which they are 
caught, when a fresh place is tried. If horizontal bars are run across 
the frame the net may be drawn up in folds and attached to them, 
forming very good “ pockets.” I have caught very many sparrows by 
means of a riddle fastened to the prongs of a hay fork. This works 
fairly well on a stack side but is practically useless on Ivy. Netting 
them at night is the easiest and quickest way to catch them, and if well 
followed up would soon exterminate them. One winter’s day, when the 
ground was covered with light frozen snow, 1 tried some wire mouse traps, 
they cost Id. each, two similar jaws of semicircular wire sprung together 
by means of a coiled brass spring, a piece of wire stood up for the bait. I 
could thus bury the traps in the snow, leaving the bait, a bit of bread 
crust, just on the top of the snow. I then placed a large crust of 
bread close to it on purpose to attract sparrows flying over at a distance. 
I caught about sixty in this way in two hours, not one of which 
touched the large piece of bread, but every one took a fancy to the piece 
he could fly away with ; the trap broke the necks of every one, and they 
were dead in an instant. At last a robin came and was caught, then I 
dropped that mode of catching. If the traps had large jaws, and the sides 
covered with a light net, I think the birds could all be caught alive, then 
if a robin or other bird got in it could be liberated. There is one fault 
about the traps I refer to—namely, if the brass springs get wet they 
break, rendering the trap worthless. 
There are people who will not believe a word against sparrows. 
One farmer I once spoke to would have it that the flock of some 10,000 
sparrows that were picking out the half-ripe grains from the ear were 
only picking off the insects. He would have it that the “filth” had 
taken the corn.' Another one I know does all he can to protect them. 
His houses are covered with Ivy, in which they nest in summer and 
roost in winter ; but even these would have little chance if captured 
sparrows had any value.— J. Hewitt. 
What a perennial fountain is the Rose! What streams of enjoy¬ 
ment, of gossip, instruction, and—twaddle flow from it, and yet there is 
always something we like to hear about. Perhaps, as Montesquieu says, 
we are not a little gratified at the failures of our friends, although we do 
not allow that we indulge so unaimiable a thought, and we only are glad 
that we are not the only instances of failure, while the peculiar behaviour 
of some old friend somewhat astonishes us. 
I commence with failure, because I had a most conspicuous instance 
of it in a few, very few, Roses that I grew, or attempted to grow, in pots, 
80 as to give me blooms in the house before those on the walls favoured 
me with their flowers. I think I almost deserved failure for making the 
attempt. My house is a small one, in which I grow all manner of things, 
and consequently was too crowded for the plants. Moreover, as I was 
•obliged to keep up fires at night on account of frost, and did not wish to 
keep them going during the day, there was too great a difference between 
the day and night temperature, and, as a consequence, the plants got 
smothered with mildew, and hardly a bloom came to any good. They 
were Teas, of course, and therefore my failure was the more conspicuous. 
That I am right in attributing it to this cause is to me pretty clear, for I 
this year adopted a different plan. I placed them in my annexe, where 
there is no heat, where the variations of temperature are not so great. 
They are free from mildew, and are coming now into bloom. It is in 
this place that I have my plant of Mardchal Niel, which is still vigorous. 
I cut last year about 300 blooms from it, not large and high-coloured as 
a plant allowed to have plenty of space would have, but still pretty and 
presentable blooms, although somewhat pale in colour. 
The Longworth Rambler on the south wall of my house has again 
asserted its claims to be one of the, if not the, very best of dark 
climbing Roses that we have. It was profuse in blooming, and kept up 
its flowering until very late. Of course it does not fulfil the con- 
dicion of an exhibition Rose, and is no doubt a Hybrid Tea, not so large 
in its flowers as Reine Marie Henriette, better in its foliage, the pro¬ 
fusion of its blooms, and the absence of slatiness in its colour. I am 
somewhat quaking for Reve d’Or on the east wall of ray house. It was 
so cut back a few years ago that I despaired of it. It, however, sent 
out shoots from the bottom, and has gone up a good part of the old 
place it used to cover so well. For some cause or other, however, it was 
not happy last year, and I am somewhat anxious about its future. 
William Allen Richardson on a wall facing about S.S.W. disappointed 
me ; indeed I think that a wall is hardly the best place for it, as it 
seems to take the colour too much out of it, and it loses that beautiful 
orange tint which has won for it so much favour. Of other Roses on 
this wall I may mention that Lady Castlereagh promises well as a good 
grower and a useful Rose, that my plants of Comtesse de Nadaillac 
have nearly reached the top, and that I find both Emile Dupuy and 
Claire Carnot useful. The former is one of the Dijon group, and 
described as a pa'e fawn. Well, you may make any description you like 
of these Dijon Roses provided they have some shade of yellow. I think, 
however, that Emile Dupuy is less inclined to quarter than many of 
them, and it is this confused centre that takes away from the value of 
the race. Claire Carnot is of a very soft pleasing shade of yellow, with 
a tint of copper in it. It is a Noisette Tea, and valuable as a garden 
Rose. 
I do not like to say much on the behaviour of my Roses for the 
simple reason that I do not consider my soil a good Rose soil, and 
because I do not give them fair play from an exhibitor’s point of view. 
I grow them too close, and I keep them too long in the same ground. 
This arises from necessity, not will. I like to grow a good many so as 
to be familiar with them, and to give place for new Roses each year. I 
think Teas do best with me, but it is true, as your correspondent Mr. 
W. R. Raillem in his delightful notes on Roses says, that many of them 
do not succeed as dwarfs. Certainly I have seen the finest flowers from 
dwarf standards, but I always thought that most free growing Teas did as 
well on dwarfs as in any form ; and Mr. Prince amongst nurserymen, 
Mr. Burnside amongst amateurs, are instances of what may be done 
with dwarf Teas, from which most of their grand blooms are shown. 
There are several new Roses in this class which, while invaluable for 
exhibition, are yet from their colouring most desirable for the garden 
and for buttonholes or sprays. What can be more lovely than Ma 
Capucine (an old Rose) ? and lately we have had Princess de Sagam and 
Marquis de Vivens. The former is of a dark shade of crimson, rich and 
velvety in colour, good in habit and free flowering. All this is 
admirably set forth in catalogues, but somehow or other the printer 
has omitted the qualifying clause—not quite full. The latter is also a 
light Rose, but only suitable for cutting as a bud, for it is very thin. 
May Rivers, when exhibited by the raiser, struck me as a very beautiful 
flower with a good deal of China blood, and from what I see of its habit 
it is likely to become a favourite garden Rose at any rate. 
I have never known a season when the autumnal bloom was so dis¬ 
appointing. It could not be otherwise with us. We had such a down¬ 
pour in October as we have not had for many years, and the Teas which 
we have always looked to to furnish blooms at that season, only gave 
us balls of soddened leather instead of flowers. Some few struggled 
through it all ; but they were comparatively few, and these were 
amongst those flowers which are naturally disposed to come through. 
Unquestionably the best of all the autumn-blooming Roses I had was 
Gloire de Margottin, somewhat too thin to be an exhibition Rose, and 
perhaps for this very reason proving so good in autumn. It is most 
brilliant in colour, evidently showing its parentage Gloire de Rosam6ne, 
somewhat straggling in habit, suggesting the idea of a pillar Rose, and 
flowering at every point like a Tea Rose. 
Some of the little Polyantha Roses gave me a good deal of pleasure, 
and where Rose growers can afford space for anything but exhibition 
Roses they ought to find a place. The same may be said of the single 
Roses. Austrian Yellow, I have at last got hold of it after many 
attempts, and what a lovely, although, alas 1 fleeting, flower it is. 
Then the glowing richness of the Austrian Copper is so unlike any¬ 
thing else in its family that the question freely rises—namely, that it 
is not a Rose. Very beautiful, too, is Macrantha, with its large white 
petals and golden stamens, and although some decry it because of the 
dark colour of its stamens, Paul’s Single White is a fine pillar Rose ; 
while the single Polyantha, where space can be given to it, is a most 
lovely object. Berberidifolia Hardi I have not done much with. I 
do not think that it can be considered hardy ; at least, I have lost it 
once or twice by endeavouring to consider it so. I have had to take 
mine up and pot it, and I do not think it looks happy under the 
process. 
I was unable to procure some of the Roses I wanted in time to plant 
this last autumn. 'They were consequently laid in, the tops protected 
from frost until the spring. On carefully taking them up I was 
surprised to find how little root action there was, for I had been taught 
to believe that roots were very active during the winter. All I can say 
is that I saw hardly anything of t in either Teas or Hybrids, and as my 
