JUNE. 
123 
will be sure to follow and multiply. Mr. “ Punch” lately tried to be very 
severe on the Shipley Sparrow Club for destroying 10,000 sparrows in the 
course of last year, even threatening to employ Bishop Colenso to calculate 
how manj T grubs and caterpillars these 10,000 sparrows would have devoured 
during that time. The great satirist of Fleet Street, however, appears to have 
no great knowledge of natural history, or of the habits of the sparrow in 
particular; for who ever yet saw a sparrow eat a grub or caterpillar if it could 
get anything else in the shape of grain, seeds, bread, or potatoes ? 
Amongst the really respectable small birds—I mean those that do not prey 
upon seeds, buds, and fruits—the starlings must hold the first place. They 
frequent fields, either in pairs or flocks, in search of insect food, and never do 
any damage to the farmer or gardener. They are, therefore, well worthy of 
protection, as are all little birds of the same disposition. There are many 
small birds that prey on grubs and caterpillars, but it unfortunately happens 
that these birds are incubating when those pests are doing the most injury 
to our crops. No gardener can possibly grudge that some of his Cherries, 
Currants, and Strawberries are taken by the “ sweet songsters ” of our groves; 
but birds like the sparrow, that have not one redeeming quality, ought to be 
kept within narrow bounds. 
Welbeck. William Tillery. 
ON THE USE OF SALT IN GARDENS. 
The use of common salt in kitchen gardens, as a very useful auxiliary to 
cultivation, is so seldom brought prominently forward that we are apt to forget 
that it is one of the very best applications to various crops that we have at 
command. This reticence on the subject probably arises from the fact that it 
is in some instances very destructive to vegetation, and that the fear of conse¬ 
quences may cause many to forego its use altogether. I think so highly of it 
myself that I am induced to point out a few cases in which I have found the 
application attended with success. 
I must again declaim the intention of entering on a scientific exposition of 
the action of salt upon soils. I may, however, observe that it is a direct food 
of many plants ; in other cases by admixture with other substances in the soil 
it produces soda—another fertiliser; it converts injurious organic matter in the 
soil to a nutritious food for plants, it stimulates growth, it greatly increases 
the flavour of all vegetables to which it is suitable, it destroys worms and other 
injurious vermin in the soil, and thus converts them into additional fertilising 
matter—in short, its benefits are so many and so various that I am surprised it 
has not been more generally appreciated. The value of this material for 
manure was well known to the Romans, and the knowledge was probably dis¬ 
tributed by them wherever their dominion extended. It was generally used in 
agriculture in this country up to the time of William III., who, by the imposi¬ 
tion of a war tax which raised the price from 6d. to 20s. per bushel, thus 
virtually precluded its use, and the practice became lost to agriculture ; but it 
is probable that the use of it in small quantities in gardens was continued not¬ 
withstanding the prohibitory price, for Hitt, in his treatise on fruit trees, 
which was written more than a century ago, enlarged very much on the great 
benefit which fruit trees derive from an admixture of salt with the soils of the 
borders. Many of his observations I have verified in practice, and his cele¬ 
brated experiment on the application of salt to grass land has been tried here 
with the same results. As it may not be familiar to many I will shortly detail 
it. “ On four square spaces of grass land, of equal size, were, poured, nine 
nights in succession—on No. 1 pure water, No. 2 water in which 1 oz. of salt 
