878 
Queries, Answers, Remarks, ^c. 
I am exceedingly glad to see, that it is ^’our intention to give memoirs of the 
lives of Gardeners and Naturalists, it will form a valuable feature in the Register, 
and it may bo done without changing the character of your Magazine, as your 
correspondent, “a Lover of Gardens,” supposes it would do. The portraits 
which you propose giving, might, certainly, give place to figures of new and rare 
plants. It would be a sort of Flora to sucb of your readers as could not afford to 
pay for the Botanical Magazine, Botanical Register, or Loddiges* Botanical Ca¬ 
binet. J. M. 
P. S.—I have sent you a few seeds of a Cucumber, wbicb I have this year 
grxtwn ; it was recommended to me by the seedsman, who supplied me. He gave 
it the name of “ Prolific House Cucumber, and said it bad been raised at Sion- 
House. It is a beautiful, smooth, and green fruit, measuring from 17 to 20 
inches, I suppose it to be the “Serene.” In the course of next summer, you 
will be able to ascertain wbat sort it is. Also, a few seeds of a bulbous-rooted 
plant, wbich in every respect resembles an Allium, but bas not the scent peculiar 
to that tribe of plants, 
Fa. 4 MB Fon Tekder Annuals. —Gentlemen, a subscriber to your very amusing 
and instructive publication, wishes for some information on the following subject, 
and he thinks, that if given with your usual perspicuity, it will be highly prized 
by many, like biinself, young amateur gardeners with small means. 
Would it suit your design to give some plain directions, as to the construction 
and management of a small frame, for the purpose of raising such tender annuals 
as cannot be produced in the open ground ? Whether, after sowing the seeds, 
striking a few cuttings, and propagating the Dahlias, in the manner you recom¬ 
mend, such frame could be made applicable to growing a few Melon plants? 
Whether it should be made of tanner’s bark or manure? And lastly. What sort of 
mould would best suit all purposes? 
If you should be disposed to answer these questions, you would perhaps subjoin 
a list of such flowers as occur to you as easiest raised, and making most show in 
the open ground, and what a packet containing a small quantity of the seeds of 
each, would cost as also where they should be bought. 
Many will act upon this hint if you think it worth while throwing it out, and the 
directions you issue every month will be attended to by more disciples than you 
may imagine Excuse all these questions, which, however, would never have 
suggested themselves, but from perusing your pleasing work. 
Owersby, Lincolnshire, Dec. 15, 1831. 
On Destrovinc4 Sparrows. —In page 277, J. S. appears to think my method 
of exterminating House Sparrows dangeroiis, and when completed, very dis- 
advantageovis to the country. This I conceive quite improbable, for so well are 
their destructive habits known, that nine parishes out of ten, throughout the 
K iiif^dom.give a reward for every Sparrow’s head taken to the overseer. The 
other remark respecting the destruction of the Earth Worm, rendering the ground 
sterile, is erroneous. How many thousand acres of the most fertile land, have we 
in this kingdom, where scarcely a worm is to be found,—for instance, all meadows 
irrigated by rivers and brooks have scarcely any worms; this arises from two 
causes, first, they cannot exist long* under wet, and second, such earth contains a 
considerable degree of sand, the points or angles of wbicb acting on the body of 
the worm, would cause its death by friction. The only way worms appear to me 
to contribute to the fertility of the earth, is this, they collect to their holes a quan- 
