110 
TEE COTTAGE GARDENER 
flowers, honeysuckles, white lilac, yellow jessamine, 
currants, coronilla, rose, currants, laurel, cotoneaster, 
black currant, purple lilac, cob nut, rose, B. currant, 
rose, ivy; so 1 think my old wall is in a fair way of 
beiug hid. I am rather pleased to find T have been 
doing what you recommend in many things. I have 
a gooseberry-tree trained up to a head near six feet 
high; indeed, I am obliged to do so to make the most 
of the room. I have, also, blackberry-bushes, planted 
last spring: they are going on well. I hope they will 
have fruit on this year. I do not know how long 
fuchsias will live, but I have one in the ground that 
has been there seven years next Midsummer; it is 
breaking out about three feet from the ground; it 
was nearly 10 feet high last summer, and very full of 
blossom: T think it is Fuchsia gracilis ; it is not 
the oldest sort I can remember, but the next, and is 
as pretty as any of the new ones. I must give you 
one sentence from Maria Child : “ The common wild 
flower that I have brought to my garden, and nursed, 
and petted, till it has lost all home-sickness for its 
native woods, is really more valuable than the costly 
exotic purchased in full bloom from the conserva¬ 
tory.”— Marv Marshall. 
[If there were less of suggestive hints in this ex¬ 
tract than there really are, still we should insert it; 
for there is a healthy freshness in it, making one feel 
that there are those who are loveable away from one's 
own chimney-nook: consequently cherishing that 
feeling which ought to he cherished—the love of 
one’s neighbour.—En. G. G.~\ 
Pf.a-Sticks. —It is probable that many of the 
readers of The Cottage Gardener, like myself, have 
found it difficult to obtain pea-sticks long enough for 
the tall-growing varieties. I annex you my method 
of making short yea-sticks do for the tall-growing 
pteas ; the plan is so simple that I think the drawing 
needs but little explanation. I obtain a larch pole 
ot the required length, and bore holes in it to receive 
the small and spreading boughs of the spruce fir, 
the beech, or from any other suitable spreading 
tree, and insert them firmly into the holes. When 
the season is over they may he taken to pieces, and 
if laid carefully aside will last several years.— John 
Bridgwood, Potteries. 
[The above mode is excellent for tall-growing 
varieties; but another correspondent suggests the 
adoption of a similar mode on a reduced scale, for 
May 
plants of more dwarf growth, as represented in this 
sketch.—E d. G. G. J 
Scaring Birds. —Among the various plans sug¬ 
gested by you for frightening birds from a crop, I 
think I have not noticed the following, which was re¬ 
commended to me some years ago by an experienced 
gardener, and lias ever since been adopted by me and 
several of my friends with unfailing success. It is 
simply to tie a piece of very thin light wood, of from 
nine to twelve inches in length and three to four in 
breadth, to a stick, four or five feet long, by a string 
12 or 18 inches long, so that the wood may be sus¬ 
pended longways from the stick. Place some of these 
on the patch of ground to he protected, at a distance of 
10 or 12 feet apart, making the stick stand rather 
leaning. The slightest wind will keep them in mo¬ 
tion, and nothing will come near them.— Rev. J. P. 
Bash mar’s Seedling Grai-e. —Let me call your 
attention to a very early vine raised at Brighton, 
and called Lashmar’s Seedling. As an out-door vine 
it is invaluable, being at least a fortnight earlier 
than any other that I am acquainted with. It is a 
white grape, with very handsome leaf, good-sized, 
rather oval berry, and thickly clustered. I believe 
it was raised by a Mr. Lashmar, of Brighton, from 
some dried foreign fruit.— Rev. A. S. 
Green Ely on Peaches, Ac. —I have experienced 
so much benefit by the use of the following composi¬ 
tion, in destroying the blight on peach and nectarine 
trees, that I am desirous to make it generally known. 
I have adopted it most successfully myself, and have 
seen it succeed with my friends, so I think I cannot 
do better, to make it publicly known, than by for¬ 
warding it to your very useful work, The Cottage 
Gardener. The application of it must be made 
every other if not every year, but I think once in two 
years may be sufficient if thoroughly well done. Take 
1 it) sulphur vivum, 1 lb Scotch snuff, 1 tb quick¬ 
lime, k lb lamp black, 1 It) soft-soap, and of water 
sufficient to make it into the consistence of paint. 
Unnail your trees about February, before the bloom 
buds begin to swell, and with a common paint¬ 
brush paint every branch from the ground up¬ 
wards. I have seen it succeed with trees that had 
year after year been totally unfruitful, and had every 
leaf destroyed. J. N. B., Halstead Lodge. 
Peat Paths. —As any information which may he 
turned to good account seems acceptable to The 
Cottage Gardener, I do not hesitate to suggest, to 
those who may be circumstanced as I am, tire laying 
down some one path or more in their garden, with 
good tough fresli-cut peat. The reasons that induced 
me to try the experiment were:—First: an unwilling¬ 
ness to grave], or lay stones on a path which may be 
only a temporary one; and the soil being of rather a 
clayey nature it was necessary to cover it with some¬ 
thing that would secure a dry path in wet weather. 
Secondly: I had but small stowage room; and there¬ 
fore this peat path is intended, when half rotted down, 
to be taken up and laid by for such uses as call peat 
