642 
June 11, 1892, 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
FIiORICULiTURE. 
T ulips 
Writing to the Manchester Guardian on the 2nd inst., 
Air. Samuel Barlow takes exception to the honoured 
name of Darwin being associated with inferior 
strains of the Tulip. " The best Tulips known to 
exist.” says Mr. Barlow, “ or that ever have existed, 
have been raised in England, principally in the 
Northern counties, and it may be news to many when 
I state that at the present time the?e are more high- 
class florist Tulips grown within fifteen miles of 
Manchester than are grown in the whole kingdom of 
Holland. Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire 
have contributed more, I think, than the rest of 
England. Over forty years ago the late Dr. Hardy, 
of Warrington, in a series of papers to the Midland 
Florist, showing evidences of much love, thoughtful 
and thorough research, and patience, completely 
settled all the points of excellence which go to make 
a first-class florist Tulip, and his definitions have 
never since been disputed. Since then the cultiva¬ 
tion of florist Tulips has much improved, especially 
in the counties named, although, singular to say, it 
has almost died out in the South of England, where 
fifty years ago the most enthusiastic Tulip growers 
made London their centre for exhibitions. There 
are distinct evidences now of a revival of interest in 
this grand old flower, and I hope that the Exhibition 
of the Royal National Tulip Society, on Wednesday, 
will give additional stimnlas to the cultivation and 
love for this fascinating flower.” 
--i-- 
THE SPARROW. 
So much has been, of late, written about the sparrow- 
in Mature Notes, that I, too, think I want my say.' 
Poor bird! he hardly gets fair play in all this con¬ 
troversy. His opponents are too bitter ; and they 
rnake no allowance whatever. Personally I rather 
dislike sparrows ; it bores one to set a breakfast in 
the garden evert- morning all winter long, and to 
find scarcely any birds except sparrows come to eat 
it. And yet there is something rather pathetic in 
the instinct they evidently have that some one is 
'('(sympathetic. The poor little things don't make 
half the jolly fuss and noise they made once—in the 
old days before the}- found out about it. Yet tbey 
are not without friends. One day I remarked to my 
gardener ” I do hate those sparrows.” “ Do you ? ” 
said he, ” I like them, they are so clever.” And so 
they are, brimful of cleverness, most amusing to 
watch in their cunning ways and manners. Your 
correspondents differ so much, that one has to 
believe sparrows' dispositions varv in various 
localities. For instance, I never saw a single bird of 
any other species driven away by them from our 
breakfasts. I never, on any occasion whatever, have 
seen a sparrow even speak to any other bird, much 
less fight him ! and since the “ feed” is on the gravel 
walk, in full view of my window, whence I don't fail 
to keep an eye on the birds, and on all that goes on. 
I can hardly be mistaken. As a rule we have about 
fifty sparrows for the feed : four robins, three hedge- 
sparrows (I beg pardon. 1 mean accentors), half a 
dozens blackbirds, the same number of thrushes oft 
and on, with a chaffinch or tw o. Thev all seem to 
eat about the same quantity, according to their size, 
the sparrows gobbling up perhaps twice their share. 
The “ other birds ” are shyer, of course, but I can 
say with truth. I never observed one of them appear 
consciously to avoid any one of the sparrows. 
Overhead, six Cocoa Nuts dangle on strings from so 
many wire rose-arches. These for the tit-mice and 
nuthatch (probably they would greatly prefer fat 
bacon, but I don’t). The holes in the nuts have to 
be cut on the under side just to circumvent our 
heroes. One unlucky day they happened to pick up 
some Cocoa crumbs that had fallen, and liked them 
so much that they looked up at the nuts and instantlv 
“ went for” them, the holes being at that time on 
the upper side. A titmouse will sit and look on and 
say nothing while a sparrow devours its own pet 
morsel. But the great tomtit f Ox-eye ) will fight and 
beat off in no time any number of coles or blues. As 
for the Crocuses, and Primroses, and Peas, and 
Pears, and fruit buds, we know, of course, all about 
them. The\- want management — care and trouble — 
like everything else in a garden, and if we love our 
gardens they are worthy of all the care and trouble 
we can possibly bestow- upon them. Crocus and all 
spring flowers are easily saved by a few yards of 
black thread wound along the tops of little sticks 
stuck in amongst them. Wire guards save seed and 
young Peas. Threads or nets effectually protect all 
manner of fruit bushes. As for the fruit trees, we 
have never missed an Apple or a Pear through the 
birds : there always appears to be enough for us all 
and for the wasps besides. Cherries, however, 
disappear by rooks, or starlings, if you don’t look out. 
directly they begin to redden : but I never saw- 
sparrows after them. 
Poor sparrow ! the careful gardener need fear 
nothing so very dreadful from him. with all his 
wicked cleverness ! He is so wonderfully wary that 
he suspects a deadly snare in every inch of all that 
harmless black thread ! I should like to verify the 
theory that “ sparrows feed their young, after the first 
week, upon Peas and young Wheat.” I know that 
now and again green food is considered by old birds 
of all kinds to be necessary to the health of the 
nestling. Thrushes have been seen to gather up grass 
left by the mowing machine on the lawn, and take it 
to the nest. Surely everyone ought to know that the 
sawfly (Gooseberry caterpillar) cannot be swallowed 
by birds owing to a certain hairiness of its outside. 
The same objection exists for birds in many other 
caterpillars which we say they ought to eat. By one 
of your correspondents the merciful operations of 
the “ Poisoned Grain Act ” appears to be deplored. 
Had your correspondent beheld, as I have, lanes all 
strewed with the dead bodies of greenfinch, yellow-- 
hammer, blue titmouse, linnet, &c., &c., besides 
those of the hated spafirow, I think even he would 
have felt that the Act had been passed none too 
soon. We knew a farmer who regularly, in spring 
and autumn, used to drive to the nearest village, 
procure a bag of poisoned Wheat, and drive gaily 
home again along the lanes, letting the Wheat run 
out of the back of his gig as it went. Besides small 
birds, one fatal year, the rooks, who, to our delight, 
were at that time just establishing a small rookery 
in our group of old elms in the field, suffered also. 
Many old birds lay dead on the ground under their 
nests, and the new rookerv was finally abandoned. 
(It is rather gratifying to remember that a little boy, 
who was on one occasion sent out to pick up what 
he could of the poisoned grain, threw it over the 
palings into that farmer's own poultry yard ; so he 
informed us afterwards. We never heard what 
happened after that exploit !) 
The martins are a very sore subject For years, 
up to 1885 or 1886, they used to build on our south 
side, while the red-throated chimney swallow appro¬ 
priated the north porch. There were always two 
broods in the year, and to watch them (the white¬ 
breasted martens in the south porch) was my joy 
and delight ; they were never afraid, and they would 
swoop down with a scream close by the cat's ears, 
when she went out to take her walks abroad. I can¬ 
not blame the sparrows, I know they had no hand 
in it, but the martins have long since ceased to build 
here. Once, not long after their desertion, a pair of 
martins sat on a rose-arch, and looked at the old 
place. I thought they would come back to the nest, 
but they didn't, and I have not seen them since. I 
think of one possible reason. Some foolish person 
had advised the nests to be taken down in the 
winter, ”his father had done it every year to 
encourage the swallows,” so I reluctantly let one be 
taken away. It did not encourage ours, just once, 
after they were gone, I caught a sparrow prying 
about the forsaken nest. He was immediately scared 
away, and never has ventured near it since. The 
chimney swallows remained with us longer, but they 
grew timid, and came no more. I am convinced 
that the miscreants who shoot them for women’s 
hats and bonnets, on the other side, as they rest on 
telegraph wires, before crossing the straits, are alone 
to blame for the undoubted decrease of our 
martins. 
There is no such trouble with the swifts : at least, 
not hereabouts in South Bucks. It has been their 
their habit, for no one knows how many vears, to 
breed among the inside rafters of the old roof of a 
dwelling-house, at the end of the garden here. They 
creep in under the eaves, and make themselves at 
home in the roof, and there is never any apparent 
diminution in their numbers. It is a large, and 
prosperous, and noisy colony. And every season, in 
the long summer evenings, in clear or clouded 
weather, our swifts collect together by scores, mount 
up on high, and sport gloriously in the open firma¬ 
ment of heaven. — E. V. B., Huntercombe Manor, 
Burnham, Bucks, in Nature Motes. 
RURAL INDUSTRIES OF 
EGYPT. 
In an address delivered at a meeting of the Horti¬ 
cultural Club on the 25th ult., Sir John T. D. 
Llewelyn, Bart., said that Egypt was a land of 
agriculture rather than of horticulture, for good 
gardens were few and far between, and these were 
taken but little advantage of for teaching the people 
the cultivation of the several classes of useful and 
ornamental plants that have a place in them. Agri¬ 
culture, on the other hand, was most successfullv 
carried out, but it was pretty much a question of 
water, especially from the Nile and via i\vs (new 
mud) tells the story of the fertility of the vast tract 
of land watered by this remarkable river. This, at 
the time of its flood is, as is so w-ell-known, heavily 
charged with earthly matter which, when the water 
overflows the banks, is deposited on the land, and 
so greatly does this deposit contribute to its pro¬ 
ductiveness that the point to which the water reaches 
is so clearly shown when the crops are in full grow th 
that it is hardly a figure of speech to say that it is 
possible to stand with one foot in the desert and the 
other on fertile land. Of the cultivated area about 
one half is devoted to Wheat and other cereals, and 
the other half to Date Palms, Cotton, Castor Oil, 
Sugar, Lentils, Peas, Beans, and Poppies. Of the 
several crops other than those of cereals that of 
Dates is perhaps of the most importance to the 
people, and it would perhaps be of the greatest 
interest to a body of horticulturists. Phoenix 
aactylifera, of which twenty-seven varieties were 
commonly offered for sale, is abundant in Egypt, but 
rare in Palestine. Its rarity in the last-named 
country is all the more remarkable from the fact 
that the name by which the land was known to the 
Greeks and Romans was Phoenicia, or the land of 
Palms. Again, when Yespasian wished to com¬ 
memorate on his coins the capture of Jerusalem by 
Titus he represents Judaea as a woman sitting weep¬ 
ing under a Palm 
Probably in olden times the valley of the Jordan 
was full of Palms, and the shores of the Dead Sea are 
fringed with trunks that have been preserved from 
decay by the salt water, and tell of a time w hen Palms 
must have been much more common than now. In 
Egypt the Date Palm grows as a common tree, and 
under ordinary cultivation is very productive. It 
also grows freely in some parts of Europe, Italy for 
example, but in Granada alone does it ripen fruit in 
the European Continent. To the Moors belongs 
the credit of introducing this Palm to Europe, and 
they say. " He must have his foot in water and his 
head in the sun . ” It undoubtedly marks the presence 
of water, and in proof of this Sir John stated that 
Major Lloyd told him that w hen be was engaged in 
a survey of the desert, he saw a decaying Palm trunk, 
and in consequence sunk for water and found a 
spring. In Egypt, each Palm is taxed at twenty 
piastres, w hich is equivalent to about tw o pence half¬ 
penny, and as illustrating the usefulness of the Date 
to the people, it was pointed out that besides its 
employment for building, wine is made from the sap, 
and a spirit is distilled from the w ine : the ciown of 
barren trees is cooked as a vegetable : sugar is made 
from the syrup : mats, baskets, and various utensils 
manufactured from the leaves : horses are fed on the 
stalks, and camels on the pounded stones. The trees 
bloom in March and April, and the fruit ripens in 
August and September. When first ripe the Dates 
are harsh and astringent, but, like Medlars, are more 
palatable after fermentation, and are very nice also 
when dried in the sun 
The other field crops were passed under review , 
and the enormous increase in the cultivation of 
Cotton pointed out. This increase was attributed 
chiefly to the cultivation of a superior form of the 
Cotton plant, and the consequent improvement in 
the quality of the produce In the case of the 
\\ ater Melons, which form a very important crop, it 
is the practice to select the sections before the water 
from the Nile has receded to its bed, and to mark 
them with bushes Poppies for Opium are largely 
grown, and Flemp is extensively cultivated, although, 
like Tobacco, its growth is nominally prohibited. 
In gardens, Oranges are the best of the fruits 
grown, but Bananas, Figs, and Pomegranates are 
very satisfactory. Tea and Banksian Roses thrive 
and bloom profusely, but hybrid perpetuals are i ery 
poor. The Damask Rose is also rather extensively 
cultivated in some districts for the production of 
