278 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
December 31, 1892. 
A PLAGUE OF MICE. 
For some years past voles or field mice have been 
increasing at such a rate in the border counties of 
Scotland, that for some time they have been nothing 
short of a plague to the sheep farmers, owing to the 
destruction of the pasturage by them. They burrow 
along the surface of the ground and cut the roots 
and stems of the grass, so that where the grass con¬ 
sists of a thick foggage, as it usually does in old 
pastures, the whole surface may be pulled off like a 
mat of turf. The grass, as a matter of course, dies, 
and the pasturage is more or less completely ruined 
according to its nature. 
Where gardens exist in the neighbourhood of such 
pastures, they must be subject to the inroads of the 
voles, which are always unwelcome visitors in gardens, 
inasmuch as they eat and destroy many kinds of vege¬ 
tables. Our experience of them is that they eat the 
various members of the Cabbage tribe, also Peas, 
Beans, Turnips, Carrots, Parsnips, Potatos, and 
other subjects of that class. As a matter of course 
they always destroy more than they eat, and are 
therefore more mischievous as a rule in gardens than 
the ordinary house mice. When present in moderate 
numbers they can be baited and trapped much in 
the same way as the marauder of the cupboard. 
They are larger than their indoor cousin, with short 
tails and a reddish-brown back. The device of 
trapping with an elevated brick may also be resorted 
to. 
Their overwhelming numbers in the pastures has 
rendered their wholesale destruction a matter of 
great difficulty. Many expedients have been tried 
by the farmers with very little success. Some time 
ago they appealed to the Board of Agriculture to 
help them in their difficulty, with hitherto little or 
no advantageous results. The committee of inquiry 
appointed by the Board of Agriculture discovered in 
the course of their investigations that Thessaly, in 
Greece, had suffered from a similar plague, and that 
the Greek Government enlisted the services of Pro¬ 
fessor Loeffler to advise them in their emergency. 
The professor advocated the destruction of the mice 
by communicating to them the germs of the disease 
known as mouse typhus, which is peculiar to that 
rodent, and does not affect other animals outside of 
the mouse family. Grains of corn mixed with the 
germs of the disease were strewed or placed about in 
the habitats of the mice, and in a short time the 
plague abated The committee of inquiry were 
adverse to the carrying out of this plan in Scotland, 
for fear that the water supply would get tainted with 
the dead bodies of so many animals. Besides, they 
were somewhat doubtful whether the mice in Greece 
were really destroyed by the Professor’s germs of 
mouse typhus or by heavy rains. It was finally re¬ 
solved to send the chairman and the secretary of the 
committee to Greece to investigate the matter for 
themselves, and find out if possible the real cause of 
the destruction or disappearance of the mice. In 
the meantime the greatly harassed farmers have to 
get along as best they can till this slow method of 
procedure has dragged its weary length. 
The sentiment and commiseration at present are 
all on the farmer's side, but it recalls to our mind 
the beautiful words of Burns, in his ode to a mouse, 
which he had turned up in a field with his plough ; 
One of the verses runs as follows : — 
" I’m truly sorry man’s dominion 
Has broken Nature’s social union, 
An' justifies that ill opinion 
Which makes thee startle 
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion 
An’ fellow mortal.” 
Burns lived for some time on the Borders, and the 
whole of his life in the south of. Scotland. Had he 
been alive at the present day, it is a question what 
his version of the modern plague of mice might be. 
Another verse of the same poem, and which is often 
quoted, runs thus :— 
“ But, mousie, thou art no thy lane, 
In proving foresight may be vain ; 
The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men 
Gang aft a-gley, 
And lea’e us nought but grief and pain 
For promised joy.” 
-- 5 *- 
Cardiff Horticultural Society—At the annual 
meeting of this Society, held last week, it was decided 
that the next show should be held on Tuesday and 
Wednesday, August 15th and 16th The retiring 
chairman of the committee, Mr. Pettigrew, gardener 
Cardiff Castle, was accorded a vote of thanks 
engrossed on vellum. 
GREEN FLY AND FROST. 
Day after day witnesses the announcement of some 
new insecticide especially meant for the destruction 
of that troublesome aphis, the green fly. Will some 
one set about endeavouring to originate a green fly 
that is susceptible to frost ? It is said that insects, 
one and all, are among the frailest of living creatures, 
and that this very frailness places, them within the 
power of man ; but I am troubled with a race that 
seems impervious to frost. If it be true that the 
tender body of the aphis is constantly affected by 
conditions unfavourable to its life, then frost 
scarcely appears to be one of them. On Christmas 
morning some common Auriculas in my cold house 
were frozen hard. There were some green fly on 
the under sides of the leaves which had escaped my 
notice as I went round the house a few days before, 
cleansing such plants from these insects as were 
in trouble through them ; and though they seemed 
to have a dazed appearance in the morning, by mid¬ 
day, when the sun acting upon the atmosphere had 
raised the temperature, the green fly appeared to 
have recovered the temporary stupor and were as 
lively as ever. 
I have noticed in previous winters that, let the 
frost be as severe as it will, the insects survive, 
though plants die. Are they frost-proof ? I dare 
say the extreme cold makes them feel somewhat un¬ 
comfortable—I sincerely hope it does—but I very 
much doubt if it destroys them outright. Even our 
best endeavours to destroy, by washing, by fumi¬ 
gation, and by other means, appear of little value ; 
for though the enemy appears to be effectually 
routed for a time, in a few days they are again 
present, so that its extinction seems impossible; and 
then there is its marvellous powers of reproduction. 
We are told there is no waste of energy in nature, 
and that everything has its proper work and service; 
and yet one wonders what possible service green fly 
can be to humanity. But that they terribly sour 
the temper and upset the philosophy of many good 
gardeners, nobody can doubt. 
But some one may say what is the use of lament-' 
ing ? Why don’t you fumigate? Alas! I cannot 
with any advantage. I do not know who built the 
house in which I grow plants, but being in a very hot 
and sunny position—facing due south without the 
intervention of any friendly shelter—the builder ap¬ 
parently seeing the necessity for providing some roof 
ventilation, left an open space of 2 in. along the 
front of the house, where the lowest slope of the roof 
meets the uprights. Fumigation in such a house 
is a waste of time and material. The smoke rises 
and passes off to the open before the plants can get 
the benefit of it. This fact places the green fly at an 
advantage they appear to make the best use of, and 
so in carrying on a war of repression—I dare not say 
extermination — I have to fall back upon a less 
aggressive warfare. But it is a little unkind on the 
part of Mother Nature—who ought, I think, to have 
known better—not to have had more compassion on 
the gardener, and not made the green-fly frost proof. 
— R.D. 
STREPTOGLOXINIA. 
To Dr. Hanstein is due the honour of having shown 
the affinity bet ween the members of Gesneraceae proper 
and the members of the family Cyrtandraceas now 
united with the former. M. Em. Rodigas, inL'Illus¬ 
tration Horticole, relates the experiments of an 
amateur, M. Maximilien Gheerbrant, of Douai, 
which goes far to justify the opinions of Dr. Han¬ 
stein and the authors of the Genera Plantanm. M. 
Gheerbrant, struck with the great analogy existing 
between the floral organs of Streptocarpus and those 
of Gloxinia, and desirous of obtaining other colours 
by means of seeds, has fertilised a white variety of 
the Kew hybrids of Streptocarpus with the pollen of 
a red variety of Gloxinia. That fertilisation has 
produced perfect seeds, some of which M. Gheer¬ 
brant was good enough to give to the writer above 
mentioned, who took care to have them sown imme¬ 
diately at the School of Horticulture at Ghent. 
Other seeds were sent to the establishment of Messrs. 
Thibaut & Keteleer, at Neuilly (Seine). The seeds 
have germinated, and the seedlings do not recall 
Streptocarpus, says M. Sallier, of the last- 
named establishment, but Gloxinia ; whereas 
M. Gheerbrant had raised the seeds from Strep¬ 
tocarpus. The hybridisation has to all appear¬ 
ances taken effect, but the seedlings are yet too 
small to judge of their hybrid nature. M. Em. 
Rodigas, while waiting before pronouncing judgment 
upon them, adds that he had fecundated Strepto¬ 
carpus Kewensis with the pollen of Isoloma hirsuta, 
and the latter inversely with the pollen of Strepto¬ 
carpus Kewensis. He intends, however, to keep the 
reader posted up in the result of these experiments 
-- 
CHRYSANTHEMUMS UNDER ARTI¬ 
FICIAL LIGHT. 
Artificial light of whatever nature has a very great 
influence over color ; perhaps the arc electrical light 
exerts the least influence of any, but at best its 
influence is considerable and it is also objectionable. 
In a large display of flower color like that in a Chry¬ 
santhemum show, there is every reason why the 
exhibitor should arrange his colors with strictes 
deference to the illumination of the hall in the even¬ 
ing ; unless he does so, he will be sure to find that under 
artificial light his flower groups have some surprises, 
and I will add, some disappointments in store for 
him. It is a fact that one often hears the remark 
“ how different this looks under gas light.” Well, i 
is quite possible that if no consideration is taken of 
the effects produced by artificial light, such a remark 
of sheer surprise must follow as a natural sequence. 
There are certain facts about colors which we must 
always bear in mind when gas light or electric light 
comes into consideration. 
First, all artificial light in common use to-day 
throws more or less yellow on all surrounding colors 
Theoretically, then, it would seem natural that a 
yellow object should appear yellower. That it is 
yellower is a fact, but that it appears yellower is not 
a fact ; on the contrary, much of the yellow is gone, 
and why ? Because we can have nothing perfectly 
white near by for comparative examination ; we are 
dependent upon comparisons for most of our know¬ 
ledge of things to-day. We know a very pretty girl 
is very pretty, because we have seen one that is less 
pretty, and we know a homely one is homely because 
we have seen a good looking one. 
Yellow, then, under yellow light is less yellow 
because everything around it is more or less yellow. 
Produce for an instant white, say by magnesian light, 
and you will see where your yellow is. We must 
not forget, then, that our eyes have become so 
accustomed to yellow light every night that we have, 
as a consequence, lost all delicate appreciation of 
its color influence, and quite frequently we think it 
cuts some queer capers with colored objects. 
Second, there is a glamour about artificial light 
not without its ardent admirers. There are many 
picture dealers who purposely exhibit the paintings 
of certain masters under artificial light only. It is 
possible to obtain concentration of light best by 
shutting out diffuse daylight and accenting the 
brilliancy of a coloured object by the aid of bright 
light and the contrast of a few dark corners. These 
are the only two matters of importance regarding 
colour under artificial light which claim our atten¬ 
tion while studying Chrysanthemum colours. It 
does not concern us now what the true colours of 
the Chrysanthemums I mention really are ; we want 
to know what they look like when the hall is lighted, 
and we will use colour names which will, so to speak, 
represent daylight colours. If we want to see what 
the rich red (not crimson; I hold red something very 
different from a crimson-red) of the Cullingfordii 
really is, now is our chance at night; put Culling¬ 
fordii right under the incandescent somewhere, and 
then see how gloriously he burns. The Miss Hel- 
yett, on the contrary, will not burn ; she is pretty 
cold, yet she needs to be under strong light, but do 
not let her approach near the Cullingfordii. Her 
colour at night is deep maroon inside her petals and 
a cold dull pink of the maroonish order outside. 
The fine needle petals of the Duchess of Albany 
are ruddy orange in colour, not clear and pure in 
tone, but hazy looking, a trifle uncertain withal ; the 
delicate reflected deep brown-orange of the centre can 
not be called by any positive one-colour name. And 
Pedro Diaz, what a colour he has ; there is deep red 
Spanish blood in his petals. I should call the colour 
a deep brown orange-red. The outside tips of the 
petals are of the same colour paler, inside they look 
actually crimson when examined closely, yet in effect 
the crimson colour savours more of maroon. Shen¬ 
andoah is another kindred spirit, but not so intense 
in colour ! Here again is a brownish orange on the 
inside lines, but the outside appearance is pale and 
yellowish, a colour not unlike the toned weak yellow 
on the Mrs. Frank Thomson’s outer petals. Both 
these flowers guard and shield their inner colour 
tones very cleverly .—American Florist. 
