THE GARDENING WORLD. 
625 
, 6, 1904. 
he f^ardenmg\\/brld. 
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been accomplished, but Miss Octavia Hill is 
proclaiming another crusade for its rescue. 
Ah present, 700 acre® can be obtained for 
£12,000, and made over to the nation, for 
ever. It is said that Wordsworth’® beautiful 
piece on; “ Daffodils ” was suggested from 
Daffodils which lie saw growing in thi® dis¬ 
trict. Miss Hill is, working in, the interest of 
the “ National Trust,” for which.-she was able 
to procure another piece of land about, two- 
years ago on Dei wen twa,ter. The above 
price means only £18 an acre, which would 
only be a shadow of the price claimed for 
the most barren land anywhere near London. 
—o— 
An Unusual Way of Rooting 
Roses. 
Mr. H. C. Davidson, in one of our daily 
contemporaries, describes a peculiar method 
of rooting Roses, which has been, adopted or 
invented as here stated by a French growei. 
His plan is to take off cuttings during July 
or August with at least three buds and a 
short length of stem above them. This latter 
portion the Frenchman describes as the 
“ claw ” of the cutting. The cuttings are 
then inserted upside down under a, bell-glass, 
inserting the 11 claw ” to the three buds. The 
moisture maintained by the aid of the bell- 
glass not only keeps the cutting fresh, but 
induces the exposed base of the cutting to 
form a callus. When this has happened the 
cutting is then inserted in the usual way, 
the callus, of course, being placed ,in the soil. 
When this callus appears the Frenchman cal¬ 
culates that the success of the cutting is 
assured. All those which do not form a callus 
are -thrown away, so that they do not take 
up space in the propagating cases or bell- 
glasses. The callus should form in about a 
fortnight. Before being inserted the “ claw 
or useless portion is removed with a knife. 
The inventor calculates that the lo-ss. of 
cuttings by damping is reduced to a mini¬ 
mum by this process. 
EDITORIAL NOTES. 
icue of Natural Scenes. 
»me time ago- we- referred to, an effort 
was being made to rescue some land on 
westward side of Ullswater from being 
t upon or otherwise denuded of its 
ral beauty. That object ha® not yet 
The Milton Beech. 
There: are several forms of the weeping 
Beech in cultivation, including green ones 
and the purple-leaved variety. They differ 
chiefly in the habit of the tree, the, common 
weeping Beech being a, very striking in¬ 
stance, owing to the way in which it throws 
out, one or two long arching arms, which grow 
in size from year to year, and shift, theii posi¬ 
tion occasionally owing to the increasing 
weight of the branch and the twisting of the 
straggling extended arm. The Milton Beech 
is a green-leaved variety, characterised by all 
of the branches drooping directly from the 
main stem, so, that it assume® a, narrowly 
pyramidal form, which is very distinct and 
well worthy of preservation. A full-page 
black-and-white illustration of it is given in 
Part 9 of “Cassell’s Popular Gardening,” 
which has now reached this part in the new 
rerissue, under the editorship of Mr. Walter 
P. Wright, whose time must be fully occu¬ 
pied with his many duties: The original 
tree of the Milton Beech grew, in a, plantation 
bordering Milton Park, in Northamptonshire 1 , 
and all of the specimens now in cultivation 
have been propagated from this tree. T he 
inherent weakness of the branches is further 
evidenced by theiir being twisted and con¬ 
torted in various fanciful ways. The culti¬ 
vator who might desire this tree to assume 
a spreading habit would have to support the 
branches by props on sets of wire® for a num¬ 
ber of years until the branches thicken, af ter 
which they retain their position, while the 
younger shoots produced would resume their 
drooping form. Instead of this, however, we 
think it would be far more interesting to 
allow the tree to 1 assume its natural habit, 
and to plant other varieties for the sake of 
contrast. A large tree of any of the weepers 
is usually a very characteristic feature in the 
landscape. The purple-leaved. weeping 
Beech is similar in habit to: the Milton Beech. 
Various other subjects are dealt with in this 
number, including appreciative! notices of 
several Spiraea®, including S. Anthony 
Waterer and S-. pi-unifolia flore pleno', the 
latter being illustrated. Methods of pruning 
Rambler Roses are also illustrated by 
sketches, and an article upon the florist’s Car¬ 
nation is also, seasonable. Several tine' pic¬ 
ture's are also given of rock garden plants. 
-—o—- 
A Plague of Starlings. 
We have all heard or read of the plague of 
rabbits in Australia, and the great inconve¬ 
nience and alarm caused by the' rapid spread 
of Opuntias and other Cacti, as well as the 
famous Scotch Thistle, in South Africa. Mr. 
W. G. M’Kinney, of Victoria, Australia,, now 
comes forward with an alarming protest 
avainst the increase of starlings in the 
colony. He says they are present in mil¬ 
lions, and when flying throw a shadow upon 
the ground. They eat, fruit wholesale, devas¬ 
tating a vineyard in half a day, and also de¬ 
stroy grain in large: quantities. The plea put 
forward is that they are large eaters of grubs 
that infest, fruit trees, but Mr. G. M.^Gooch, 
a well-known trader in Australian wine,^ad¬ 
mit® that they feed on grubs and do various 
other useful work, but they never touch 
either while' they can get fruit or grain. He 
applies various severe epithets against these 
marauders, describing them as cunning as 
crows, impudent as a tame magpie, omnivo¬ 
rous as a herd of pigs, and as numerous as 
rabbits or sparrows. Fruit-growers and agri¬ 
culturists in those districts must be in a 
serious plight—in fact, he. thinks that the 
results will be disastrous to these industries 
Generally. We have been in a, starling 
rookery," where the chattering of the, birds n 
the aggregate resembled the sound of a, dis- 
taut waterfall, yet we failed- to learn that 
they did any damage. 
