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The Country Gentleman's Magazine

45

The Garden.

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trivance of his own.

CATERPILLARS ON FRUIT TREES.

CORRESPONDENT of the Albany Cultivator destroys these insects rapidly when too abundant, by a simple conIt is constructed somewhat on the plan of a reversed umbrella. The accompanying figure exhibits its appearance. A large hoop, some 8 feet more or less in diameter, is made of round iron rod, 3 inch in size, with an opening on one side to receive the tree. It is closed as soon as placed in position, by overlapping the two ends. A round hopper-shaped cloth is attached to the hoop, so that the lower part may be 3 feet down, or near the ground. At the bottom is secured a tin cup, and the insects, when jarred into the hopper, by striking the tree with a wooden mallet, roll down into the cup. If, in very warm weather, any adhere to the cloth, a slight jar or blow loosens them. The cup should hold several quarts, so as to secure all that fall into it, including the dead blossoms, &c., which would soon fill it when too small. The

insects will remain without attempting to escape, so long as it is kept in motion by passing from tree to tree. The four iron legs hang on the hoop, by being looped around it. They are sharp below, and are easily thrust into the soil to give firmness to

Trap for Caterpillars.

the hopper. Two men carry and operate with it; and thousands have been caught in an hour. When done with, the legs are folded, the hopper flattened, and the machine hung up against the wall. This contrivance answers admirably.

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WIRE DESIGNS FOR CLIMBERS.

BOUT all gardens, and small gardens in particular, there is a desire for some ornamental frame-work to train climbing plants upon. In days past, we had extensive arches or bowers, generally covered with Roses, or Clematis, or Honeysuckle, or Virginian Creeper. Now, there is not such a fancy for covered walks of that kind. Often they were designed in rustic wood, and a very pretty effect they had with such plants as we have named above, and with others of

even more common character, such as the common Hop (Humulus lupulus), and the common Ivy (Hedera Helix). Doubtless, fashion will revert to some of these oldfashioned but very pretty systems of exhibiting climbing plants, and we would not be sorry to see a beginning made now. In modern flower gardening, the disposition has been all along to banish so much of the picturesque as these quaint arbour-looking structures put on. All must be to the nicety of

geometric lines, else it was reckoned a blot. Now, we do not quarrel with geometric lines, we like to see them in proper places ; but we like to see also a little of everything in its proper place. There are few places of any size in the country where one or more styles of gardening could not be carried out with propriety, and not be out of keeping with adjoining objects. Even in a modern design, on the closely-shaven parterre, this little bit of standard work might be set in, not on sufferance, not at a disadvantage, to the squat forms of beautiful flowering or foliaged plants, but to a manifest advantage. We never were in love with a too severe rendering of the

Wire Design for Climbers.

geometric and the gardenesque styles-that is, with the filling of them with certain plants to the exclusion of others.

We don't want an infusion of mixed herbaceous plants; we don't want disorder, or an approach towards it, to offend the aesthetic eye; but we want the severe ground form to

be modified with varied lines. This design in wire would do well for a centre-piece to the little flower gardens of villas, or it might form a subsidiary object, where statuary, and fountains, and evergreen formal trees, were present, as they always are, in model gardenesque designs. This frame work would do very well for any of the Ayrshire, Hybrid, China, Boursault, Banksian, or Evergreen Roses. Were Roses not present in the design, then it could be very well done with the Canary Creeper (Tropaeolum canariensis), or with such a fine climbing and effective Nasturtium as Tropaeolum Bothwellianum, or any of the T. Lobbi section of seedlings, which now count by scores. Best of all, however, we would prefer seeing it wreathed with one or more of the beautiful Clematises that Jackmann and others have laboured so successfully to get. Even the old C. viticella is a lively shade of blue, and is so free flowering and free growing as to compel admiration. But when we have such a wonderful addition of really excellent varieties, crossed between Japanese and other species, we are apt to forget some of the older and interesting species. No one can forget who has seen once the sweet-scented flammula, which forms quite a sheet of white blossoms, and is as fragrant as the Hawthorn. Of course, we must not forget to name Jackmanni, the most beautiful of the tribe of Clematises, which rewards the grower with a profusion of azure flowers during summer, up even till the early days of November, if frost in some severity does not interpose. Then there is C. rubro-violacea and lanuginosa, both excellent plants for this kind of decoration, and flowering in good positions quite in sheets of colour. Let us have, therefore, a little more of these wire and other designs, to raise up our beautiful flowers from the ground, and present them climbing up, serpent-like, in their stems, but only to unfold a drapery of inflorescence that looks well, and enhances, in decorative effect, everything in the floral or foliage way with which these designs are associated.

The Country Centleman's Magazine

FLOWER VASE AND PEDESTAL.

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well in any position, but there is a craving intuitively engraved in the character for variety. What may look well enough this year, or indeed any year, may not quite please the fastidious taste the year following, and ingenuity is brought to bear upon the matter, and new positions are selected. It is well that it is so. We cannot always be wearing the same dress, or dining off the same fare, or going to the same summer quarters, or fishing in the same stream, or hunting over the same ground, day after day. We like a change. If we can afford to gratify our desires, it is done; if not, not. We cannot, however, change the form of vegetation; we

may dress it, and clip it, and train it, but the plant will always, wayward like, assume somewhat of its natural habit. It will not belie its characteristics of growth, or flower, or foliage, All we can do, therefore, is to alter its position, give it new associates to contrast with, and a new home to live in. Pelargoniums look well in the ground in almost any position, and trailing plants can be pegged along the ground, and their flowers will look up to the great source of light, and reward the observer's eye at the same time. But when we have a handsomely designed vase set on a nicely proportioned pedestal, the Pelargonium will look none the worse, and it will please its owner all the better, that it is fitted for a variety of ornamental purposes. Vases, then, are proper furniture for all outdoor gardens, and some varieties of them are also suitable for in-doors. A vase of this kind, filled with a mass of scarlet Pelargoniums, and draped with the Ivy-leaved species, or with Lobelia, or with it and Gazania splendens mixed, make a very good object-better, indeed, than if too great variety were introduced. We like the simplest form of decorating these summer out-door vases. It is more effective, and more unbouquet-like, which is a proper disposition of either floral or foliage decoration. Possibly, the most exquisitely decorated vase we ever saw was filled with the old Tom Thumb Pelargonium, with an outer edging of Saponaria calabrica. The orange-scarlet centre, and the flowing pink tresses of the Saponaria, were about as grand and simple as could well be imagined; and it told well, high above the ground beds, both distant from and in close contact with the eye. Let all villa gardeners, therefore, not fill their vases with a miscellaneous lot of plants, as bouquet makers make up their bouquets. Select, at most, three or four good subjects, and the effect will be vastly more decided, and much more pleasing to the general spectators.

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WEED EXTRACTORS.

ANY people are pested with weeds of the seeds get wafted about, and plants grow all kinds in their gardens. Annuals up under the influence of summer heat are easily extirpated by the Dutch hoe, with great rapidity. Even where lawns perennials are not quite so readily disposed are not well kept, there the Dandelion of. Many of these perennials, such as will spring up, and jostle out of existence Dandelions (Leontodon Taraxacum), Docks many of the choice slow-growing grasses. (Rumex palustris), and Thistles (Carduus All diligence should be exercised to keep tinctorius), have so long tapering roots that down any of these tapering-rooted plants. the usual scarifying process of hoeing is only Two forms of weed extractors are here reprea temporary remedy. Cut either of these 1 sented; fig. 1 is the better little requisite inch below the surface, and the root sends for levering-out larger plants. It is fitted forth other shoots, which grow apace and with a longer handle, and is stronger looking annoy those who wish to be orderly in every than, although not so powerful as the one to

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The Country Gentleman's Magazine

49

GARDEN ENGINE AND WATER DISTRIBUTOR.

HE engraving represents a garden engine provided by gravitation, and where the hose was not called into play. Many gardens now have all these conveniencies, others have not; and in such the portable easy way of distributing water is a very considerable gain.

rinsing fruit trees of all kinds. This is the sort of requisite in demand, for keeping under the army of insects and other diseases that infest plant life. An engine engine can scarcely be plied too often to rid

Such an engine with its varied appli

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HEXAGONAL WIRE NETTING.

E submit the following pattern of other kind. Usually, we see them not quite honeycomb wire netting as one of the most suitable game-proof hurdles in the market. It can be used for a variety of purposes, more especially as it is suitable for the protection of a flower garden where there is no wall or opaque fence of any

VOL. VII.

so substantial looking as it is desirable to have, from the imperfect supports to which they are fastened. In our engraving, at every 6-feet length there is a two-pronged iron standard which holds the fence good against game of all kinds, and is sufficiently

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