NOTE FROM A LONDON GARDENER IN WAR TIME.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."' SIR, —This morning (June 12th), when I looked out of the bedroom window to see if there had been any rain on our war potatoes and other vegetables, I saw an interesting little incident. Several star- lings, who live high up in the pointed spire of the church near by, were down on our tennis lawn, digging into the grass with their beaks in the way they constantly do. A little bunch of sparrows was rear them also picking for breakfast, when a hen .blackbird suddenly screamed "Queek, queek, quack." Every • bird on the lawn looked up, and when the warning was repeated all flew up into the trees to "wait and see." There had been no sound to frighten the birds, and I wondered if they had heard another explosion by the B.E.F. (is it not time to call it the Grand Army, the young big brother of the Grand Fleet?) when our neighbour's big black cat came quietly across the lawn and hid among some ferns. The hen blackbird also sings this "hymn of -hate" when the tawny owls are sitting high up in the horse chestnut outside our window; she scolds at them for aii hour at a time, -fitting from bough to bough, quite close to the solemn birds, whose heads seem able to turn right round on their motionless bodies. We -always know the owls are back by the monotonous, harsh "Queek, queek, queek." Owls are surely the cats of the air. If any of your readers are-in doubt as to what vegetable to grow in a garden within three miles of St. Paul's, let them try artichokes—the " Jerusalem " kind. We have a line of them round the inside of the garden walls nearly a hundred yards long, all sown this _spring, and now nearly two feet high. Our potatoes are nearly a foot high, and look very encouraging; the marrows, scarlet runners, French beans, lettuce, &c., also do well—so far. " Touch wood!" as our schoolboys. say, for the 'wireworm, the slug, and the caterpillar may remind us presently of Virgil's reflection, Sic ros non vobis viellificatis apes. If the worst comes to -the worst, we shall have had the pleasure of seeing them grow—it is a lesson in " stick to it " just to see the indomitable way the " J." artichokes come up in our forsaken no-plant's-land, dark, dry places of the garden, under trees, and they are excellent, wholesome eating.—I am, Sir, &c., A LONDON READER OF TEE " SPECTATOR " FOR FIFTY YBAILLI.
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