July i, 1885".] 



■THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



6g 



HIDEBOUND PLANTS AND TREES. 



An ex^prieuced eye will soon detect a hide-bouud 

 plant from its weakly growth and siokJy appearance ; 

 but it is amongst hard-wooded subjects that we must 

 look cbiefly tor this condition. Tlants in pots, such as 

 ericas, pimeleas, acacias, chorozemas, and subjects of that 

 class, are too often found to bo hide-bound, and an 

 experienced grower will avoid purchasing them when it 

 is possible. Of one thing they may be certain, viz., 

 that if they get hold of hide-bound plants, the most 

 skilful treatment will not convert them afterward into 

 satisfactory specimens. Only those who have watched 

 the behariour of hide-bound plants can realize the dis- 

 appointment attending their cultiure. The hard dry bark 

 seems to encircle them like a band of iron, and as the 

 roots have been so long crippled from want of food and 

 space, it is a long time before they regain sufficient 

 activity to burst thi-ough the bonds of inaction to which 

 they have been subjected. 



How many cases of failure those who are much en- 

 gaged in planting forest trees meet with, it may per- 

 haps be difficult to tell ; but we may be sure they are 

 not a few, especially in the case of those who buy in 

 the cheapest market, without any guarantee as to quality. 

 However that maj' be, the selection of trees for forest 

 planting is one in which good judgment is necessary ; 

 and only those who arc practically acquainted with the 

 characters that constitute a young and healthy tree shoidd 

 be engaged in the business. AVhen young trees make 

 growth after the first year of planting in nursery quart- 

 ers of only a few inches in length, it may bo safely 

 concluded that the soil is either too poor or badly 

 drained. Either of these conditions will produce hide- 

 bound trees, and it will take several years of patient 

 cultivation in a good soil to restore them to health, 

 It does not follow that a hide-bound tree is diseased ; 

 for that matter, the tree may be perfectly healthy ; but 

 e.arly crippling engenders a sort of inherent weakness 

 that only time and a total change from a poor soil to 

 a rich one will restore. I have good reasons for remem- 

 bering a case that has a direct bearing on the subject 

 under notice ; it occurred when I was a junior in a large 

 garden. An order came one morning that all hands 

 were to assist at onc& in planting several thousand yOung 

 larches. AVe had proceeded with the work for several 

 hours before the manager came to inspect the trees. 

 On his arrival he instantly gave the order to stop 

 planting. It appeared he [had not seen the trees before 

 then and had no iilea as to their condition. However, 

 he at once condemned them as hide-bound, and there- 

 tore would not plant another tree of the number then 

 on hand, but had them returned to the person who had 

 supplied them. In a few days another lot of trees 

 arrived, and so great was the difference between the 

 two samples that, even as a young hand, the case made 

 au impression on nie. I saw at once the difference 

 between a hide-bound tree and one that had been liber- 

 ally grown. The longest leaders on the former did not 

 exceed seven inches, while those on the latter had reached 

 twelve inches and sixteen inches in length, with propor- 

 tionate -side shoots. The side shoots on the stunted 

 trees were mere sprays, and a grey kind of lichen had 

 extended a good way over the stems; the colour of the 

 growth, too, was a dull, rusty brown ; while the colour 

 of the stem, and especially the young growth on the 

 properly grown trees, was bright, and free from all 

 kinds of parasitic growth. The difference of behaviour 

 in the two lots of trees was equally marked for several 

 years afterwards. As a matter of fact, the hide-bouud 

 ones never overtook those that were healthy. This was 

 my first experience with hide-bound trees; but I have 

 dealt with many cases since, though of less magnitude, 

 and the result hae always been the same. If the subjects 

 whatever they were, regained a vigorous state of growth 

 it W.SS at the expense of much patience, coupled with a 

 direct loss of time. 



In the case of fruit trees, especially plums aiul ])ears, 

 examples of hide-bound trees frecjuently occur, partic- 

 ularly if sorts are wanted for which there is not a 

 regular demand, and {growers for sale must necessarily 

 keep a largo number of vati^tiet of aU kinds is (tock, 



Those for which there is a constant demand arc regu- 

 larly renewed ; but in the case of less popidar varieties 

 they do not receive the same attention. Plants are re- 

 peatedly cut back to keep them within saleable dimen- 

 sions ; the consequence is they e.xhaust the soil iu which 

 they are growing; and, what with hard cutting back 

 and poor soil, the plants become weakened. Kut this 

 is not the only cause of hide-bouud plants. The worst 

 cases come otf naturally poor ground — huid that will 

 take four j'oars to produce a tree of a saleable size; 

 while in properly manured ground only two years should 

 be occupied. 



Regtirding conifers the fact that the plants are hide-bouud 

 when received causes more disappointment than is attrib- 

 uted to that cause. I do not wish to imply in regard 

 to these trees that they are all hide-bound, but 1 do 

 say that in cases of unsatisfactory growth the blame 

 is often laid upon iuditferent planting or unsuitable 

 soil, when they have nothing to do with it, and that 

 the real cause is iu the condition of the tree at the 

 time of planting ; yet there is no class of plants that 

 sooner reveal that condition to a practised eye. "When 

 the plants have leaders only three or four inches long, 

 and the side branches show still less vigour, with lichen 

 iu various stages of growth establishing itself upon the 

 stem it is quite safe to conclude that such examples 

 have been stunted in growth ; and that although under 

 changed and favouraljle conditions they may ultimately 

 recover, their behaviour for the first four or five years 

 after planting will not be satisfactory to persons under 

 the impression that the specimens at planting time were 

 suitable for the purpose. I have no hesitation in saying 

 that purchasers of conifers exceed prudent bounds when 

 they insist on securing plants that have been frequently 

 removed while iu nursery quarters. To the frequent 

 transplanting of young trees there is a limit, exceeding 

 which is advantageous neither to the seller nor to the 

 purchaser. Frequent removal means a check to all the 

 functions of the plant, and, if repeated so often as to 

 cause a serious loss of vigour (which it certainly does 

 under such circumstance), all the energies of the plant get 

 enfeebled — it is hide-bound, in fact^and, therefore, not in a 

 comlition to give satisfaction to anyone. — J. 0. 0> — Held. 



THE VINE IN INDIA. 



It is a singular tact that in an Empire once famous for 

 its wino there is not a drop to be had today for love or 

 money. The grape, although it grows luxuriantly iu vari- 

 ous parts of Hiudostan, has uo association whatever with 

 the bottle ; for one reason, perhaps, because wine from the 

 palm. Indict!, " toddy,*' is so much the more easily made 

 of the two. But it was not always so. Taveruier, Captain 

 Hamilton, and other early travellers in India speak of native 

 wines, and of one especially of such potency that it tloored 

 the Great Mogul himself. And another emperor — Baber — 

 tells us in his memoirs how he used to driuk freely in his 

 younger days of the wine of Ind, and commit mad pranks 

 thereafter, svich as practical jokes — on horseback — with his 

 boon companions. These monarchs doubtless were of the 

 Ohiuamau's taste, who made " drinkee for drunkee, not 

 for dry," but at all events the generous juice of the grape 

 was there, however much the potentates in question thought 

 fit to abuse it. Where the wine was made it is difficult to 

 say now. Baber's wine perhaps came from Cabul, where 

 wine is still found, but where did Auruugzebe get his ? 

 Possibly in the Deccan, where grapes grow magnificently ; 

 one town — Aurungabad — being famous for its eating grapes 

 to this day. Later still we find the early English merch- 

 ants of Calcutta drinking Shiraz wine, but this must have 

 been an importation from Persia. The wine of Shiraz is 

 also praised by Hafiz the poet, and it must haye been 

 fairly good tipple, to judge from the [lostprandial gambols 

 of old Job Uharnock and the men with the pigtails and nan- 

 keen small clothes. In Rickey's Gazette we read how these 

 old Anglo-Indian worthies drank the toast of the day— prob- 

 ably sonuMuitive belle— in Ijamjiers fdU'd with the wine of 

 the country, and how later on tboy thrust at each other 

 with their swords over the prostrate palar(|uin of the dusky 

 one. The fumes of Shiraz were evidently provocative of 

 miduight bcawU aad street rows, au4 jierhaps it wait this 



