130 THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. [June, 



not be preserved. , Carefully netting might baffle the birds, and pleasure 

 and profit be made to go together. Thus might the eye be more fully 

 satisfied with beauty, the palate gratified with an increase of good things, and 

 artistic taste extended and improved by a liberal scattering or grouping of fruit- 

 bearing trees throughout pleasure-grounds and plantations all over the kingdom. 

 Hardwicke House. D. T. Fish, F.R.H.S. 



PROTECTING CHOICE YOUNG SPECIMEN TREES. 



; HEEE is much to be done by a judicious selection of the sites in which 

 young specimens of newly-introduced and choice trees are to be planted. 

 After they have become inured to our climate, and we can save seed and 

 raise seedlings, they may be planted like other things — anywhere ; but in 

 the case of all newly-introduced or tender trees, &c., my rule is, that if I have- 

 not natural shelter from south-east, round by north to west, or south-west, I 

 make a temporary screen, and only admit the sun on the plants in winter after 

 it has got round near to the south. Thus the hoar frost — that great enemy to 

 all fruits, vegetables, trees, and shrubs — is subdued, and by the time the sun 

 reaches the plants the atmosphere becomes changed, and no injury takes place, 

 but the trees have the real benefit and enjoyment of being well dried and made 

 warm and comfortable, by sundown. It is astonishing to see how the new 

 Japanese plants grow and luxuriate through adopting this simple method ; in fact, 

 anything, whether hardy or not, can thus be made to thrive, and the first year 

 after planting may be induced to start into luxuriant growth which is afterwards 

 maintained. What is the use of making a careful preparation for a healthy 

 thrifty plant of any kind, and yet to plant it without affording it the necessary 

 amount of shelter ? 



The secret of our having here such numbers of fine and rare trees is that I 

 always adopt the rule of planting rather high, on raised mounds, according to 

 soil, climate, exposure, and situation ; and that I always form a temporary shelter 

 at once, by means of any easily come-at-able evergreen boughs, branches of furze r 

 &c. The method is remarkably simple. If I have not got stored up, as I 

 generally have, bundles of evergreen prunings, I go to the nearest shrubbery and 

 thin out some branches ; these are stuck into the ground at the required distance, 

 in a circle around the plant, and are then bent down, and the tops interwoven 

 together. Thus, in less than five minutes, I have a perfect screen of basket- 

 work of, say, 3ft. high, for the newly-planted young tree. If the shelter is 

 required to be of a greater height than this, it is only necessary to stick another 

 tier of branches into the rim of the basket-work, and interweave them as before. 

 Then, when winter comes on, I stick another row of branches into the rim, pull 

 them together at the top, and give them one tie with an osier or piece of rope- 

 yarn, and in a couple of minutes I have a dome formed over the top, which, if 

 too thick on the side where the sun is to be admitted, can be cut with the knife- 



