118 THE GARDENER. [March 



nature, and the trees make strong growths (in the autumn), partly lift 

 their roots, but do not cut them back unless they have sustained some 

 injury in the taking up; spread them carefully out and cover nicely up 

 again. The result (the following season) will be short growths, with 

 abundance of well-swelled fruit-buds. If the soil is poor, a dressing 

 of rotted manure covered with soil will be found beneficial to the roots. 

 We do not recommend summer pinching or jiruning for standard trees ; 

 we leave it all till winter, when the trees are dormant and do not sulfer 

 from such operations. We believe there are more fruit-trees spoilt for 

 want of the knife than with it (this does not apply to orchard-house 

 trees). The above remarks are not our theory only, but our practice. From 

 where we write there are between three and four hundred fruit-trees 

 under the knife. They are not all treated alike, different kinds of fruits 

 and modes of training being considered ; but as a rule we are careful to 

 cut to a bud, and hold that where there is no rule there is an absence of 

 regularity ; therefore we protest against indiscriminate pruning. We 

 have even gone so far as to count the branches on each side of some of 

 our wall-trees, and wlien not equal have sacrificed the extra numbers; we 

 have also made use of a stake to raise a pyramid to its perpendicular, 

 therefore we must confess that we admire symmetry of outline and 

 systematic training ; nevertheless it is a fact patent to fruit-growers 

 that the great bulk of fruits sent to our markets are gathered from 

 unpruned trees ; but quality is not one of their characteristics. This 

 subject has been referred to recently in a leading article in a contem- 

 porary, and followed up by your intelligent correspondent, "The 

 Squire's Gardener." 



It is not for argument's sake we ask the question. Are unpruned 

 fruit-trees admissible in a walled garden 1 We should be pleased to 

 see this honestly discussed in the ' Gardener ;' for ourselves, we should 

 as soon advocate a hay-crop in the flower-garden, on the score of 

 economy, as allow fruit-trees in a walled garden to form themselves 

 into hedgerow timber sjpecimens. G. Donaldson. 



Keith Hall. 



SUCCULENTS. 



Those who have been in the habit of visiting Battersea Park, South 

 Kensington, Ivew, and other places around London, including some of 

 the large nursery establishments, during the last two years or so, 

 cannot have failed to notice the evident symptoms of what I may call 

 the "succulent fever ; " and if they have come away without catching 

 the infection themselves, their horticultural constitution must have 



