1870.] POTATOES. 50] 



symmetry of the tree. By this method we had trees at the end of the 

 first season measuring from 6 to 7 feet across, and about 4 feet high, 

 and filled with bearing- wood all over, and which bore about 12 dozen 

 fruit the following year, though all the trees did not bear. This 

 practice we have continued up till this date, never pruning in winter 

 or pinching in summer, unless here and there occasionally, to preserve 

 the balance of vigour or to shorten back a bare point. 



For the last three years the two houses have been forced early and 

 hard, and the trees have borne a crop every year. This season we 

 gathered over 56 dozen Peaches and Nectarines, fine fruit, from the 

 two houses, each 25 feet long, and containing four trees, two dwarfs and 

 two riders, all trained under the roof over the glass — the riders being 

 cut away as the dwarf fan-trained trees in front overtake them. The 

 Peach-trees measure now generally about 15 feet across, and are 10 

 feet high, and more than fill the space allotted to them ; had they had 

 room they would have been more than 20 feet in diameter by this 

 time. The Nectarines are a little less in size. Two or three of the 

 trees have been root-pruned once since planting. We trust rather to 

 the roots expanding their energies through their natural outlets — wood 

 and fruit • though, now that the trees are forced early, and well-ripened 

 wood an object, we do not lay in any sublaterals : indeed we do not 

 find this necessary, as the trees produce sufficient bearing -wood with- 

 out. J. Simpson. 

 Wortley Hall Gardens. 



POTATOES — THE EFFECT OF A CHANGE OF SEED 

 ON THE PRODUCTION" OF CROPS. 



Rear-Admiral Hornby, of Knowsley Cottage, Prescot, Lancashire, 

 has forwarded to us a table, giving the results of a trial of various 

 sorts of Potatoes, in which the comparative productiveness of seed 

 obtained from other localities was tested against that which had been 

 grown in the neighbourhood. By a reference to the table, it will be 

 seen that one column contains a list of twelve varieties, the sets of 

 which had been grown at Knowsley Cottage. The other column con- 

 tains a list of twenty varieties, the sets of which had been obtained 

 from a distance — those marked with an asterisk having been obtained 

 from Southampton last spring. A comparison of the relative produce 

 given exhibits an extraordinary result in favour of a change of seed, 

 especially in the case of some of the varieties — such as Yorkshire 

 Hero, Early Emperor, Daintree's Kidney, Dawe's Matchless, Waterloo 



