18 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



\^Januariff 



in California, and the answer was, because the 

 insect was not there. The Pacific Rural Press 

 Bays it has appeared there at last. 



TnK CiiAMrioN Wind Engine.— To have water, 

 when nature docs not favor us, is one of the roads to 

 fortune. It is surprising that more people do not 

 guard themselves from injury by contrivances to 

 secure water, wlien nature is in a wayward mood. 

 We are thinking of this just now as we read the 

 circular of the " Champion " engine for pumping 

 water by wind power. It seems by the descrip- 

 tion to have many good points. 



Pruning for Wood and Pruning for Fruit. 

 There is a good deal of art in being a good fruit 

 grower; and we give the following extract from 

 Karl Koch's lectures to illustrate it. We have 

 adopted as the heading of our paragraph a well- 

 known expression of Mr. William Saunders, who 

 used to dwell so much on the difference in his 

 earlier writings. 



" Nothing is so well suited to give us an insight 

 into the ways and means of the nutrition 

 of the fruit tree, and vegetable nutrition 

 generally, as the practical treatment of the more 

 delicate kinds of fruit trees in pruning. The 

 double task of every individual organic being, 

 animal or vegetable, to take up nourishment, 

 not alone for its own development, but also for 

 the production of fruit to propagate its species, 

 assertsitself as of primary importance in relation 

 to pruning. The fruit gardener distinguishes 

 these processes as the formation of wood and 

 the formation of fruit. He makes it his aim to 

 maintain the equilibrium of those two forces. 

 But this view of the condition of things is neither 

 natural nor right. In our fruit trees — I am 

 speaking now of the North, for even in the South 

 of France they behave quite differently — there 

 is, for reasons which I shall afterwards explain, 

 a preponderating tendencj' to the formation of 

 wood. Trees in North Germany grow, on an 

 average, four times as fast as those in the 

 warmer, and more particularly those in tropical 

 regions, and consequently produce four times as 

 much wood in the same period. Therefore the 

 fruit gardener in the North has, in respect to 

 this increased production of wood, a more form- 

 idable difficulty to encounter than in the South. 

 In his treatment of a fruit tree his endeavor is to 

 prevent it from making more wood than is abso- 

 lutel)' necessary to assimilate in its leaves the 

 food required, on the one hand for the immediate 



growth of new wood— that is to say for just so 

 much new wood as it wants, and on the other 

 hand for the next crop of fruit. From the differ- 

 ence in the growth of trees in diverse climates — 

 taking, for examjile, the North of Ciermany and 

 the South of France— it is clear that the treat- 

 ment of fruit trees in these two regions should 

 not be the same. Whereas the Frenchman 

 prunes for wood, we are often obliged to prune 

 for fruit. Therefore all translations of even the 

 best French treatises on pruning, with a view of 

 carrying into practice here the precepts they 

 contain, do not possess the slightest value for us. 

 Indeed, I would warn our gardeners against fol- 

 lowing out these directions in the North. 



The German fruit grower not only carefully 

 watches growth, even where there is a super- 

 abundance of nutritive substances present, so as 

 to limit the production of wood to a certain 

 quantity, but he also knows how to interrupt the 

 growth of the young shoots by shortening them 

 to a given length, thereby diverting the food 

 stored up to the fruit, and increasing its volume. 

 But a good fruit gardener does not stop here ; 

 he likewise reduces the number of fruits in order 

 to obtain a larger size and better quality; and 

 by this means he has about the same weight in 

 liner fruit that he would have gathered from the 

 more numerous smaller fruit." 



NIJW FRUITS. 



New Apples. — The list of apples is so long 

 that for years past we have been able to 

 note but few new ones that have any claims 

 to introduction. Unless there is a point of 

 merit not yet reached by some other, it is rather 

 an injury to fruit-culture than a benefit to in- 

 troduce new kinds. We feel this more than ever 

 since our centennial experience, where nearly 

 everything of all this great multitude came be- 

 fore us in one shape or another, and we shall 

 feel more embarrassed than ever in deciding that 

 a new seedling is worthy of naming and dissemi- 

 nation. We have now three excellent kinds be- 

 fore us from Canada. One is Bradt's Seedling 

 Russett. It is medium .sized, and as good to say 

 the least, as any average Russett known, and ap- 

 pears to have good keeping qualities. We made 

 a Christmas offering of it, and it then was in such 

 good trim, that it looked as if it might have been 



