186 



FOREIGN NOTICES. 



this premature destruction of the leaves seriously 

 injures the health and strenjrth of the plant. I 

 have, till lately, been quite unable to get rid of this 

 pest by any other method than the laborious one of 

 pickinpr them off by hand, which, in large collec- 

 tions, is all but impracticable. The lime and soot 

 mixture, tobacco-water, snuff, sulphur. I have all 

 tried in vain. I find, however, that by adding 1 

 lb. of soft soap to the li gallons of lime and soot 

 water, this grub is effectually and quickly destroyed. 

 The soft soap should be dissolved in warm water 

 before it is added to the other ingredients. Wm. 

 Corvell. Gard. Chronicle. 



Top Dressings or Mulchi.vg. — Few persons 

 are fully aware of the immense importance of top 

 dressings. To regard them as merely warding off 

 drouth is to take a very superficial view of the af- 

 fair ; their merits may, I think, be classed as fol- 

 lovrs : 1st. They may be made capalde of transmit- 

 ting a vast amount of food to a suffering tree in a 

 very speedy way. 2d. They retain a steady per- 

 manency of moisture, in spite of adverse circum- 

 stances, without stagnation. 3d. They are the 

 cause of a series of annual fibres, which are of 

 much importance to tender trees. 4th. By means 

 of such, continued systematically, trees may be 

 planted in shallower soils than without them ; this 

 tends to the production of much better ripened 

 wood. 5th. If a check is needed through rampant 

 growth, or the total absence of fruit, the removal 

 of the dressing in summer will supersede the ne- 

 cessity of root pruning. 



With regard to the first point) I may observe, 

 that it frequently becomes necessary during dry 

 periods to apply water to trees in full bearing ; 

 indeed many a good crop is lost or stunted for want 

 of a timely application of this needful element. 

 Nevertheless, somewhat depends on the tempera- 

 ture of the water. Cold spring water, applied in 

 considerable quantities to the naked soil, may do 

 more harm than good . It is far better to make use 

 of the mulching as a medium, and to water it in a 

 successive way. 



To proceed with the second consideration. No 

 person who has used top dressings will doubt their 

 influence in retaining a permanency of moisture, in 

 defiance of long continued hot weather. By this 

 medium, avast amount of nutritious moisture, which 

 would be otherwise dissipated, is reserved for ab- 

 sorption by the upper series of fibrous roots. 



In the third place, top dressings, in almost all 

 cases, excite to the production of abundance of sur- 

 face fibres of a permanent character, produced in a 

 regular annual series. These are most important 

 organs in several respects, which I will attempt to 

 show in the sequel. In the meantime, I would 

 merely point to one particular circumstance of pa- 

 ramount importance ; they tend, in no small de- 

 gree, to prevent the formation of tap roots, which 

 are notorious as being inimical to the production of 

 blossom buds. 



As to the fourth consideration — the systematic 

 application of top dressings, as obviating the neces- 

 sity for deep borders, which are but to apt to lead 

 the roots to a depth beyond the agencies of the at- 

 mosphere, and to render the tree uncontrollable, I 



can only say that the question has been a grovrrnr^ 

 one during the last seven years, and that owing to» 

 the free discussion of the points connected there- 

 with much improvement has taken place, not onlj 

 in vine borders Imt in those for other fruits. It is a 

 pretty well attested fact, that the shallower the 

 root the earlier and more profound the ripening pe- 

 riod. This idea may of course he carried too far, 

 and trees may be driven from Scylfa to Charybdis , 

 but the great evil of the old system having been 

 over-excitement, through deep and rich borders, it 

 becomes a duty for awhile, I conceive, to point to 

 an opposite course. By the systematic application 

 of such. I merelv mean that the application of an 

 an annual top dressing, however slight, is antiei- 

 pated bv this system. 



Our fifth point refers to the facility afforded by 

 this mode of cultivation for checking undue luxuri- 

 ance. This will seldom occur where top dressings 

 are resorted to in a S3-stematic way Still in the 

 event of trees thus circumstanced becoming too 

 gross in the young shoots, the mere removal of the 

 top dressing in early summer will go far towards 

 taming the tree, unless it has formed some tap-roots 

 of most inveterate character. 



Having now disposed of the five main points, 

 which form, as I conceive, the principal features in 

 a svstem of top dressing, as applied to somewhat 

 shallower borders than were originally in use, I 

 would now beg to offer a few remarks on the pro- 

 priety of securing a permanency of moisture at the 

 root of certain plants. Everybody must be aware 

 that manv plants of this habit cannot be successfully 

 cultivated without securing a certain amount of 

 moisture at the root, of a permanent character. 

 The most prominent amongst these are the Black 

 Currant, the raspberr)', and, I may add, the quince, 

 amongst fruit bearing shrubs ; and celery and let- 

 tuce amongst our culinary vegetables. It so hap- 

 pens that this latter question is interwoven in snme 

 degree with the top dressing affair, at least under 

 my mode of cultivation. Last year the Black Cur- 

 rants in this part of the kingdom were subjected to 

 the most severe blight I ever remember ; they 

 were devoured by ajthides ; the leaves v/ere almost 

 entirely stripped from the trees, and the fruit were 

 of course either cast to the ground or withered pre- 

 maturely. Drouth at a certain period M-as, I am 

 persuaded, the cause of all this; for it ought to be 

 generally known that the Black Currant has a 

 greater tendency to produce surface roots than any 

 other fruit tree ; this, of course, renders it very sus- 

 ceptible of atmospheric changes, and points at once 

 to a special mode of culture. However, I consider- 

 ed that there could not possibly be a crop in the 

 next season. Having some alterations this spring 

 which brought to hnnd a surplus of soil, I covered! 

 the surface of the Black Currant roots five inches 

 in thickness with this soil. We have had a very 

 fine crop, and the soil is now filled wilh fibres. 

 The Black Currant should, I think, be planted in 

 sunken trenches or ]ninels at least nine inches be- 

 low the ground level ; in fact, similar to celery, 

 and in that event would bear a top dressing of mere 

 leaves or litter of any kind every year, applied im- 

 mediately after a wet period in the spring. Rasp- 

 berries are so fond of a permanency of moisture 



