PROTECTING FRUIT BLOSSOMS. 225 



XIX. — Protecti7ig Fruit Blossoms. By Robert Errington, 

 C.M.H.S., Gardener to Sir Philip de Malpas Grey Egerton, Bt., 

 M.P., F.H.S., Oulton Park, Tarporley, Cheshire. 



(Communicated June 3, 1851.) 



Many of the readers of this Journal are doubtless aware of the 

 conflicting character of tlie opinions of both theorists and prac- 

 tical men as to the propriety of what is commonly termed the 

 *' protection of fruit blossoms;" and it is strange that this ques- 

 tion, which has been mooted constantly for these last twenty years, 

 is yet, it would appear, scarcely settled in a conclusive way. 

 The fact is — I would deferentially suggest — that an amount of 

 protection when the blossoms begin to unfold, which will ward 

 off" the rigour of unusually severe weather for the period, is only 

 a complemental procedure to a practice of far more importance 

 which should be connected therewith ; I mean retakdation 



OF THE BLOSSOMS. 



Nevertheless, although tliis course has been often pointed to, 

 during the last three years especially, yet few at present would seem 

 to fall in with the practice ; albeit nothing that I have heard has 

 been found to oppose it, either in theory or experience. "We may 

 readily take a lesson in this from the flower garden or the shrub- 

 bery. Have we not repeatedly seen a covering applied to such 

 precarious shrubs as the tree pseony, or, at least, heard of expe- 

 rienced cultivators planting it in a situation free from the sudden 

 excitements of intense and long continued sunlight? 



Many other such matters might be urged as pointing to the 

 benefits derivable from this practice ; but a common sense view 

 of the affair alone might be presumed to settle it. It was always 

 understood of hot walls, applied to the culture of the peach, nec- 

 tarine, and apricot, that good practitioners hesitated to avail 

 themselves of the heat to excite their trees into blossom ; but 

 that such having actually commenced through the mere rising 

 warmth of the spring, tiie flues were put in action merely to 

 ward off the rigour of the niglit ; making, however, a liberal use 

 of them in the autumn to complete the ripening of the wood. 



Apricots commence blooming, for the most part, in the be- 

 ginning of March ; peaches and nectarines a few weeks later : but 

 at whatever period such trees may blossom, who is he that would 

 not prefer a later period still ? — that is to say, as to the average 

 of seasons. The later the period of blossoming the greater the 

 chances of a crop ; this may be fairly taken as an axiom in 

 horticultural affairs : indeed the whole question turns on this 

 view of tlie subject. In further confirmation of such an opinion 

 I would remark that such arguments carry additional weight 

 from the circumstance of our very best fruit catalogues — even 



VOL. VI. K 



