44 



JOUENAL OF HOKTICULTUKE AND COTTAGE GABDENEE. 



[ July 18, 1865. 



I would have the latter made of green Peas, for which I have 

 an excellent leceipt, requiring no meat. Being an early riser, 

 I should make this soup while my husband was catching the 

 fish, but I would take care and be tidy by the hour for break- 

 last. The farm would provide a couple of chickens and a leg 

 of lamb. 



My second course should ibe toasted cheese — that is, cheese 

 boiled with a little cream, put on toast, and sent to table very 

 hot. This disii insures good temper for the rest of the 

 evening. The .sweets — Malvern pudding (fruit boiled, sweet- 

 ened and put in a bisiu lined with slices of thin bread — to be 

 eaten cold with thick cream poured over it), and a baked plum 

 pudding ; this is good both hot and cold, and therefore more 

 economical than a boili;iI plum pudding. The vegetables 

 should be early Droccoli and hrst-rate Potatoes. 



Strictly speaking, none of these things, with the exception 

 of the friiit and flowers, (some people only have flowers) should 

 be put upon my table, but they might all appear there, and 

 yet the dinner not have the appearance of a cannibal feast. 

 The expense of this little dinner would be small, very small, 

 and its festal appearance would show my friends that I esteemed 

 their company an honour, and that it did not require any great 

 outlay to dine a la llusse, and bring to a homely life some of 

 the elegancies of society, supposed, erroneously, to belong only 

 to the rich. ' 



In a churchyard hear my old home, there is an epitaph 

 recording that — amongst other virtues, supposed to be a sort 

 of passport to heaven — the lady whose remains rested beneath 

 "contrived to make a very good appearance on a smaU 

 income." I always felt quite hot when I read that epitaph, in 

 sympathising with the great exertions of the poor lady, but it 

 ■was no small praise after all ; I know something of that lady's 

 life, and the trying to make a good appearance is an amiable 

 as well as a very pleasurable excitement, and causes me often- 

 times to forget that I am (what the "Wiltshire Eectok" 

 declares I am not) — An Oveewokked Wife. 



STOCKS AND THEIR INFLUENCE. 



Where the soil and climate are suitable for the gi-owth, the 

 perfection of bloom, and for the maturity of the seed or fruit 

 of any tree, there can be no doubt that the organs, uaturallj- 

 provided for the supply of sap. Will afford it of proper quality 

 and sufficient quantitj' tor every want of the tree. Then, if 

 trees and shrubs succeed best, are more productive, and freer 

 from disease, when supplied -with sap from then- own roots and 

 passing through a stem of their own pecuUar kind, why do we 

 graft or bud on a stock of another species or variety ? We do 

 bud and graft, however — 1st, For the increase of a particular 

 Icind of tree, and on stocks of a different species or variety, 

 because they are the more readily obtained ; 2nd, To fit the 

 kind for some particular soil ; 3rd, To produce some alteration 

 in the habit of the tree or shrub. There is a prevailing im- 

 pression among gardeners that the stock communicates to the 

 species or variety of tree or shrub grafted upon it a portion of 

 its own power to bear cold without injury. This idea, however, 

 is wholly erroneous, as is amply proved by the tender kinds of 

 Koses on the Briar being destroyed by severe frost, and also by 

 the circumstance that the branches of every variety or species 

 of tree are much more easily destroyed by frost than its roots. 

 Physiologists agree in their views as to our grafting on stocks 

 which are of less growth than the scion, and consider the 

 practice wrong where extensive growth and dm-abUity is wanted, 

 but eligible whenever it is desirable to diminish the vigom- and 

 growth of the tree. iUr. Knight draws these conclusions from 

 his experience—" That the stock of a species or genus different 

 fi-om that of the fruit to be grafted upon it can be used rarely 

 with advantage, unless where the object of the planter is to 

 restrain and debilitate ; and that v.-here stocis of the same 

 species with the bud or graft are used, it will be found ad- 

 vantageous generally to select such as approximate in their 

 habits and state of chiinge, or improvement from cultivation, 

 to those of the variety of friut which thev are intended to 

 support." Mr. Johnson, in the " Science and Practice of Gar- 

 dening," p. 200, states—" The only situation in which we can 

 beheve that the stock of another can be advantageously em- 

 ployed, is wliere the soil happens to be unfriendly to the species 

 from which the bud or graft is taken." I have 'no doubt as to 

 the general conclusions of Jlr. Knight being correct so far as 

 the health of the tree is concerned ; but I find him all at sea 

 as to grafting or budding on a different species or genus restrain- 



ing the vigour of the scion. I find the Apricot much less 

 vigorous grafted on a stock of its own species than on the 

 Pliun, it being a well-known fact that all varieties or species 

 take much more tardily from buds or grafts on stocks from 

 stones or seeds of their pecuhar kind, than on those of a 

 different species or genus nearly enough allied to permit of the 

 operation succeeding. It is also remarkable that the scion or 

 bud of any tree will take much more readily on another part of 

 the same tree, the tree itself being budded or grafted on a stock 

 of another species or variety, than when budded or grafted on 

 a stock of the same variety. Generally all trees and shrubs 

 seem to take better on a stock of a different species or variety 

 than on one of their own peculiar kind. 



Now, by budding or grafting on a stock of less or slower 

 growth than the bud or graft, as in the case of the Peach and 

 Nectarine on the Plum, the aim seems to be to restrain vigour, 

 and render the tree more productive. Apart from any in- 

 fluence of the stock, grafting alone has a tendency to increase 

 fertility and lessen the vigour of the tree. It acts in the 

 same manner as ringing, or removing a ring of bark from a 

 branch or stem of a tree ; both act by arresting the downward 

 flow of the sap. Mr. Knight writes on this point — " When the 

 course of the descending current " (elaborated juice or sap), " is 

 intercepted, that necessarily stagnates and accumulates about 

 the decorticated part, whence it passes into the alburnum, is 

 carried upwards, and expended in an increased production of 

 blossom and fruit." Though this was written with reference 

 to ringing, yet it may be taken as having the same bearing on 

 grafting; for Mr. Johnson, in "Science and Practice of Gar- 

 dening," page 195, when writing of the influence of the stock, 

 states that " the sap becomes more rich, indicated by its 

 acquiring a greater specific gi-avity in some stocks than in 

 others," instancing a Black Cluster Vine stock on which a 

 Black Hamburgh had been grafted. According to this dictum 

 we ought to find the Pear on the quince more jiroUfic, and 

 giving larger fruit, of better flavour, than on the pear stock ; 

 and the same results should attend aU gi-afthig or budding on 

 a stock of less gi-owth, and of a different species or genus. It 

 is, indeed, verified by j^ractice ; the Pear on the quince, the 

 Peach and Apricct on the Plum, arrive at a fruiting state 

 earlier, iruit-buds are more abimdantly formed, the blossoms 

 set better, the wood and fi-uit ripen earher (simply from the 

 more abundant deposition of cambium, which we term the 

 ripening of the wood), and the fruit is larger, higher-coloured, 

 and richer-flavoured than when on their own stocks. 



Grafting or budding, therefore, on stocks of less vigorous 

 growth than the scion or bud, restrains the growth, rendering 

 it more productive, though it may endure for a short time only 

 ere disease commence, and the parts decay ; or it may be perma- 

 nent, and of this I only laiow one instance — the Pear on the 

 quince. The reason, in this case, is not because the quince docs 

 not restrain the growth of the scion, but because the head or tree 

 is kejit close-prmied or stojjped, the growth of stock and graft 

 being made culturally corresponding. It is a common error to 

 conclude that, because Peaches on the Mussel Plum are short- 

 lived. Pears on the quince must be short-lived also. Nothing 

 can be brought to bear showing the parallel in these cases. No 

 doubt the Pear on the quince is short-lived when it is allowed 

 to outgrow its stock, as the Peach on the Plum always does, in 

 consequence of being allowed to make shoots a yard long, to be 

 cut down at the winter pruning to 9 inches or a foot. Were 

 close-primiog or stopping practised on the Peach, I have every 

 reason to believe it would be as long-lived as the Peai' on the 

 quince, of which I know trees as dwarfs, close-pruned or stopped, 

 upwards of half a century old, which annually ijroduce good crops 

 of large, fine-coloured, fuU-ttavom-ed fruit. Now that we have 

 Peaches on the Plum producing their fruit on spurs, I have 

 every reason to think that they wiU prove as healthy, as fruitful, 

 and as long-Uved as the Pear on the quince, "close-pinched" 

 so that the growth of stock and bud, or graft, correspond. 

 Perhaps Mr. Eivers may have some of his original Peaches on 

 the Plum elose-stoijped so as to produce their fruit on spurs 

 that even yet produce crops of large-sized aud good-flavoured 

 fruit ? If it be so it would go a great way to prove that fruit 

 trees on stocks of slower or less growth are only short-hved 

 when the scion is allowed annually to outstrip its stock in the 

 growth made. 



Further, in budding or grafting on a species or genus different 

 from that worked upon it, we find that the bud or scions take 

 much more freely, aud make stronger growth for a few years 

 (the Peach on the Plum losing its vigour through the formation 

 of fruit-buds at the third season of growth), than on a -stock of 



