October 16, 1866. 1 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



295 



nnder many advantages, and this, combined with the skill and 

 attention bestowed, secures the- grand results which ho has 

 accomplished. — D., Deal. 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Weekly Snow, October I'M It. — Mr. Yimug, gardener to R. Barclay, 

 Esq., of Higligate, sent ft good collection of Apples and Pears, and an 

 excellent collection of vegetables, foi which he severally received 

 extra prizes. Mr. Carr, gardener to 1'. [.. Hinds, Esij., Hyflret l.ndge, 

 Hnrrey, sent a dish of the fruit of Passiflora laurifolia, or Water 

 Lomon, for which ho received a first-class certificate. C. Leach, E q , 



of Clapham, sent a beautiful collection of Nerines, among win. li \ 



tho charming Fothergilli, nudulata, humilis, and comsca major, and 

 received an extra prize. Mr. Young, also sent a collection of miscel- 

 laneous plants, for which he received a first-class certificate. 



MUSHROOM-BED— MANURING A LAWN- 

 POTTING LAPAGERIA ROSEA. 



Last June I made a Mushroom-bed, which has borne shyly 

 up to this time. It has not quite stopped. It is in a close 

 coach-house, and was made up with three loads of horse- 

 droppings. On examining it I find it quite full of spawn ; 

 indeed, the bed is quite white with it. What would you re- 

 commend me to do ? 



Do you recommend covering a grass plot with old manure in 

 the winter months for giving it strength in the spring? Is any 

 addition needed to peat and sand for potting Lapageria rosea, 

 and when should it be done ? — W. A. 0. 



[We would let the Mushroom-bed remain, but make holes in 

 it with a pointed stick, and water it with water from which the 

 chill has been taken off ; but you had better make up another 

 bed as well. 



The manure spread in winter and bush-harrowed, will make 

 the grass better in spring ; but most lawns are apt to grow 

 faster than the gardener likes. 



We would add turfy loam to the peat and sand for Lapageria 

 rosea ; but the main point is plenty of drainage and plenty of 

 water when the plant is growing. We would prefer fresh soil- 

 ing the plant in March or April, but if there is a defect of 

 drainage, or the soil is wet and soured, it had better be done 

 at once.] 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRUNING. 



(Concluded from page 274.) 



The second object of pruning being to promote fruitfulness 

 in the trees, it should be done chiefly in the summer, or during 

 the period of growth. At the same time, or during the growing 

 season, much may be done to advantage both in thinning out 

 and shortening-in such parts of the tree as may need these plans 

 of treatment. Various methods are pursued to produce fruit- 

 fulness, all of them depending upon the fact that this condition 

 arises from the natural habit of the tree to make its wood-growth 

 very freely for a series of years, and then, while the growth by 

 extension is curtailed, to take on that wonderful change by 

 which the wood-buds are transformed into those that expand 

 into flowers and produce fruit. The study of these changes is 

 called morphology, and when the tree has reached this con- 

 dition, it is said to have arrived at its maturity. 



After the tree has built up a complicated structure of limbs 

 and branches with some consequent obstruction to the flow of 

 sap, dependent upon the hardening of the woody tissues and 

 contraction of the cells, as well as upon the tortuous course of 

 its passage, it appears to reach its maturity, and to come into 

 bearing condition. It ceases to make such free wood-growth, 

 and prepares a set of buds which develope flowers and fruit. 



Now this period of growth and unfruitfulness may continue 

 for a longer or shorter period in different varieties of fruits, and 

 the curtailing of this period is the great object of the leading 

 operations of summer pruning, and of other methods of pro- 

 ducing fruitfulness that may be classed with it under the second 

 head of the objects of pruning. 



To appreciate their importance and the mode in which the 

 effect is produced, we must bear in mind the two great acts of 

 vegetable life — the production of wood and that of fruit, the one 

 multiplying the associated buds or plants that make up the 

 community of buds which constitute the tree ; the other pro- 

 ducing the germs of new plants that are to be separated from 

 the organism, and which are prepared to set up a separate ex- 



istence. These two acts are in some senso antagonistic. The 

 first is essential to tho production of timber, to the building up 

 the tree, and should be encouraged to do its work undisturbed, 

 to a certain point, that we may have a substantial framework 

 by which our fruit can be supported. The latter, however, is, 

 the ultimate desideratum with fruit-growers ; and in our im- 

 patience to reap a quick reward wo often resort to measures 

 that tend to curtail the usefulness, size, and beauty of our trees, 

 as well as their performance. This is an illustration of the 

 axiom, that whatever threatens the vitality of a plant tends to 

 make it fruitful — calls into activity the instinctive effort to 

 perpetuate tho species by tho production of seed that may be 

 separated from the parent, and establish a distinct existence 

 to take the place of that, the life of which has been threatened. 



The operations of summer pruning and pinching constitute 

 an interference with the growth by extension, and threaten the 

 life of the tree. The entire removal of all the new shoots and 

 their foliage, and the repetition of this operation upon the 

 successive attempts at their reproduction by the tree, will cause 

 its death in a little while ; their partial abstraction as practised 

 in these operations of summer pruning and pinching, being an 

 attack of the same kind in a smaller degree, results in the for- 

 mation of fruit-buds. The operations of budding and grafting 

 upon uncongenial stocks, interrupting the circulation of the 

 sap by ringing, by ligatures, by hacking, twisting, and bending 

 downward, all tend to the same end ; they check the growth 

 by extension ; they interfere with the wood-growth, and they 

 are attended by similar results, since they are antagonistic to 

 the mere production of wood, or to the growth of timber. 

 Shortening-in the branches of some species which form their 

 fruit-buds upon the shoots of the current year has the effect of 

 giving them a fuller development if performed at the proper 

 season, but if deferred to a later period, this process will have 

 a directly opposite result, and will cause an increase of the 

 wood-growth at the expense of the flowers and fruit. 



The season for pruning has been made the subject of much 

 discussion, and different periods have been advised with great 

 confidence by different authorities. From this diversity of 

 views it may be inferred that all are somewhat right, or may 

 be supported by good reasons. This refers, of course, to 

 pruning in its general senso of trimming, and applies to the 

 removal of limbs of greater or less size. We always desire to 

 avoid ablation of large limbs, and we should endeavour to pro- 

 vide against the necessity for their removal, as much as pos- 

 sible, before their production, by a proper thinning-out of the 

 branches in the young tree, taking them away when they are 

 yet small ; but when such removal becomes absolutely neces- 

 sary, from their decay or injury, the operation should be per- 

 formed late in the autumn, when the tree is at rest, and the 

 circulation almost null, because it is found that such large 

 wounds, which cannot be healed over by the deposit of new 

 growth will, if formed at this season, dry-in, and resist the 

 action of the elements better than if the section had been made 

 when the wood was full of sap. 



Mild winter weather, or the early spring time, is a favourite 

 time for pruning, because it is comparatively a period of 

 leisure ; the absence of foliage affords us an opportunity to see 

 the work before us, and to anticipate its effects upon the con- 

 figuration of the tree. So soon as the buds begin to swell, and 

 the foliage to expand, pruning should be arrested, unless in 

 small trees, because the sap is in active motion, and the ma- 

 terial called cambium is not yet developed ; hence, the wounds 

 will bleed, and are not so readily healed over ; besides, the 

 bark at this season is very readily separated from the wood, 

 and bad wounds are thus frequently produced by tho pruner, 

 which may seriously damage the tree. Then comes a period 

 when pruning had better be suspended until the time the trees 

 have completed their growth by extension, and formed their 

 terminal buds at the ends of the shoots. The precise date 

 cannot be given, but it is indicated with sufficient accuracy by 

 this mark in Nature's calendar — the formation and full deve- 

 lopment of the terminal buds, and by the copious deposit of 

 woody matter throughout the tree. The annual layer of fibres 

 is then being produced, and the tissues are in the formation 

 stage ; the tree now possesses, in its own organism, the best 

 of all plaisters to cure and cover the wounds made by the saw 

 and knife, it now possesses the true vis medicatrix naturu: in 

 the highest degree. 



A few intelligent nurserymen have learned this very important 

 lesson, and have applied it in the preparation of their trees for 

 the exposure incident to their removal from the nursery to the 

 orchard. A very few of them practise it systematically. I knew 



