AprU 10, 1866. ] 



JOURNAL. OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



2G9 



tered places, in February ; and in exposed places Alder, Hazel, 

 Crocuses, Snowdrops, Mahonia, all coming into flower since 

 the 12th of March. Daphne mezereum is in full flower now 

 (April '2adj, as also the pretty little blue Scilla. 



THE RELATIVE MERITS OF THE STOCKS 

 USED FOR THE APPLE AND PEAR. 



Whex I incidentally remarked in my article on stocks for 

 grafting (page 215), that I had not had much experience with 

 the Paradise stock, I did not intend to imply that I had not had 

 any ; on the contrarj", my acquaintance with the Paradise 

 stock dates back thirty-five years or more, when I perfectly 

 remember having to cut some dead and cankered wood out of 

 trees which ought to have been just in their prime, as other.s 

 of the same age worked on the Crab were. I may add, that 

 some unworked Paradise stocks were also at the same place 

 and in much the same condition, the tops in many places dead, 

 and canker eating through the thicker branches. About ten 

 years afterwards I had also to operate upon a number of trees 

 on the Paradise which were not so bad, the situation being 

 more favourable, and they were younger, but they certainly 

 were not so good as others worked on the Crab. Since then I 

 have occasionally had to manage trees worked on the Paradise 

 stock, but they have been less numerous than before, and 

 those I have met with presented the same features as others 

 which came under my eye many years ago. I legitimately 

 inferred that the Paradise and Crab in 1866 were the same as 

 they were in 1820, and gave my opinion accordingly ; most 

 certainly I did not give that opinion without a fair share of 

 experience, for although I have not absolutely had under my 

 care many trees of the kind your correspondent, " T. R.," so 

 strongly recommends, I have seen a great many, and their ap- 

 pearance confirms what I have said. Tidy, neat-growing, 

 young trees are plentiful enough, but by the time they arrive 

 at a size capable of yielding half a dozen bushels of fruit, decay 

 has set in ; the trees are no 1 )nger healthy, and in a group 

 may be picked out at once, as was done by a friend of mine 

 not many days ago, when looking over an extensive orchard 

 belonging to a third party, and such a tree he pointed out at a 

 long distance as a Ribston, another as a Hawthorndeu, and on 

 a closer inspection it was admitted by the owner that some un- 

 healthy specimens had come from a distant nurseiy, and had 

 been worked on the Paradise stock. 



These facts go far to prove the superiorit.y the Crab has over 

 the Paradise stock when a permanent orchard is desired, but 

 when a tree is planted to assume some fanciful shape, regard- 

 less of fruit, the dwarfer stock has its advantages ; and where 

 the soil and situation are favourable, the Paradise may even 

 supersede the Crab for esjialier and pyramid trees ; but fruit 

 obtained by these means fills the basket slowly, especially when 

 the latter mode of training is adopted. At the same time the 

 appearance of pyramid-trained trees is so good, and there are 

 so many points in their favour, that I for one admire and adopt 

 them ; but the quantity of fruit thus obtained forms a very 

 small fraction indeed of what is required for the consumption 

 of the country, so that in advising the general adoption of the 

 Crab stock, I am justified by the practical experience of the 

 growers of more than nine-tenths of the .Apples produced in 

 the kingdom. So much for my own vindication of opinion, 

 let us now see what " T. R." says in criticism. 



I beg to tell " T. R." that I have seen the stain I alluded to, 

 made by budding the purple Cytisus on the Laburnum, or I 

 would not have stated so, and I believe such an occurrence was 

 recorded in one of the earliest volumes of the " Transactions " 

 of the Horticultural Society, by a gentleman having ample 

 means of observation, as he had upwards of one hundi-ed acres 

 of nursery ground in full crop ; and as " T. R " admits having 

 seen a similar stain from other things, he has no right, especi- 

 ally under an anonymous signature, to deny its being so. 



" T. R." is wrong in supposing that I meant the Pear 

 grafted on the Quince as being only capable of producing about 

 one-fourth of what the Pear would do. I meant exactly what 

 I said, that I had never known an instance in which the Quince 

 tree (as a fruit) produced more than one-fourth of what the 

 Pear would do. Has " T. R." known it do so ? He mentions 

 an instance of one hundred bushels of Pears on one tree. Has 

 he ever seen more than twenty-five Irashels on a Quince tree ? 

 I have never seen anything like that quantity on a single tree, 

 and I always understood the recommendation of the Quinci: 

 as a stock for the Pear, to be its less luxuriant and dwarfer 



habit of growth ; and I find several nurserymen who propagate 

 the Pear extensively, recommend the Quince stock for this 

 reason, and a very good qualification too, and one for which 

 I admire and cultivate trees on the Quince. StUI I am not 

 blind to the merits of the more free-growing stock, and where 

 the soil and other circumstances favour it, the produce is more 

 in quantity and better in quality. This may appear to be 

 saying much, but if the history of the prize fruit at oar great 

 metropolitan shows be searched out, and also that of more 

 than three-fourths of the fruit at Covent Garden, it will be 

 found that the Pear stock has produced them. I have more 

 than once in my life been curious in ascertaining this. I 

 therefore see no reason to depart from the views put forth in 

 my former article recommending both, but the Pear especially, 

 lu favourable localities. 



From the little I said about the Briar and Manetti as stocks 

 for Roses, criticism was uncalled for. I can only repeat what 

 I have several times stated in the pages of The Jocr.s.u, of 

 HoRTiciTLTrp.E, that I ignore both stocks except in the case of 

 standards, and I find other growers are doing so also. 



It would have been better if " T. R." had made a comparison 

 between the best fruits grown in Worcestershire on the Pear 

 stock with the same grown on the Quince, rather than have 

 taken the extreme case he has. I believe the comparison is 

 often enough made on the tables of our fruit shows. The in- 

 ference drawn from his remarks would be, that if the tree of 

 Cheai-boy Pear had been worked on the Quince instead of the 

 Pear, there would have been only twenty-five bushels instead 

 of one hundred, a result by no means commendatory of the 

 Quince. 



" T. R," next goes into figures to show the advantage of 

 having a large number of trees, and points to a plot of some- 

 thing less than an acre of ground having two thousand trees 

 upon it. Now, let us follow these figures out and see what ought 

 to be expected from an acre of ground with such an expensive 

 crop upon it. In the first place these two thousand trees would 

 cost the buyer, at 2s. each, just £200, and the price is only a fair 

 and just one, such as a niu'seryman who can assure the buyer 

 that the trees are true to name ought to receive. I may add, 

 that I paid this sum lately to a London firm for some, and I 

 saw some from Mr. Rivers, -of Sawbridgeworth, lately that were 

 the same price. Well, then, " T. R." tells us that each tree 

 ought to be trimmed by professional men — amateurs — and not 

 by the " knifeman," whom he scoffs at, and the gardener who 

 does the work with his hands. Now, how much per annum 

 has to be placed against the account of this acre of trees ? 

 Learned men at the present day expect to be well paid, and so 

 they ought to be, and two thousand trees are a great number 

 to attend to ; therefore, some large sum will, doubtless, be 

 yearly expended in their management, to say nothing of tha 

 more vulgar operation of preparing the ground beforehand, 

 and similar work afterwards. More explanation on this head 

 is wanted, so as to let us know how much has to be added to 

 the £200 per acre at first expended on the trees, by the em- 

 ployment of those well skilled in gardening, not professional 

 gardeners. 



In the same paragraph " T. E." tells us " such trees never 

 fail to bear if their blossoms are protected;" but what an 

 awkward qualification the latter part of this sentence is. Pro- 

 tecting the blossoms of two thousand trees must necessarily 

 call into operation some costly contrivance, which a guinea 

 a-bushel for the fruit will hardly be sufficient to pay for. Now, 

 it would have given myself and many others more information 

 if " T. E." had described how this protection was to be af- 

 forded, rather than told us that he had several thousands of 

 such trees to sell. If recourse to protection has to be made 

 through such means as our friends in Manchester, Bradford, 

 and Nottingham can supply, a very heavy bill will soon be ran 

 up in this way, for such fabrics are not by any means cheap. 

 Some eulighteument on this score will be very acceptable. 



Now, in relation to the paying capabilities of a plantsrtion of 

 trees like that described by " T. R.," in the paragraph alluded 

 to, I will relate a ease, which, though occurring upwards of one 

 hundred miles from here, I was, nevertheless, well acquainted 

 w th. A gentleman retiring from business with an ample com- 

 psti n 'y, built himself a house in the country, and planted and 

 look especial pride in his garden. The situation being favour- 

 able things generally flourished with him, and being still active 

 and enterpi'ising, he did much of the work himself. Like 

 many others, he planted a plot of ground with fruit trees 

 trained in the pyramid fashion. I think he allowed somewhat 

 more room than " T. E." speaks of, but in other respects they 



