212 



JOUBNAIi OF HOBTICULTURE AND COTTAGE QABDENEB. t 8epU«iilH.r 2J. 1S69. 



of tUat kind had the same appearance as they would have wom 

 in England, after a very severe night frost. The plants were 

 lying along the gronnd, the leaves black, shrivelled, limp, and 

 withered We are about 300 yards from the sea, and from a 

 gnliy of the garden which receives the wind in its force, some 

 Apples which wore tasted had a strong flavoar of salt. Flowers, 

 of coarse, for the present, are done for ; the vegetable crops are 

 injared, and the trees much shaken in the earth. The wind 

 was, I believe, S.W., and the barometer went down and up with 

 wonderful variations throughout the night. — E. W., Jereetj. 



FRUIT-TREE STOCKS. PARTICULARLY THE 



QUINCE. 



At page 200 of The Jouhxal of IIorticultcre, Mr. Rivers 

 seems to be pleased with the opportunity I have given him of 

 " ventilating " the above subject. He thinks I have laboured 

 under a mistake for many years about the Portugal and Angers 

 Quinces. I must say that the supposition is gratuitous on his 

 part, and that I think myself at least his equal on the subject. 

 He further says it is probable that I have neither the one nor 

 tbe other true to name. Why should I not have them as well 

 as himself? I think he pays my intelligence a bad compli- 

 ment. Mr. Eivors refers to his having obtained his knowledge 

 ^ the Quince stock from the " Catalogue " of the Horticultural 

 Society, compiled by Mr. Thompson about 1831. Mr. Thomp- 

 son's knowledge of this stock could not then have been very 

 great, as he had been only in the gardens about six or seven 

 years. But what Mr. Thompson recommended in the first 

 edition of the " Catalogue " I do not know, but he has made no 

 reference in the edition of 1812 beyond the remark that the 

 Portugal Quince "is the best sort for grafting Pears upon," 

 4tld this is my opinion also. Merlet, who wrote three hundred 

 years ago, says upon the choice of Quince stocks for grafting, 

 '• that the Portugal is the best and most favourable of all for 

 grafting our good Pears upon ; that the rise of the sap is so 

 strong therein, that it produces large and excellent fruit of a 

 beauty and bounty extraordinary ; besides that the graft does 

 not make a swelhng at its junction with the stock, this latter 

 being so strong that it has complete mastery of the subject 

 grafted upon it." Now, this is just what I find. Mr. Eivers 

 'likeE the Angers Quince because it is easily propagated, as is 

 also the sort called Done, but a facility of propagation does not 

 always constitnte a stock's being the best. However, I have no 

 more dilficnlty in propagating thousands of the Portugal Quince 

 than I have of the others, but my system of doing so is quite 

 different from that pursued by Mr. Eivers — i.e., layering, by 

 lOUttings, or by grafting. 



Mr. Rivers has a little hit at our Somerset climate — whereas 

 our Somerset climate is just the sort to produce fine healthy 

 trees with well-ripened wood that Vfill withstand most winters 

 — that is, if the trees were originally from a country where 

 firosis prevail, not such as Candia or ancient Crete, the birth- 

 place of the sort of Quince from which all those we use as 

 stocks have sprung, more especially the Angers and Doue 

 varieties. Mr. Eivers obtained from M. Leroy one of each 

 Mnd of Quince, as mentioned by himself in an article written 

 not very long ago, if my memory is ii{:iit ; and from this same 

 source I obtained not only all the sorts of Quinces that Mr. 

 Rivers did, but I also had from M. Leroy fruits of above twenty 

 other kinds, out of which I extracted the seeds, and from these 

 raised several hundreds of plants, many of which bid fair to 

 be rivals of the veritable Angers. In fact, I think I am pretty 

 well up in the subject of Quinces. When I commenced I 

 intended to have gone into the subject botanically, but I have 

 not done so, and I daresay the Editors are as well pleased. 



I now come to the Pear Nain Vert, and will quote a passage 

 •from M. Leroy, the accomplished and learned author of the 

 " Dictionnaire de Pomologie," a work at once a marvel of re- 

 search, learning, and cheapness. He says, " I will add, having 

 grafted upon this little fat tree (egrasuaxt), the Belle Angevine, 

 which is now eight years old, has remained dwarf, and produced 

 enormous Pears." So much for the "chateau en Expagne." 

 We shall see some day, if we all live. 



Mr. Rivers, however, in the same paragraph broaches a sub- 

 ject, althougii not differing much from the Nain Tert one, 

 dismissed with a supposition that I think is not borne out by 

 any physiological reasoning that I am acquainted with — viz., 

 the disruption of the vessels of the stock to meet the require- 

 ments of the graft. This supposition is in my opinion a bigger 

 _" chateau " than the possibiUty of obtaining enough of seeds 



from the Nain Vert Pear for commercial purposes. Let only a 

 demand arise, and we shall see. 



I now come to a bewildering paragraph — why fifteen Boris of 

 Paradise stocks? I do not think I shall try to procnre W) 

 many Paradise stocks as fifteen, being perfectly contented to 

 think that I have already the best stock of this kind in exist- 

 ence. Mr. Rivers has obtained it in a roondabout way, and is 

 forced to give it at least no secondary place. Mr. Eivers, in 

 commenting upon what I wrote about the sale of Pear trees for 

 double-grafting, tries to shove them overboard by saying that 

 those I mentioned were of all kinds of refuse, and not worth 

 packing and carnage, and further hints that the person who 

 sells them got his knowledge from him. Now I know the party 

 allnded to, but did not know that he sold such rubbish. The 

 parties I deal with graft special kinds for the purpose, as Mr. 

 Eivers does BeunC- d'Amanhs. 



I now come to the last portion of this knotty subject, the 

 working of Apricots upon Apricots, ic. As far as my own 

 experience goes, it is this : Having several times imported 

 Apricot stones and raised thousands of them, I had a good op- 

 portunity of trying how the best sorts would do upon them, 

 ily success was very, very indifferent. Most of the stocks 

 proved so tender that it was difficult to keep enough alive to 

 experiment with. Those which I was enabled to work produced 

 such weak wiry shoots that there seemel but little hope of ever 

 obtaining fruit from them ; those that were budded and came to 

 a bearing state, produced fruit either hard and close-fleshed, or 

 BO watery and sour that they were perfectly uneatable. Added 

 to this, the very kernels partook of their austerity, and even 

 under the most favourable conditions the fruit remained unripe, 

 and in all cases the flesh was adherent to the stones. It seems, 

 therefore, from my experiences that the stock exercises a great 

 influence upon the quality of the fruit, more especially in cer- 

 tain seasons, and that the graft but rarely, or very little, influ- 

 ences the stock. The subject of stock culture is, therefore, on» 

 fraught with great interest, and deserves the utmost attention. 

 That it will receive that attention from some there is no doubt ; 

 but I am afraid that the generality of cultivators are indifferent 

 to the benefits that would accrue from a careful study of the 

 subject. It is now just half a century since I commenced the 

 study of horticulture, and I have spent that time in ardent 

 research in all branches connected with it, and with Mr. Eivers 

 I may say that " my life has been, and still is, a life of re- 

 search and experiment ;" and although the allotted threescore 

 years and ten are in my case, as in Mr. Rivers's, fast filling 

 up, yet I can say my love of Flora and Pomona knows no 

 abatement. 



There is one portion of Mr. Rivers's article which I have not 

 touched upon — that is, where he speaks of sending mo soma 

 of his Apple trees. I beheve some trees did arrive here, but 

 being without names were consigned to the faggot-heap. As 

 to answering his note, this I did not do for reasons I need not 

 mention here. — John Scott. 



VIOLA CORNUTA PERFECTION. 



I SAW this superb seedling Pansy at Rotherfield about a fort- 

 night ago, and regret that I could not attend the meeting of 

 the Royal Horticultural Society's Floral Committee, on the 7th 

 inst.,to record what an opinion I had formed of its superiority 

 over all other Violas in respect to its profusion of bloom and 

 rich colour, which is as much like that of Achimenes Mauve 

 Queen as it is possible to be. Mr. Scott, the gardener, first 

 pointed it out surrounding one or two beds in the flower gar- 

 den, which is in one of the driest spots that could be well con- 

 ceived, being on the top of a bill, and having a light sandy 

 soil resting on a gravelly base. I then said, " Very beautiful !" 

 but on his pointing out a bed, 11 feet by 4 feet, immediately 

 under a west waU in the kitchen garden, exposed to the full 

 blaze of this extraordinary summer's sun, such a display of 

 bloom and healthy foliage (which partakes more of the charac- 

 ter of the ordinary Pansy, V. tricolor, than that of V. comr-ta), 

 met my eye, that I could not help exclaiming, that it was the 

 finest thing I had met with this season ; and to such a man 

 as a Gibson or a Bennett it will prove invaluable.— Jasibs 



CCTBCSH. 



PROPAGATING POTATOES FROM EYES. 

 I TLASTED in March last, 1 lb. of Early Rose Potato in the 

 garden of the Provost of King's CoUege, Cambridge, and when 

 I took them up, August 30th, there were no less than 112 lbs. 



