Miu-cli 4, 1873.] 



JOURNAL OF HOETICULTURE AND COTTAGE GAEDENER. 



175 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



Day Day l 



ol I of I 

 Month Week. 



4 

 5 

 6 



7 

 8 

 9 



10 



Th 



F 



8 



ScN 



M 



To 



W 



MAECH 4—10, 1875. 



Royal Society at 8.30 p.m. 

 Archteological Inatitutiou, 4 p.m. 



4 Sunday in Lent. 



Medical I.VuDiversary) at 8 P.M. [ 3. P.M. 



Eoyal Horticultural Adjourned Annual Meeting at 

 Royal Literary Fund (Anniversary) at 3 P.M. 



From observations taken near London daring forty-tkree years, the average day temperature of the week is 49.1^ ; and its night temperature 



PEUNIKG AND MANAGING OLD APPLE TEEES. 



HE appearance of many of the old Apple 

 orchards in Kent often conveys to the ob- 

 server that no great pains are taken with 

 their management. At first sight they are 

 suggestive of a careless mode of treatment, 

 or, indeed, neglect, whereby the trees, which 

 had originally been fine standards, by being 

 left to themselves present nothing but a mass 

 'fA') of shoots or branches apparently so over- 



crowded as to be of Httle use for fruit-bear- 

 foeariag. Such trees, the observer might imagine, reflect 

 no credit on the cultivator, and the probability is the 

 looker-on, if in the habit of using the saw and knife, would 

 like to show his skill in putting the trees in order. The 

 surprise on seeing these old orchards so apparently neg- 

 lected is the greater by the carefully tended crops of 

 vegetables, &c., in the gardens contiguous, and conse- 

 quently he will perhaps inquire why the Apple trees are 

 allowed to get into such a wild and unsightly condition 

 where everything else betokens that no trouble or ex- 

 pense is spared to render them all that could be desired. 

 We should not, however, hastily conclude or unreasonably 

 condemn, for inquiry into the matter will educe the fact 

 that there are plenty of fruit-growers whose aim is to have 

 trees clothed with tliis dense growth — growers, too, whose 

 living depends upon the fruit they grow, and who in point 

 of cultural information, as well as spirited enterprise, are 

 not excelled by any other class in the kingdom. 



Now these growers are able to give a reason why such 

 trees are not pruned. I admit this reason may at the 

 first fail to carry conviction with it, but yet in time the 

 feeling will be forced on the mind of the inquirer that 

 custom or prejudice is not the cause of what he thinks is 

 the omission of necessary pruning. 



By observing the practice of the neighbourhood and 

 noting the results, and by taking evidence of the owners 

 of these orchards, it is more than possible that he will 

 eventually become a convert to the custom he first of 

 all condemned, especially when he hear.s of the many 

 examples of failures by those who thought they were 

 going to reform a system they did not fully understand. 

 Thus first impressions are not always correct. 



Now to be more explicit, let us suppose a gardener 

 from a midland county suddenly removed to a charge in 

 Kent, and, in addition to his other duties, an orchard on 

 grass be put under his care. This may consist of a mixed 

 collection of Apple and Pear trees that are evidently past 

 their best, but still large trees more or less overgrown 

 with moss, and their tops a thicket of boughs, with com- 

 paratively few slioots of the previous year's g>-owth of 

 more than a couple of inches in length. Most likely the 

 first impulse would be, if it be the winter season, for the 

 ladder, saw, pruning hook, and knife to be all vigorously 

 applied. The firstfruits of this effort would be a load or 

 two of faggots, and a survey of them with some distant 

 friend brings out the expression that the trees are in 

 something like bearing condition. But the old smock- 



Ko. 727.— Vol. XXVIII., New Series. 



frocked native shakes his head dubiously, and repeats 

 what he has before asserted — " It will never answer, 

 master," and is even not disconcerted when there is a 

 fair crop the firet year, which often happens. But by- 

 and-by it is found out that the old man's warnings have 

 not been all in vain, for the trees seem to dwindle away, 

 and the produce of them becomes indifferent. The trees 

 after all are not made young again, but in many cases 

 their dissolution has been hastened, and the whole affair 

 ends in disappointment. This matter, which has been 

 enacted over and over again, is worth examining more 

 fully to consider the causes which lead to such a result. 



Let us take the Apple, and inquire into its history. 

 We find that, like ourselves, it has its allotted time, which 

 also, like that of ourselves, is prolonged or shortened 

 according to circumstances. It has its youthful and 

 matured period as well as its old age. When it ap- 

 proaches the latter stage there is, probably, more analogy 

 between it and ourselves than we often take into con- 

 sideration ; and who amongst us at that declining period 

 would like to lose a limb '? yet we unmercifully amputate 

 the old tree. But old trees, like old humanity, much 

 rather benefit by generous assistance in the shape of food 

 or other requirements. 



Stimulants given to the root, but these not to an ex- 

 treme amount, yet sufficient to reanimate and create an 

 additional growth, would be the rational way to treat the 

 tree, and with that it is possible the duty of gentle, not 

 vigorous, pruning might be permitted. The most likely 

 way, however, to render those severe amputations un- 

 necessary is to look over the trees more frequently and 

 do a little at a time, and not allow them to get into that 

 condition which seems to call for such severe measures. 

 When trees become old it is the rule in this neighbour- 

 hood not to prune them at all, but when they seem no 

 longer profitable to destroy them, and plant others. These 

 are planted, if possible, on another site. If it be on grass, 

 the orchard is renewed by degrees ; but if on tillage, 

 there is usually a clean sweep at once, and a new orchard 

 placed elsewhere. 



Now, in the above remarks on the impropriety of 

 severely pruning old fruit trees, I am not putting forth 

 any peculiar notion of my own. On the contrary, I con- 

 fess having become, to a certain degree, an unwilling 

 convert to the practice ; for it is no easy matter to con- 

 test an opinion with those who have spent a long life in 

 fruit-growing, and have arrived at such a conclusion, as 

 almost everyone has by whom I am surrounded, many of 

 them being extensive fruit-growers. One of the most 

 strenuous opponents to pruning old trees told me he had 

 upwards of twenty thousand bushels of Apples last year. 

 His trees were pruned rather freely, being young, but 

 after arriving at a certain stage pruning is discontinued 

 altogether, unless it be the removal of some branch that 

 interferes with the growth of something else, or in some 

 way or other requires sliortening. Beyond this little or 

 no cutting takes place with the old trees during the last 

 half-dozen or more years of their existence. Experience 

 has shown, although the crop immediately following the 



No. 1879 —Vol. LIII., Old Sebif.*- 



