204 



JOUENAL OF HOBTIOULTUBE AND COTTAGE GARDENEE. 



t September 3, 1874. 



yellow Pansies, &c., they will contribute no mean share to the 

 general display. After flowering they can be clipped to any 

 size required. They will then take up but little room, and look 

 anything but untidy, or they can be removed altogether to a 

 reserve plot. 



The Aubrietias are easily increased by root-divisions if plen- 

 tiful, and good-sized blooming plants are reared at once by 

 slips under hand-lights in summer, or quicker by cuttings of 

 young shoots in a gentle heat in spring, but they must not 

 remain close and warm a moment longer than is absolutely 

 necessary. The easiest way, however, of all to get stout, 

 healthy plants in large numbers is to sow seed. It germinates 

 freely if kept regularly moist. In this way thousands may 

 soon be had. If sown in heat in spring, hardened-off, and 

 subsequently pricked-off in the open, they make useful flower- 

 ing plants in a year from the day of sowing, and will then 

 flower a lifetime with reasonable treatment. Sown in Jane in 

 the open border they make nice tufts the same season if cai'ed 

 for, and the following year are splendid clumps. It is thus a 

 very simple and inexpensive matter to raise any amount of 

 stock. 



As to species and varieties, there are new ones said to be 

 fine. I have not proved them, therefore am unable to speak 

 practically, and my path is clear to say nothing on hearsay. 

 There are old ones, as deltoidea, purpurea, hesperidiflora, &c., 

 which are all pretty for the purposes named ; but one neither 

 new nor old is better than these — grasca. I am able to speak 

 of Aubrietia gr<Tca raised from seed as one of the very best 

 amongst compact-growing spring flowers. Isolated — yet not too 

 much so — clumps in a mixed border, or in continuous lines as 

 edgings to walks and beds, it will surely attract the eye. For four 

 months out of the twelve the plants are clothed with flowers, 

 and the remaining eight they are not ugly, not unsightly. 

 That is as much, yea, more, than can be said of many a plant 

 of greater fame and popularity. The variegated forms of this 

 plant are amongst the most chaste and lovely of our hardy 

 gems. They must be perpetuated by slips or cuttings, and 

 not be planted in damp shaded places. This tribe of plants 

 suffered by the extreme wet of 1872. I observed plants on the 

 north sides of beds and shady spots all killed, while on the 

 south and drier side they did not greatly suffer, yet a few 

 sustained injury. 



If at this season of the year I were commencing to get up a 

 stock for final planting next autumn, I should sow seed at 

 once in free sandy soil in places that I could cover with hand- 

 lights or spare sashes in winter to keep oif heav}' falls of snow 

 or extreme wet. I would sow thinly, let the plants remain 

 in the seed bed until spring, and then prick out in nursery 

 beds. By the autumn they would be nice compact plants in 

 the best condition for removal. By sowing in heat in spring 

 the same end is attained, but then many who would like 

 Aubrietias have not the heat and means of raising them under 

 glass. Or, assuming the presence of a few old plants, I would 

 elip them into little tufts, and plant in beds which contained 

 an intermixture of sand or road grit in September, not under 

 a north wall but in the open. At that season they would 

 probably require little or no shading. I would not use short 

 cuttings, but long slips put in slanting with the dibber, leaving 

 only the tip of green above the surface — that is, there might 

 be 3 or 4 inches of root-stem — it may be doubled or coiled — in 

 the ground, and an inch of top growth above to make the 

 plant. Cuttings will also strike at this season in sand under 

 hand-lights after the manner of Pansies or Calceolarias. 



For vigour of plant and fine bloom, however, my experience 

 induces me to recommend Aubrietia grieca raised from seed as 

 the most certain and satisfactory mode of securing a healthy 

 stock. When planted in their blooming quarters, if a dense 

 carpet is required they must be put in closely in the autumn, 

 leaving as little space as possible between the foliage of one 

 plant and that of the other, as they have not much time to 

 spread before blooming, and unless they are well rooted a 

 portion may perish from the winter's wet. Therefore the 

 more closely they are put in the better to make safe against 

 blanks which mar the general effect. — J. Wright. 



SPKING LETTUCES. 

 As this is the season for preparing for what I consider quite 

 a necessary adjunct to one's supply of vegetables — good, clean, 

 and crisp Lettuces in the early spring, may I just give my 

 experience in the matter? I sowed last August some seed of 

 Cabbage and Cos Lettuces, choosing for the former Sutton's 



Commodore Nutt (an admirable Lettuce of the Tom Thumb 

 type), and the old Hammersmith, and for the latter a Black- 

 seeded Bath Cos. They were sown in slightly raised beds, and 

 afterwards transplanted into Looker's Acme frames, and from 

 these I had an abundant supply of good crisp Lettuces aU 

 through the early spring. I know that some run down these 

 frames, extol wood in preference, and speak of breakages, &e. 

 Let me say that I have tried both the wood frames and these 

 Acmes, and that I vastly prefer the latter. Care must be taken 

 in placing them down that the ground is made firm where they 

 are put, so that in the case of either wet or frost they may not 

 be altered from their position. I had no breakages last winter 

 save from carelessness. The Cos Lettuce did not answer so 

 well, and I am this winter depending on Commodore Nutt and 

 Hammersmith. 



I had all my Potatoes (about a quarter of an acre) lifted 

 and housed by the 15th. They ai-e of very fair size and per- 

 fectly free from disease, with only a few instances of super- 

 tuberatiou. The quality seems to be excellent. More of this 

 anon. — D., Deal. 



NOTES ON LIFTINa AND EOOT-PEUNING 

 FRUIT TEEES.— No. 2. 



As already remarked , trees on the free stock are not adapted 

 for being lifted, for the results are a temporary increase of 

 fruit with great loss of quality, as lifting and root-pruning 

 arrest for a time the free growth, only for this to be renewed 

 with the emission of fresh roots, the old parts falling into 

 decay, or producing fruit inferior in size and quality. Lifting, 

 then, when distantly practised being attended with risk of life, 

 and root-pruning with a diminution of vigour, it follows that 

 these modes of inducing fruitfulness in trees on the free stock 

 are not desirable. Judicious root-pruning may in some cases 

 be attended with satisfactory results ; but as I can see it, and 

 as I have seen it practised, the operation is best left alone, the 

 cultivator in the first instance freeing the subsoil of water by 

 draining, loosening the soil by trenching, enriching it with 

 manure, and planting the trees high on a mound in fact, for 

 who ever saw a tree in nature in a hole ? On the contrary, 

 trees have their roots, as it were, upon a hUlock. The planter 

 should give them plenty of room fully to develope the head, 

 and no pruning beyond what is required for the proper dis- 

 position of the branches, removing irregularities of growth for 

 the due admission of light and air. Trees so treated, accord- 

 ing to my experience, will bear infinitely heavier crops of finer 

 quality than those frequently lifted or periodically root-pruned. 

 A refractory subject may sometimes appear a fitting one for 

 root-pruning, but do not practise this operation ; instead, cut 

 off ^he tree's head, and put on as many grafts as will form a 

 large head in two or three years with as much fruit as, and finer, 

 than will be produced in a generation by root-pruning. This 

 practice is very much older than any living pomologist, and of 

 far greatei- service in bringing sterile trees into a state of fruit- 

 fulness than all the root-pruning extant. The free stock 

 means free growth, large trees, and fruit by the cartload. It 

 is those affording fruit for the million, whilst the dwarfs go in 

 for and win with the often ill-to-please, capricious consumer. 

 Measure them by their usefulness. Appearance, quality, are 

 everything to the latter, but the general consumer requires 

 bulk as well, and that, he knows, requires a bulky thing to 

 produce it, or the dwarfs to be vastly multiplied. 



I have a suggestion to offer, after observinr; that we have in 

 the many dells, valleys, and on mountain sides, spots of good 

 soil unsuited for tillage, now growing nothing but a jungle of 

 indigenous scrub, not unfrequently the Sloe and Crab, which 

 are conspicuous objects in the landscape at their flowering 

 period ; and these would be still more so were such unprofit- 

 able spots planted with -Apple, Pear, and Plum trees on the 

 free stock, the Plums forming the marginal lines, and the 

 Apples and Pears in alternate lines, with FUberts and Cob 

 Nuts between. The nature of the ground would seem to be 

 especially suited to the runaway character of the Pear and 

 Crab. A pretty cottage would give a charm to the landscape, 

 and thei-e would be a profitable return to the proprietor, 

 and a competence to an industrious and enterprising man. 

 Thousands of orchards and as many homes might be foimed 

 in our land ; there is no need to resort to clearing the abori- 

 ginal forest of some distant country when there are such 

 opportunities of improvement at home. The result would 

 benefit the proprietor, the occupier, and the fruit-consumer, 

 especially as it would be obtainsd from what had in all time 



