Febrau; 17, 1376. ] 



JOUBNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND OOTTAGE GARDENER, 



X3S 



Khododendrous will grow in nearly any kind of soil. Saoh a 

 statement I think is apt to mislead. It is trae they will live in 

 loam, bat you do not often meet with loam that is suitable. Oao 

 of our great nurserymen says thoy can be grown without peat 

 soil. Well, we had some from there, and what kind of soil 

 had they been grown in? Why, that b3autiful sound yellow 

 loam that makes a gardener's teeth water when he meets with 

 it; but I Jo not hesitate to say they will grow much better 

 with a little peat about them. 



In the spring of 1^00 I moved a lot of Rhododendrons that 

 had been planted in the common soil of the place, such poor 

 plants that I was sorry for them. I thought I would try if I 

 could not put a better face on them, so I gave them throe or 

 four barrowloads of peat soil. In a year or two tho effect was 

 wonderful ; they seemed to revel in it. In the spring of 1872 

 I had again to move tho same plants, but what a change I 

 Some of them would be from 3 to 3 yards across, with every 

 bit of the peat soil full of roots ; you could do anything with 

 them. They are now in full vigour again. 



About the year 18() t I planted some in front of a plantation 

 in strong soil approaching clay, I should think something like 

 what our friend Mr. Luckhurst talks about, but grow they can- 

 not — they seem unable to fasten hold of the ground. I say 

 Bgain, Give Rhododendrons some peat soil if possible. — J. B. 



FURTHEB REMARKS ON OLD APPLE TREES. 



Whether it be a fitting source of regret or the contrary, it 

 is pretty evident from what has been said on the subject that 

 the respect paid to venerable old Oaks, Beeches, Yews, and 

 even Thorns, does not extend to Apple trees, as no one seems to 

 wish to prolong their lifetime after they cease to be useful ; only 

 there remains the knotty point to settle. When .is a tree old 

 and no longer profitable? This problem, like many others, 

 depends on the opinion of those who are directly interested in 

 the trees. Your correspondent " An Old Gardener," page 91, 

 justly complains of the Hawthorndeu Apple cankering with 

 him, and consetiuently the tree will have all the appearance 

 of age excapt in size at an early period of its existence, a fact 

 very common with thai kind everywhere that I have seen it. 

 Although in some situations it is said to grow kindly, I have 

 never seen it do so for more than a dozen years or so. I be- 

 lieve it is but little planted now-a-days, there being plenty of 

 kinds with all the qualities of the Hawthornden, and much better 

 constitution. The New Hawthornden is very likely to supplant 

 its old namesake, but substitutes for the Kibston Pippin 

 are not so plentiful, which, like the Hawthornden, refuses to 

 thrive in many places, and sooner or later becomes cankered, 

 diseased, and unsightly, so that the term " old tree " may very 

 often be applied to tho Ribstons that exist in a mixed orchard 

 where the other trees are hardly at their best ; but the ex- 

 perienced orchard manager generally knows these peculiarities, 

 and only plants those kinds which thrive in his locality. 



Speaking, however, of old Apple trees and how to treat 

 them, one writer, " E.U)i<.il Conservative," recommends 

 cutting them down and regraf ting them, and suggests that — as 

 tho tree I referred to on page .51, died or nearly so at the end 

 of four years — if I had cut it down to three or four heads in- 

 stead of about forty, the tree would have succeeded. As I said 

 before, I was not at all surprised at the tree dying when it did, 

 but if I had out it down as severely as he speaks of I should 

 have expected it to have died one if not two years sooner than 

 it did, besides which it would have been inconvenient inserting 

 some twenty or more kinds of Apples on three or four crowns. 

 That plan was antiquated even in the days of Abercromby, 

 who complains of the grafts being liable to be blown out even 

 after four or live years' growth, consequently it is safer and 

 better to cut the trees into a great number of heads ; moreover 

 I may say that experienced men never cut down old or diseased 

 trees for the purpose of grafting them, but healthy large trees 

 are frequently done so, and answer very well. I am still of 

 opinion that there are only two courses available for treating old 

 trees, the one being to let them alone, the other to grub them 

 up. No middle course is satisfactory. Pruning if severe may 

 produce a larger amount of foliage the year it is done, and the 

 operator may fancy that he has improved his trees, but wait 

 three or four years and mark the result, the fact being that old 

 trees cannot endure the ordeal of severe amputations. Younger 

 trees do better, and may be operated on with advantage, either 

 in the way of pruning or of cutting down and regrafting. 



A correspondent has alluded to the fact of scions placed 

 on an old tree producing fruit sooner than young stocks are 



likely to do so. This, no doubt, is the case, but I expect a 

 middle-aged tree cut down would produce fruit a^ soon as 

 an old one, or if not, it would continue to do so longer; never- 

 theless, it is very good practice now and then to cut down 

 trees of inferior kinds to graft with better sorts. Soma years 

 ago, having a quantity of seedling Crab stocks by mo, I aeleotod 

 upwards of twenty of tho most promising, and took grafts 

 from them which I worked on an Apple tree that was headed- 

 down to some forty or fifty heads, the remainder being worked 

 with a popular kind having only a local name. Those seed- 

 lings all fruited at the end of two or three years. This tree 

 has since done pretty well, but it was not too old a one, it 

 being the old and diseased trees that it is not advisable to 

 meddle with. Perhaps, however, a good coating of manure 

 might be of service, and the folding and feeding of sheep is 

 assuredly beneficial to orchards. A coating of dung, hoyevar, 

 is no doubt the easiest application that can be given. 



Although I have elsewhere stated that many Apple tretn 

 look old and are much past their best at the age of thirty or 

 forty years, there are others that continue to bear fruit scores 

 of years after that time. In a park here are the remains of 

 an orchard, and very old people inform me that the trees were 

 old but in a good bearing state at the end of the last century. 

 These venerable trees, now reduced to five that are alive, have 

 been noble specimens in their day, and I had thn curiosity to 

 measure them to-day and find in height they all exceed 30 feet, 

 two of them being nearly 10 feet. They appear to have had 

 stems 6 feet high, clear and straight, but as most of tho 

 lower limbs have been blown off or are gone, the sterna are in 

 reality much higher, and there are but few of the branches 

 lower than from l.j to 18 feet from the ground, and the girth 

 of the stems at places where they are quite smooth and about 

 4 or ."i feet up is from .3 feet to (J feet 7 inches. These old 

 trees produce fair crops of fruit in favourable seasons. I dare 

 say one of them had at least ten bushels upjn it the past 

 season if they could have been gathered, but they require a 

 ladder so long that it is very difficult to reach them, and as 

 fruit was plentiful only a few were gathered. 



Now there is every reason to believe that these trees are 

 1.10 years old, and from tolerable good sources I can learn 

 that during the present century at least they have had no 

 pruning of any kind beyond what nature provides for all old 

 trees — viz., a limb now and then dropping off. Tho growth of 

 these old patriarchs is mostly limited to the formation of 

 spurs ; but I managed one year to obtain a few grafts, which 

 have taken and look promising, and it will be well to note here- 

 after whether their progeny possess so robust a constitution 

 as they have shown ; but it is only fair to bear in mind that 

 these five trees are the only trees remaining alive on ground 

 that was once an orchard of several acres, and that near them 

 are trees of other kinds risen-up since they themselves had 

 arrived at maturity, and now large enough to shelter them in 

 a certain degree. Added to these advantages I may say that 

 the ground is good. Still for all that it is seldom that trees 

 of such an age are met with, and most likely they would not 

 have been in existence now had they not been treated as I 

 have recommended as being one of the only courses applicable 

 to old trees — namely, to let them alone. — J. Robson. 



NOVELTIES IN THE ROYAL GARDENS, KEW. 



IliviNc: figured in a recent issue one of the Euphorbias sup- 

 posed to yield the gum euphorbinm of commerce, we now 

 draw attention to E. resinifera, of which there are two plants 

 in the Succulent house. This is a native of Morocco, and is 

 defined in the " Pharmacographia " — an exhaustive work, of 

 which the late Daniel Hanbury was one of the authors — as the 

 true plant ; and as no mention is made of the other species we 

 may suppose them to be disallowed. In another work, how- 

 ever, it is said that "in all countries where they grow somo 

 of them have been, or are, employed medicinally." The plant 

 yielding euphorbium was first described by an English merchant 

 named Jackson, and from the figures he published was doubt- 

 fully referred to E. canariensis, which abounds on arid rocks 

 in the Canaries. In 1818 the existence of a difference was 

 pointed out, and subsequently the correct plant was figured 

 and established by Berg as E. resinifera. Of this specimens 

 were sent to Kew a few years ago, aud are now flourishing 

 plants. They are readily distinguished by the glaucous blue 

 appearance of the young growths, and the stems are four- 

 augled, which in this is perhaps a constant character, as it is 

 so described and no deviation as yet appeared. E. canariensis, 



