September 16, 1875. ] 



JOURNAIi OF HORTIOULTDRB AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



213 



of rich horBe or pig manure, two or tliree barrowsfal to a row 

 of thirty plants. When the plants are commencing to bloom 

 I bed on top of the m inure with clean fresh wheat straw, com- 

 pletely covering the whole of the land, bat minding not to 

 cover or bury any of the leaves or flower stems. The rain and 

 the worms flatten and fasten the straw down in a few days, 

 and then I can go and gather splendid frait in almost any 

 weather. 



I feel I should not be doing justice were I to close this letter 

 •without saying a word in honour of a most useful assistant I 

 have, who takes care that no birds come and help themselves 

 to my fine fruit. What more provoliing than when you have 

 been at all the trouble and expense to grow fine fruit up to 

 within a day or two of its being ripe, for a set of impudent and 

 voracious blackbirds and thrushes to come and devour and 

 mutilate your crop ? This is unbearable. The secret of my im- 

 munity from such intolerable thieves is a fine torn cat brought 

 up in the garden from a kitten, who spends his time day and 

 night, who has a house (a portable one) in the centre of the 

 bed, containing sitting-room and bedroom, and a dining-room 

 and observatory on the roof, who eats, drinks, and sleeps in his 

 house, and during the greater part of the day prowls and 

 stretches among the Strawberries in all sorts of strange posi- 

 tions — a most hideous sight to the eyes of the birds. I do not 

 think I lost half a dozen Strawberries this season from birds, 

 though at times I had stones of ripe fruit on the plants. la 

 he not worthy of honourable mention in connection with my 

 success as a Strawberry-grower ? 



A few words more and I finish. I am a lover of birds — in 

 fact of all living things, whether plants or animals, and I 

 never destroy a bird. It is nearly twt-nty years since I last 

 shot a sparrow, and as it dropped dead at my feet from the 

 roof of the house, its beak loaded with earwigs (I counted 

 «ight), I felt that I had shot one of my friends, and determined 

 to Bhoot no more. — W. Lovel, Weaverthorpe, Yorks. 



RAISING BLUE LOBELIAS. 



FoK bright marginal lines of colour few plants are more 

 popular than Lobelias. They are used in all gardens where 

 flowers are cherished in the form of bedding plants. The 

 plants are raised from cuttings and seed. The seed is gene- 

 rally sown in heat in spring, and the young plants grown-on 

 rapidly until May ; but plants equally good maybe produced 

 with less care and scarcely any heat by sowing the seed now. 

 Hundreds of amateurs have a greenhouse or cold frame who 

 have not a hotbed or stove. Such should always sow seed of 

 Lobelias in September, and they will have plants in May in all 

 points equal to those of their neighbours who raise the plants 

 in heat in spring and grow them on quickly. 



The seed should be sown ia rich light soil and be covered 

 ■very sUghtly, and the pot or box should be placed in a shaded 

 place outdoors until the seedlings appear. The soil should 

 never be dry ; and to prevent this water thoroughly before 

 Bowing the seed, and cover with squares of glass to arrest eva- 

 poration. The seed should be sown thinly, and the pans may 

 be wintered in a frame from which frost is excluded, or in a 

 light place in the greenhouse. The plants will be ready for 

 pricking-out in March, and will be in fine condition for plant- 

 ing in May. 



Thus may those who have no heated Btrnetures in spring 

 raise their Lobelias. — Amateur. 



"WHICH IS THE BEST WAY TO TRAIN 

 OUTDOOR PEACH TREES? 



Mk. Taylor's interesting paper on this subject contains 

 much useful matter, not only in its explanation of the details 

 of a praiseworthy effort to overcome the difficulties arising 

 from an ungenial soil and climate, but also because it — invo- 

 luntary as I think — shows that there are rocks and breakers 

 ahead, and that there are blemishes and imperfections attend- 

 ant upon every method of the culture of these particularly 

 sensitive exotics upon open walls. 



The special merit of cordons undoubtedly consists in the 

 facility with which by their aid walls may be covered, the 

 quickness with which fruit may be obtained, and the ease 

 with which failing trees may be replaced. So far I agree with 

 Mr. Taylor, but I am totally at variance with him when he 

 claims for cordons superiority over fan-trained trees in greater 

 freedom from the attacks of blight or disease, the superiority 



of fruit, the ripening of the wood, or even in covering the 

 walls more quickly. 



Before proceeding to discuss these points in detail it may bo 

 well to state that L too, am cultivating these fruits under con- 

 siderable disadvantages, such as a poor thin soil and a climate 

 which, when I came into Sussex, was described to be by a very 

 high authority in fruit culture as so ungenial as to render 

 Peach culture in the open air a very diilicnlt and doubtful 

 matter. This was a kind and valuable hint, inducing an extra 

 amount of caution and care in the preparation of the soil, 

 and the planting and after-management of the trees. How I 

 have succeeded must be left for others to tell, it being snili. 

 cient for my purpose to state that I have ample reason to feel 

 contented with the condition in health, vigour, and fruitful- 

 ness of a goodly number of Peach and Nectarine trees, em- 

 bracing kinds new and old, and all kept strictly to the dwarf 

 fan form. 



Let us now turn our attention to a consideration of certain 

 important points of culture, not by any means for the sake of 

 gaining advantage in argument, but solely for the advance- 

 ment of science and the assistance of others. 



1. Freedom from Blight or Disease. — In thinking how this 

 may be effected the mind immediately reverts to its cause. 

 Close observation leads me to conclude that gamming and 

 canker arise from some injury which the bark has previously 

 sustained. An untimely frost or day of hot scathing sunshine 

 may inflict scalds and blisters upon the sensitive cuticle that 

 in its young state is almost as delicate as the petals of a flower, 

 and which, though unseen and perchance unsuspected at the 

 time of its infliction, is none the less deadly and sure in its 

 subsequent effects. The best remedy for this evil is a per- 

 manent coping board to give shelter from hailstorms and frost, 

 and an abundant clothing of healthy foliage to protect the 

 young bark till it becomes matured and toughened. Bruises 

 from the trainer's hammer, tight shreds, naile driven so close 

 to the wood that the corners inflict an immediate scar, or the 

 ensuing season's growth swelling around the nail inevitably 

 sustaining injury on its removal — are all causes of a diseased 

 and perhaps ruined tree. It is evident that in this matter a 

 gardener is very much at the mercy of his assistants ; no 

 supervision, however constant and close it may be, will avail 

 to remedy or prevent its occurrence. Let me appeal to young 

 men to remember this, and to assure them that the trainer's 

 hammer and the work it does is of equal importance as the 

 operation of the master's knife. Be honest in what you do, 

 and strive to preserve the branches, which you train so beauti- 

 fully, intact from harm at your hands. It ia only bunglers who 

 are clumsy with their tools, but I very much fear bunglers are 

 in the majority, for I will not let myself suppose that any 

 really earnest person coulJ infiict injury through carelessness. 



2. Superiority or Abundance of Fruit. — This, after all, is the 

 crucial test. Let your trees grow wild as a Bramble bush, or 

 be trained to the formality of a model, I care not for one form 

 more than another; only prove that you can produce annually 

 the greatest quantity of first-class fruit in a given space, and I 

 will gladly yield you the palm and become your disciple. Now 

 I have seen the "standard" Peaches at Chilwell, the cordons 

 at Chiswick— single and double cordons — standards and pyra- 

 mids in numerous other gardens, many of them laden with 

 good fruit, but I am bound to state without the slightest 

 reservation that none of them are at all equal to a good fan- 

 trained tree in the quantity, and very few in the size and 

 quality of fruit. Nor are fan-trained trees at all behioJhaud 

 iu earlinesa of cropping. I happen to have planted a few 

 Peaches and Nectarines on January .30th, 1873, the same 

 season as Mr. Taylor planted his first batch of cordons, and I 

 have no hesitation in saying that for vigour of growth, condi- 

 tion, and quality of the wood itself, and the excellence of the 

 fruit which they have borne, no cordons that I have ever met 

 with are to be compared to them. Take for example an Early 

 Rivers Peach having a lateral spread of 18 feet, and which is 

 fully 10 feet high. But then my mode of planting and culture 

 is also a little out of the old groove. The greatest poasiole 

 care is bestowed upon the preparation of the stations ; soil of 

 a good sound staple, rich rather than poor, is provided, and 

 even a little manure is added to that, into which the roots are 

 expected to penetrate in the first season of growth. Great 

 freedom of growth ia encouraged, every strong shoot and lateral 

 being laid in wherever space admits of its being done with 

 advantage, weakly shoots and all useless growth being removed 

 as soon as possible ; by which means anything approaching 

 to "severe mutilation" is avoided, and the winter pruning 



