September 30, 1875. ] 



JOUBNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



285 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



DS7 



ol 



Month 



Day 



ot 

 Week. 



SEPT. 80— OCT. 6, 1875. 



Th 



F 



S 



SuH 



M 



To 



W 



Average 



Temperature near 



London. 



Pheasant shooting begins. 

 Length of day lUi. 40m, 

 19 Sunday after Trinity. 



Twilight ends 7.18 p.m. 



Eojal Hortionltural Sooitty— Fungus Show. Meeting 

 [ of Fruit and Floral Committee. 



Day. 

 65.0 

 63.4 

 64.4 

 63.7 

 63.7 

 60.5 

 61.8 



Night. 

 433 

 44.7 

 43 9 

 41.5 

 42.4 

 40.3 

 432 



Mean. 

 64 2 

 64,1 

 6J.1 

 63 6 

 53.1 

 60.4 

 52.5 



Son 

 Bises. 



m. h. 



1 ata 



2 6 

 4 6 



6 6 



7 6 

 9 6 



11 6 



Moon Moon 

 Risea. ! Sets. 



h. ! m. h. 

 39af 5 67 al6 



U 



27 9 

 42 10 

 55 11 



after. 



3 2 



Moon's 

 Age. 



Days. 

 1 

 2 

 8 

 4 

 6 

 6 

 7 



Clock 



after 

 8an. 



8 1 



10 21 



10 40 



10 08 



11 Ifi 

 11 84 

 11 62 



Day 



of 



Year. 



273 

 274 

 275 

 270 

 277 

 278 

 279 



42.7°. 



From observations taken near London during forty-three years, the average day temperature ot the week is 03.2'; and its night temperature 



SOIL AND CLIMATE IN RELATION TO 



PRACTICE. 



CHEEE must appear to on-lookers to be some- 

 ■ -- times a very great ilifference iu the theory 

 and practice of two gardeners who are differ- 

 ently situated, and both of which are known 

 to be fairly successful. The one seems to 

 act alto<^ether iu an opposite du'cotion to 

 the other, and apparently to condemn ahnost 

 everything the other proposes. This must 

 be very enigmatical to those who have had 

 no chance of experimenting under different 

 conditions in various parts of the country, for no one but 

 the initiated can possibly believe that soil, climate, and 

 the demands and resources of a place can have so much 

 to do with moulding a man's practice as they really have. 

 Eeverse the positions of two men who seem to act iu 

 entirely opposite directions, and you would probably find 

 in the course of a few years, if both had equal natural 

 ability and both had been well schooled in the rudiments 

 of horticulture, that each would materially alter his 

 practice. 



The gardener who has been educated in several places 

 widely different from each other knows well that the 

 same practice will never answer in two different places, 

 and hence we find that the wider our practice extends 

 the more we have to learn, and the less conceited are we. 

 Young men who remain in their first place for several 

 years, and find there is nothing more to learn there, are 

 astonished when they go to a strange place and find things 

 totally different, and that they have very much to learn. 

 At first they are inclined to think it is not themselves in 

 fault, it must be that those they have the misfortune to 

 be placed under in their second situation cannot know 

 much about the work, and they more than hint that the 

 work was not done in that way at the Squire's or the 

 Duke of So-and-so's. By degrees they find out that their 

 new master's practice is equally successful as that of their 

 former one, and from this moment begins their real educa- 

 tion ; they discover that gardening is not a mathematical 

 science, and they put themselves on a new tack. 



I was led into this train of thinking on reading of Mr. 

 Luckhurst's system of applying heavy surface dressings of 

 manure to fruit borders and to many of his growing crops, 

 the results of which he has detailed in one or two papers 

 lately ; and now in the interesting notice of Oldlands by 

 " A Visitor " I read, " For fruits especially, in Mr. Luck- 

 hurst's estimation, it has quite superseded the practice of 

 digging-in." Of course I cannot doubt for a moment the 

 soundness of Mr. Luckhurst's practice, the results speak 

 for themselves ; but, for all that, I can assure your readers 

 that I have no intention of adopting it here, and for this 

 reason — that my soil is almost too heavy to be called a 

 soil at all ; it is clay, and such heavy clay too that if it 

 lies a year or two unmoved it is almost impervious to 

 air, and becomes, consequently, sour. To cover such a 

 soil with manure and leave it on the surface would only 

 make matters worse. Even the litter we are obliged to 



No. 717.-VOI.. XXIX., New Sebiks. 



put among the Strawberry plants to keep the fruit clean 

 does some injury in this respect, and it is cleared off aa 

 early as possible ; and in spring, too, quite in opposition 

 to what would be sound practice on light and medium 

 soils, we dig a little light manure in a full spit all over 

 the Strawberry beds, and quite close to the plants, leaving 

 the soil rather rough and hollow. For all this the plants 

 never require water, and the crop of fruit is such as no 

 hght soil can produce. It will be seen by practical men 

 that the little manure we dig-in is more for the purpose 

 of ai'rating the soil than for stimulating the plants, and 

 consequently light littery stuff, such as that from a spent 

 hotbed, is as good as anything for the purpose. 



With regard to the Peach trees described by Mr. Luck- 

 hurst and " A Visitor," I frankly own that if I had them 

 I should be proud of them, and probably should not at- 

 tempt any other system of training while they continued 

 in health ; but I "have tried something similar here on 

 two different occasions, and either from unskilful manage- 

 ment or an unfavourable climate (I very naturally attribute 

 it to the latter), the trees, after growing respectably a 

 year or two, either died or grew very unsightly and in- 

 vited removal. From past experience here I do not 

 expect my Peach trees to last more than five or six years, 

 and I mean to have what I can out of them in that 

 time. 



It will be seen from what I have written elsewhere 

 that I am no advocate for cordons and miniature trees in 

 general ; but although I recommend what some people 

 call the extension system with all trees where they can 

 be so grown, for the fruit is always of better quality from 

 a tree which is allowed to extend itself moderately, I do 

 not blindly follow that system where it does not prove 

 satisfactory. The principal reason it does not prove satis- 

 factory here with the Peach is that the long growths do 

 not become matured, and necessitate some method of 

 pinching and shortening. I have adopted the plan de- 

 scribed at page 197 for its simplicity. 



I wonder if all gardeners have a bad soil and climate 

 to deal with? There is a popular idea — it may be a 

 popular error — that Sussex is not the worst county in 

 England in which to grow fruit, but it does not seem to 

 come up to Mr. Luckhurst's idea of a good climate. I 

 must, however, say plainly that I think his magnifi- 

 cent trees point to something else besides skilful ma- 

 nagement. 



I gave in my former notes the dates of picking the first 

 fruits of the earliest sorts from the trees. Since then I 

 have had Hunt's Tawny Nectarine, 28th of August; 

 Grosse Mignonne Peach, 30th of August ; Bellegarde, 

 3rd of September; Dr. Hogg and Stirling Castle Peaches, 

 Violette Hative and Oldenburg Nectarines, 4th of Sep- 

 tember ; Down ton and Elruge Nectarines, 7th of Septem- 

 ber ; Barrington, Prince of 'Wales, and others are not 

 fully grown yet (September 20th). Most of the fruits 

 would be a week or more after the above dates before 

 they were fit for table. I gather them when if taken 

 hold of with the whole hand they feel shghtly elastic. 

 Stirhng Castle is m appearance very much like Belle- 

 No. 1409.— Vol. LIV., Old Seeieb, 



