374 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
before the time has arrived for them to do any serious mischief. Another useful 
agency in promoting favourable conditions is grass turf. Whenever the circum- 
stances of the cultivator permit the growth of grass turf, it should be encouraged, 
for it is not natural fruit culture to dig amongst fruit trees; we shall never see 
handsome old trees constantly and sufficiently productive on land that is systematic- 
ally occupied with other crops. Grass is not only a protection against the injurious 
operation of the plough and the spade ; but ground covered with grass turf absorbs 
sun heat more slowly than cultivated ground, and consequently is comparatively 
colder in the spring, and hence does not favour early growth. A breeze above and 
turf below favour late growth of the trees, and that enlarges their chance of escape 
from spring frosts. 
Trees help each other, and as the best sticks of timber come from land that is 
EA os with trees, so the biggest haul of fruit may be looked for where the fruit- 
trees are all in a lump, sheltering each other, not only as to their branches, but as 
to their roots also. J am thoroughly satisfied and prepared to maintain that every 
tree needs the shelter of its own branches for its own stem and roots, and that con- 
sequently to remove the lower branches, and so expose the stem and the roots to the 
full power of the sunshine, is an injnry that must be paid for in diminished vigour 
and fruitfulness. Trees of all kinds thrive better in companies than as isolated 
specimens, more especially in the early stages of their growth. It is not because 
they shelter one another above ground only, but because also their continuous spread 
of aérial growth shades the ground and keeps the roots cool and moist, and hence 
where the trees “Jay their dark arms about the field” as isolated specimens that 
grow at their own sweet will, equally with the place where many trees produce “a 
boundless contiguity of shade,’’ we see vegetable life manifested in its proper glory, 
and must confess that between nature and art in this matter there is indeed a great 
gulf fixed. 
Task you now to take an extreme case the other way. Here is an apple-tree 
grafted on a starving Paradise-stock, and kept within bounds by pruning and pinch- 
ing, and occasional hacking ofits roots. This poor tree has perhaps in its time produced 
a dozen apples ; it has also produced plenty of American blight ; but you see this hap- 
less apple-trees in your mind’s eye, and I will not trouble you with a delineation. 
But it may be proper, however, to look at another apple-tree. It is in the garden of 
our friend Hodge, and was, once upon a time, a very respectable apple-tree. It is 
a standard, and has ahead. It is confoundedly ugly ; there are running sores on 
the stem, the head is snaggy, with lots of dead wood mixed with live wood and 
cottony blight, and the tree has produced a couple of dozen nice apples. If you can 
in imagination clothe that tree from the ground-line upwards—restore the roots that 
Hodge has chopped away with the spade ; restore the boughs he has joyfully sawed 
off, thinking himself the while a dabster at pruning—you will have no trouble in 
making a pretty and buxom tree of it, and hanging on its glad branches a few 
bushels of nice apples. 
In addressing the farmers of Kent, I know I must conceutrate my language as 
well as my thoughts, and I shall endeavour now to sum up in a few practical pro- 
posuls the results of the observations and experiments in fruit culture that have 
occupied and amused me during the past quarter of a century orso. It may be 
advantageously observed, then, that the ghost of a tree will not produce marketable 
fruit. You mnst have a vigorous, healthy, thriving tree, if you propose to pursue 
profitable fruit culture. Consequently, to return to the roots, a tree should have 
roots of its own, or the aid of vigorous roots if it is budded or grafted. There may 
be room for improvement as to the stocks on which the various kinds of trees are 
grafted, but generally speaking, those customarily used answer pretty well. If 
there is a special bone of contention anywhere, it is among apple stocks ; for there 
are in the market several very bad stocks, and they are bad in this way, that the trees 
grafted on them never grow larger than umbrellas, and never produce more than 
fourteen fruits. During several years past I have been quite rich in trees of this 
sort, but 1 should have been poor indeed had I depended on such trash for a living. 
Fruit-growing for a fad is very different to fruit-growing for a fortune, I am satis- 
fied that for profitable fruit culture the free stocks are alone worth serious atten- 
tion, except in special cases. I know growers who make it pay to grow pears on 
the quince and apples on the Paradise stock, but vigorous seedling natural stocks 
have more wear and tear in them than any of these dwarfing stocks; and in 
7 
Peep pi 
