CULTURE OP THE DOUBLE POMEGRANATE. 151 



nor indeed affects it so much heat, as plentiful watering. They tup- 

 ported a very severe winter in my garden, 1663, without any trouble 

 or artifice; and if they present us their blushing double flowers for 

 the pains of recission and well pruning, (for they must be diligently 

 pruned of superfluous wood,) it is recompense enough. It is a Per- 

 difolia in winter, and growing abroad, requires no extraordinary rich 

 earth, but that the mould be loosened and eased about the root, and 

 hearty compost applied in spring and autumn ; thus cultivated, it 

 will rise to a pretty tree. Tis best increased by layers, approach and 

 inarching (as they term it), and is said to marry with laurels, the 

 damson, ash, almond, mulberry, citron; too many I fear to hold. 

 But after all they do best being eased, the mould well mixed with 

 rotten hogs-dung, its peculiar delight, and kept to a single stem, and 

 treated like other plants in the winter shelter." There seems, how- 

 ever, to be some contradiction in the quaint writer's statement, and 

 most assuredly the plants do not require " the winter-shelter," (at 

 least in the South of England,) to induce them to flower abundantly, 

 but I know from experience, that they are capricious bloomers, and 

 very often the whole strength of the plant is apparently engaged in 

 the formation of countless branches and foliage. I have a double red 

 pomegranate many feet high, trained against the front of my house, 

 which for years never produced a single blossom ; to induce it to 

 flower, I removed all the soil around it, and filled the pit with a rich 

 compost, but this plan was not successful, as for two seasons a soli- 

 tary blossom only was produced. I was then recommended by a 

 nurseryman to have some of the principal roots cut through, to check 

 the luxuriant growth of the plant, which, early in the ensuing spring, 

 was done ; this plan succeeded perfectly, and towards the end of the 

 summer, numerous blushing double flowers were produced— and the 

 tree has ever since bloomed annually. I do not, however, recom- 

 mend this plan ; those plants are probably too young to blossom, 

 whereas mine is upwards of thirty years old ; notwithstanding, com- 

 paratively small pomegranate trees often flower abundantly, and I 

 have seen one not above five or six feet in height, which had fifty 

 blossoms open at one time,— the soil in which it was growing was a 

 heavy loam— almost clay, which kind of earth suits the pomegranate 

 better than any other. I agree with Evelyn in considering this a 

 " glorious shrub," and its brilliant flowers are assuredly a sufficient 



