1056 STATISTICS OF GARDENING. Part IV. 



fitness of the plant for removal ; and on the latter, very often, the future figure of the tree. The Dutch 

 and French nurserymen are in some respects superior tradesmen to those of Britain : they generally re- 

 move all plants for sale, especially the ligneous sorts, every second or third year, and continue doing this 

 with fruit-trees for seven or ten years, training their heads at the same time in particular forms. The 

 purchaser finds their heads already formed and bearing fruit, and with such tufts of fibrous roots that 

 they suffer very little from removal. Even thorn, privet, yew, and other hedge plants are trained in this 

 way, and ready made hedges may be purchased by the foot or yard. {Hort. Trans. 201.) 



7470. The most skilful and vigilant nurseryman can seldom make his practice conform to his knowledge. 

 Thus, many customers, from ignorance, indolence, or unforeseen circumstances, defer ordering what they 

 want from their nurserymen till the last moment, which consequently prevents him from applying the 

 requisite details of culture to his stock of plants and trees in the proper season. Thus the heading down 

 of fruit-trees is often delayed, in deference to late purchasers, til! the buds begin to push; and to cut 

 them at that time, particularly vines, apricots, and cherries, would endanger their existence, and, at all 

 events, enfeeble their shoots. In this case it is necessary to wait till they have made shoots of a few 

 inches, when they may be headed down not with much regard to shoots which have appeared, but more 

 as they would have been cut in the proper season when nothing appeared but buds. The plant in a 

 healthy, vigorous state, when so headed down to apparently dead or dormant eyes, will soon push, and 

 regain in a great degree, the lost time ; and, indeed, it may always be considered safe to rub off all shoots, 

 not in desirable situations, from healthy trees, provided it be done early in the season. Trees which are 

 not in full health, whether recently transplanted or not, should, in general, be left with their tops on ; 

 the leaves on which will prepare nourishment to strengthen their roots, and they can be headed down 

 the following season. Some persons, after the drawing season, fill up the blanks in the lines of fruit- 

 trees, with stocks to be budded the same season. This may do in new and excellent soils, and where 

 there is little demand for fruit-trees ; but, in general, the best way is to fill up all blanks that cannot be 

 filled up with the tree kind in the proper season, with culinary vegetables, either for the kitchen or for 

 seed, or with flowers to produce seed. 



7471. The following are leading objects of nursery-management : — 



7472. Correctness in the names given to plants and seeds of every description, and particularly to fruit- 

 trees. To facilitate this, as to seeds and roots, their names should be painted on the various boxes, sacks, 

 and chests in which they are kept ; and as to fruit-trees, they should be designated by numbers painted 

 on wooden, or better on cast-iron, tallies. Stools and stock-plants of every description, not very generally 

 known, and, if possible, the whole of those planted along the borders, whether known or not, should 

 have their systematic and English names painted on similar tallies ; and smaller herbaceous plants in pots, 

 and all exotics in pots, excepting such as come under the head of fruit-trees or plants, as vines, pines, &c. 

 should be named on small wooden tallies, written with a black-lead pencil on white-lead newly rubbed on. 

 Seton's number-stick (Jig. 161.) is by far the best for temporary numbers to fruit-trees, or for numbering 

 sown seeds or small plants. Some employ leaden, iron, or copper tallies, painted, but these are too con- 

 spicuous, and require too much labor in the preparation for a nursery. It appears to us, that, to prevent 

 the chance of substituting one sort of fruit-tree for another, either by accident or design, the following 

 mode might be adopted : let a catalogue of fruit-trees be printed by the nurseryman, and let it contain 

 against each name the number placed against the plant in the nursery ; then every autumn before the 

 drawing season commences, let a person with steel types of the numerals, and a marking-iron with the 

 initials of the nurseryman, go through the rows of fruit-trees and beginning at No. 1., say of apples, 

 put type 1. in a proper socket prepared in the marking-iron, and mark each tree fit to move, a few inches- 

 above the graft; let him next do the same with No. 2., having changed the type; and so on with the 

 apples and all other fruit-trees, not excepting the peach. This would not supersede the use of parch- 

 ment labels to plants sold, but it would afford both to the nurseryman and the public who purchased 

 his catalogue and his trees, a certain means of detecting error; as, should the label drop off in the hurry 

 of carrying the trees to the packing-court, or in unpacking when arrived at their final destination, the 

 number on the bark and the published catalogue could readily be referred to. If performed with a 

 small sharp instrument, this practice could do no harm to the tree. 



7473. Punctuality, accuracy, and despatch, in executing all orders. 



7474. Rather procuring or omitting an article than sending off a bad one, unless under peculiar cir- 

 cumstances, to be explained to the party. 



7475. Cateful packing, and such as suits the sort of articles, the season, the distance, or the climate 

 to which they are to be sent, mode of carriage, &c. 



7476. Keeping an exact account of men's time, and being particular in mustering them every morning 

 before the hours of commencing work, and again at the hours of rest and refreshment. This may be 

 greatly facilitated by causing them all to enter and go out at the same gate, which ought to be that at 

 the counting-house ; and a bell or horn should call them to or from work. 



7477. Keeping a vigilant eye to the men while at work, especially with strangers, till you have proved 

 to them that you know what they can do by day or hour, by fair labor. 



7478. Having one principal foreman or partner for the whole, and sub-foreman for the exotic, Ameri- 

 can, herbaceous, general nursery, and seed departments. 



7479. Having a proper person employed as a traveller ; or yourself or partner taking that department, 



7480. Acting on all occasions with the utmost impartiality between gentlemen and their gardeners, 

 leaning rather to the latter, in all doubtful cases, as the weaker party, according to the common consent 

 and practice of all mankind. 



7481. Paying all workmen, and, at all events your foremen, such wages for their labor as may not 

 tempt them either to idleness or pilfering themselves, or to countenance these practices in others. 



7482. Publishing a printed catalogue on a scientific principle, of every article you have, or intend to 

 have, for sale, with the names, synonyms, some description of the fruits, and reference to a figure of the 

 plant or fruit in some generally known work ; and placing, as above observed (7472.), the same num- 

 ber opposite the names of your fruit-trees in the catalogue, as is actually placed against them on cast- 

 iron tallies in the nursery, and annually in autumn, before the drawing season, impressed on all of them 

 fit for sale, with a marking-iron and types. , 



7483. Attending at all times and seasons ; and in every part of the nursery to frugality (avoiding mean- 

 ness) and neatness, keeping every where a vigilant eye, and always being beforehand rather than be- 

 hind, with the different operations of cultivation. Much of neatness depends on the master's insisting 

 that every workman shall clean up and finish as completely as practicable, every operation as he goes 

 along. Having taken up a tree or a plant, he ought never to forget to level up the hole ; having pruned 

 one, he ought at the same time to pick up the shoots, or if in a course of pruning, he should have a boy 

 or woman going after him to do so, or, at all events, they ought to be picked up the same day. A cor- 

 responding attention to order and neatness is requisite in every other operation ; and this attention once 

 become a habit, will be found a saving of labor, and a source of profit as well as of pleasure. 



7484. The management of the seed department is comparatively simple. The chief 

 difficulty for seedsmen who are beginners, and at a distance from the metropolis, is the 

 ordering the proper quantities of each seed from the growers or wholesale dealers. The 

 guides to this are the proportions of the different crops usually grown in private gar- 

 dens, and the wants of the class who are likely to become purchasers. The same diffi- 



