340 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



season. If these, therefore, are wanted of a particular size, the 

 new growth mnst be constantly cut away clean. There is no 

 tauipering with it, because it will grow out of all bounds. The 

 Portugal laurel is not so outrageous ; this does not make any 

 long shoots. The laurustinus is apt to grow straggling unless 

 checked ; but the time to check it is while it is young. When 

 they begin to start off, they should be examined weekly, and 

 any shoot that has taken the lead should be cut back to within 

 two pair of leaves of where the branch starts from, and so all 

 thi'ough its young growth. The instant you observe a shoot 

 seeming to run away from the others, cut it back directly. 

 Magnolias are plants that we are all anxious to see bloom, and 

 therefore they are never stopped; but they, as well as all 

 other shrubs, should be, while quite young, stopped back 

 when any shoot leads off, so as to form a bushy plant, unless 

 it be intended for a standard, when the one upright stem is 

 to be encouraged until it is as long as we wish the stem or 

 trunk to be ; but, generally speaking, all who desire bloom let 

 a plant grow as it hkes, that it may be the sooner in flower. 

 All the pinus, cedrus, abies, and coniferse in general, must 

 grow as they will; the knife would be fatal Their natural 

 growth is pyramidical, whether the branches be pendulous or 

 horizontal^ and, if they lose their leading shoot, the plant is 

 spoiled. It is no longer perfect, although we have seen a 

 side-shoot nearest the top tied up to form another leader. 

 There can be no question that the plant is for ever after im- 

 perfect. The lower branches are all we have to take care of; 

 and, if we ^vish to preserve them, no weeds, nor grass, nor 

 plant of any kind must be allowed to grow underneath. If 

 it be grass under, it must be kept short as a bowling-green, 

 whereas we too often see the grass left to grow rank, and work 

 its way among the lowest feathery branches of a handsome 

 specimen, so as to destroy the entire beauty of the lowest arms 

 of the tree, l^othing will bear crowding. Three-fourths of 

 the timber in hedgerows, and evergreens in plantations, are 

 destroyed for want of room. Specimens on lawns should be 

 planted in the middle of beds made the size the trees cover, 

 and, as they spread, the grass may be removed further all 

 round, to increase the size of the bed, for the roots are the 

 better for the occasional stirring of the surface, on which not 

 a blade of grass should be allowed to grow. In the Derby 

 Arboretum there was a system adopted sufficiently absurd to 



