404 General Notices. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. General Notices. 



Top Dressings or Mulching. — Few persons are fully aware of the im- 

 mense importance of top-dressings. To regard them as merely warding 

 off extreme drought is to take a very superficial view of the affair ; their 

 merits may, I think, be classed as follows : — 1st. They may be made capa- 

 ble of transmitting a vast amount of food to a suffering tree in a very speedy 

 way. 2d. They retain a steady permanency of moisture, in spite of ad- 

 verse circumstances, without stagnation. 3d. They are the cause of a 

 series of annual fibres, which are of much importance to tender trees. 4th. 

 By means of such, continued systematically, trees may be planted in shal- 

 lower soils than without them ; this tends to the production of much better 

 ripened wood. 5th. If a check is needed through rampant growth, or the 

 total absence of fruit, the removal of the dressing in summer will supersede 

 the necessity of root-pruning. 



With regard to the first point, I may observe, that it frequently becomes 

 necessary during dry periods to apply water to trees in full bearing ; indeed 

 many a good crop is lost or stunted for want of a timely application of this 

 needful element. Nevertheless, somewhat depends on the temperature of 

 the water. Cold spring water, applied in considerable quantities to the 

 naked soil, may do more harm than good. It is far better to make use of 

 the mulching as a medium, and to water in a successive way. 



To proceed with the second consideration. No person who has used 

 top-dressings will doubt their influence in retaining a permanency of moist- 

 ure, in defiance of long-continued hot weather. By this medium, a vast 

 amount of nutritious moisture, which would be otherwise dissipated, is re- 

 served for absorption by the upper series of fibrous roots. 



In the third place, top-dressings, in almost all cases, excite to the pro- 

 duction of abundance of surface fibres of a permanent character, produced 

 in a regular annual series. These are most important organs in several 

 respects, which I will attempt to show in the sequel. In the mean time, I 

 would merely point to one particular circumstance of paramount import- 

 ance ; they tend, in no small degree, to prevent the formation of tap-roots, 

 which are notorious as being inimical to the production of blossom buds. 



As to the fourth consideration — the systematic application of top-dress- 

 ings, as obviating the necessity for deep borders, which are but too apt to 

 lead the roots to a depth beyond the agencies of the atmosphere, and to 

 render the tree uncontrollable, I can only say that the question has been a 

 growing one during the last seven years, and that, owing to the free dis- 

 cussion of the points connected therewith, much improvement has taken 

 place, not only in vine borders but in those for other fruits. It is a pretty 

 well attested fact, that the shallower the root the earlier and more profound 

 the ripening period. This idea may of course be carried too far, and 

 trees may be driven from Scylla to Charybdis ; but the great evil of the 



