56 NEW ZEALAND GARDENING. 



Mulberries. Young trees must be prevented from 

 becoming too crowded with wood. There are several 

 varieties. The black mulberry (Morns nigra) produces the 

 best fruit. Every garden should have a tree or two ; they 

 are a delicious fruit, requiring little or no attention. The 

 varieties of the white mulberry (Morns alba] are the most 

 useful for producing leaves for feeding silk-worms. 



Nuts. The best varieties are the Red and the White 

 Filberts. Almost any light loamy soil will answer. Dig or 

 trench the ground deeply. The main thing in the majority 

 of soils is to guard against over-luxuriance. This has the 

 tendency of producing only male flowers. Planting. When 

 planted in rows they should be set not nearer than ten or 

 twelve feet apart. If after a few years the bushes grow too 

 gross, root-pruning may be resorted to, and a corresponding 

 thinning out of rampant shoots or branches. The nut pro- 

 duces both male and female blossoms on the same bush. 

 The male blossoms may easily be known by their gay 

 dangling appearance, and "by the yellow dust they shed on 

 being handled this dust is the fertilizing pollen. The 

 female blossoms, on the contrary, are so obscure that they 

 have to be sought for. When in full blossom they 

 are of a lively pink colour, and appear like little brushes at 

 the tips of the side shoots produced by mature wood. The 

 cultivation of nuts is by no means difficult ; indeed they are 

 more likely to be injured by over-cultivation than otherwise. 

 They should, in all cases, be trained to a single stem ; for 

 the production of suckers (shoots from the roots), or rather, 

 the permitting them to remain is most injurious to their 

 future success. Suckers will spring up, but they must be 

 removed every year. The only pruning necessary will be an 

 occasional thinning of the inner branches, that light and air 

 can circulate freely through those that are left. Nuts are 

 propagated by seeds, layers, and suckers. 



The Peach. A few years ago this delicious fruit was 

 as easy and as certain of culture as the apple. Planted as 

 standards they required little attention, save an occasional 

 tying-up or supporting of the over-laden fruit-bearing branches. 

 Almost in every garden in the colony, North and South, 

 luxuriant trees were to be found. Within the last few years, 



