266 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



handsome shape and color, and its long keeping qualities consequent upon its- 

 hard flesh. Ripe fruits will ordinarily keep a week or ten days injgood condi- 

 tion. And, aside from these merits, the tree appears to be as hardy as the 

 common plums. But it blooms early and is often caught by late frosts.. 

 Professsor Budd recently speaks of it as follows in Iowa : " Fruit large to very 

 large, red in color, and is shaped much like a smooth tomato. Its fault is in. 

 the way of too early blossoming. It will pay to grow this fine fruit by laying 

 down in winter, as recommended for the peach. This tree is not fully hardy at 

 Ames without winter protection. 



The fruit of Prumis Simoni ripens with the early peaches. The fruit often 

 drops before it is fully ripe and it frequently rots on the tree. Although it is 

 apparently less liable to attacks of curculio than peaches and plums, it is not 

 exempt from such injury, as it is often said to be. 



Prunus Simoni is a wholy distinct species from any other stone fruit. It is 

 not a hybrid between the plum and apricot, as some have supposed. Botani- 

 cally it probably belongs to the peach section of the genus prunus, although it is- 

 more plum than peach in character of fruit and habit of tree. — L. H. Bailev,. 

 Cornell University Experimental Station. 



PRUNING FRUIT TREES. 



Xo time of the year is more suitable for the pruning of fruit trees than 

 directly after the fall of the leaf. Where summer pruning has been judiciously 

 performed very little will be required to be removed. The summer pruning of 

 apples and pears is intended to obviate the barbarous system of mutilating the 

 trees once a year — viz., in the winter. There are very few gardeners who leave the 

 pruning of fruit trees until late in the winter, because, besides being a very uncom- 

 fortable operation then, late pruning has a detrimental effect upon both trees 

 and crops. The pruning of fruit trees, principally apples and pears, consists in. 

 removing all portions of the shoots that are not wanted so that the tree may 

 throw its strength into developing the shoots you wish to remain. If the spurs 

 of the tree have been duly pinched in during summer, another growth from each, 

 portion that was left has been formed, and it will therefore be necessary to cut 

 the portion left in the summer to within one or two eyes of the preceding year's 

 growth, according to fancy or strength of the respective buds. Gooseberry and 

 black currant shoots should be thinned out when required, and red currants 

 should be spurred. Some cherries require spur-pruning, but the Morello does 

 better on walls if the young shoots are laid on annually and some of the older 

 branches cut short. — Hort. (Eng.) Times. 



Too much water while the plants are in too low a temperature is frequently 

 the cause of the buds of fuchsias falling off. 



