Remarks on Dwarfing Fruit Trees. 399 



establish ultimately a system to guide those who do not 

 fully understand the bearing of the question. 



In the more practical gardening of former days, deep 

 trenching or digging and a liberal manuring formed in the 

 main the practice pursued in making new plantations of 

 fruits. However, it was very common, some thirty years 

 since, to find a great portion of the quarters in our old 

 kitchen gardens overshadowed by huge old fruit trees, giv- 

 ing ample evidence of over-cultivation originally. Their 

 vegetables were of course inferior in character, and the 

 whole garden in consequence wore an unsystematic appear- 

 ance. Subsequent experience has proved that it is of more 

 importance to attend to the mechanical character of the soil, 

 and that the mixing of manures with the bulk of the soil 

 had better be dispensed with, since any necessary amount 

 of nourishment may be carried out by a system of top- 

 dressing or mulching. 



The benefits of the latter process, indeed, are but half 

 estimated as yet. 



When it is taken into consideration what a tendency 

 mulch has to encourage surface fibres, which are well known 

 to tend to a fructiform habit, it is somewhat astonishing that 

 the practice is still so limited. Another point too must be 

 observed, and that of no mean importance, viz., the great 

 utility of surface manure, in preventing the injurious effects 

 of sudden droughts, which not unfrequently cause trees to 

 cast a considerable portion of their fruits. 



Amongst other adjuncts of a dwarfing system, the selec- 

 tion of proper stocks on which to bud or graft our superior 

 fruits, is a question of the very highest import. It is strange 

 to think that the quince stock, so valuable for dwarfing the 

 pear, has not come into more general use. Two points con- 

 cur to hinder its almost universal adoption, viz., its ineligi- 

 bility for producing a showy tree in a short time in the nur- 

 sery, and the uncertainty that at present exists as to its 

 thriving on any given soil. With regard to the first, it is in 

 part a nurseryman's question. Pears grafted on the free or 

 pear stock, will make stout plants in half the time of those 



