General Notices. 555 



the stock bein^ one mass of gum and canker. I never perceived tlio stock 

 to be affected before this season. It was either a peach or nectarine stock, 

 as I ascertained by a sucker which sprang up from a surface root. Garden- 

 ers should beware of the kind of " stocks" such trees are " worked" on. 

 Why not bud them on the old Mussel plum, as formerly, which is clear and 

 bright as glass. In the " Theory of Horticulture," p. 239, you say, con- 

 cerning stocks, " It is sometimes desirable to increase the hardiness of a 

 variety, and grafting or budding appears to produce this effect to a certain 

 extent ; not, indeed, by the stock communicating to the scion any of its own 

 power of resisting cold, but by the stock being better suited to the soil of 

 latitudes colder than that from which the scion comes, and consequently 

 requiring a lower bottom-heat to arouse its excitability." Mr. Knight, in- 

 deed, denies this fact, because " the root which nature gives to each seed- 

 ling plant must be well, if not best, calculated to support it ;" and it is so 

 under the circumstances in which the species was first created, but without 

 this addition. The paragraph in inverted commas is specious only, not just. 

 Probably in Persia, the native country of the peach, that species, or its wild 

 type the almond, is the best stock for the former fruit, because the tempera- 

 ture of tlie eartli is that in which it was created to grow ; but in a climate 

 like that of England, the temperature of whose soil is much lower than that 

 of Persia, the plum on which the peach takes freely, is a " hardy native, 

 and suited to such soil, and its roots are aroused from their winter sleep by 

 an amount of warmth unsuited to the peach. And experience in tliis case 

 completely confirms what theory teaches ; for, although there may be a few 

 healthy trees in this country growing upon almond stocks, it is perfectly 

 certain that the greater part of those which have been planted have failed, 

 while in the warm soil of France and Italy, it is the stock on which most of 

 all the old trees have been budded." The above quotation is sufficient to 

 show what stock a gardener should prefer, and what a nurseryman should 

 reject.— (Garrf. Chron., 1850, p. 693.) 



The Plum as a Pyramidal Tree. — For some iev/ years I have 

 amused myself by forming my plums trees into pyramids, feeling convinced 

 that no other mode of cultivating our hardy fruits is so eligible for small 

 gardens. I was induced to take extra pains, on account of observing that 

 our neighbors the French, so famous in their cultivation of pyramids, failed 

 to a certain extent with the plum ; as their trees, I obser\-ed, on being 

 pruned to that shape, made too vigorous shoots, and were inclined to gum. 

 They do not know the value of root-pruning and will not listen to it ; I do, 

 and therefore felt some hope of success. At first I commenced to root- 

 prune once in two or three years, but I soon found tliat was not enough, for 

 the plum makes roots so rapidly that it is difficult to check it ; I have now, 

 therefore, for the last three years root-pruned annually early in autumn. My 

 success is perfect ; tliis I have generally done in September soon after gath- 

 ering the fruit, but this year not having any fruit, and awakened by your 

 article on " Summer Root-Pruning," given in Gardeners' Chronicle in July, 

 I operated on them in August ; the trees almost immediately went to rest, 

 and are now pictures of forthcoming fruitfulncss. The operation is so sim- 



