On Fndts and Fruit Trees. 517 



here nearly a century), of a sort not exactly to my mind, I have 

 had grafted with the new varieties ; and the effect is wonderful. 

 I hope soon to be able to send all the valuable sorts to market in 

 as great abundance as we have hitherto done those that are com- 

 mon and comparatively worthless. I have omitted to say that all 

 nurservmen may grow specimens of their pears even in a con- 

 fined space : evei*y alternate year, let a man look over the trees 

 ili winter ; and apply to the roots of all those beginning to shoot 

 luxuriantly, a sharp spade with unsparing hand ; reduce the 

 shoots a little at the same time, and there will soon be a regular 

 crop of blossom buds. 



I have also formed a proof w<xlk of Apples of 250 sorts. I do 

 not allow myself to get beyond this number. As the seasons roll 

 on, and defects appear, either in quality or growth, I give some 

 their dismissal, some their introduction, and at last hope to be 

 somewhat near perfection. The spade is applied to the roots of 

 the apple trees in the same manner as to those of the pears, to 

 check luxuriance ; they are also planted in untrenched ground, 

 with a solid clayey substratum. 



Plums and cherries are not quite so tractable, being rather 

 impatient of amputation, though I do not despair of keeping 

 plums within " rules polite." 



An Orchard in Pots. Take some large pots, eights or twelves 

 of the London potteries, some strong yellow loam mixed with 

 one third of good rotten dung in lumps; well drain the pots 

 with large pieces of tiles or broken pots, and in this compost 

 plant selected small dwarfs of Hawthornden, courtpendu plat, 

 Kerry pippin, golden Harvey, Cole's golden drop, Keswick 

 codlin, and scarlet nonpareil apples; Passe Colmar, sickle, Beurre 

 de Capiaumont, Marie Louise, and Easter beurre pears ; also 

 two or three dwarf prolific nuts. Let the pots stand in the centre, 

 if a confined garden ; and by all means keep on their surface, all 

 summer, lumps of rotten manure. Thus treated, it is astonishing 

 how they will flourish ; and, if well supplied with water (if 

 manured water, the better), they will bear plentifully. In very 

 severe winters, a little straw should be put over the pots, to pre- 

 vent the roots being injured by the extreme frost. This may 

 certainly be called a cockney orchard ; but I know that, if it is not 

 profitable, it is very pretty. [Mr. Catling, an accomplished 

 gardener at Cambridge, several years ago fruited the Haw- 

 thornden apple in a pot. If I recollect rightly, he exhibited a 

 plant or plants of it, bearing fruit, at one of the shows of the 

 Cambridgeshire Horticultural Society, where it, or they, were 

 much admired. — J. D. In Diel's Obst-Ora?igerie in Scherben, 

 it is shown that every description of fruit tree may be fruited 

 in pots. M. Diel proved all the principal apples, pears, cherries, 

 and plums grown in Europe, and afterwards published a de- 

 scriptive catalogue of them.— Cond.~\ 



Vol. X. — No. 52. z 



