Wesi London Gardeners^ Associatio7i. 179 



water that is applied, or the rain that filters through the soil is impregnated 

 with these substances, that the food is taken up in a gaseous state by the 

 spongelets of the tree. As the sun has great influence in producing the car- 

 bonaceous matter, and enables the plant to digest and apply this food to its 

 various purposes, when the sun is excluded the digestion is incomplete, and, 

 consequently, the plant becomes weak and diseased. As a proof of the great 

 benefit of carbon, he knows that in many parts of Ireland the farmers are in 

 the habit of paring off the surface of the waste or boggy part of their land ; they 

 then collect it into small heaps and burn it ; by the process of burning it be- 

 comes carbonaceous ; it is then spread on the land, and, being made soluble by 

 rain, it becomes excellent food and produces good crops. It is a great ad- 

 vantage to fruit-tree borders to keep them free from weeds or crops of vege- 

 tables, as caloric (or the sun's rays) has the vivifying influence of producing 

 the fructification of fruit trees. — Mr. Grey was sure that a little more expense 

 in the formation of proper fruit-tree borders would be abundantly repaid by 

 productive crops. He always observed borders highly manured with animal 

 and vegetable matter to be the most unproductive. Trees were thus excited 

 to produce luxuriant wood, but they rarely proved fructiferous ; if the sub- 

 stratum is retentive, the water will stagnate and rot the roots; if it is too 

 porous, the water will pass down quickly, by which it will carry off" the car- 

 bonaceous matter, and render it unproductive. — IMr. Judd objected to Mr. 

 Fish's system of making the bottom as hard as a barn floor, and disapproved 

 of the practice of cutting the roots of fruit trees to make them productive, as 

 by the proper formation of borders the roots would only receive so much 

 nourishment as would produce small branches, which would ripen well. An 

 equilibrium in growth should be kept between the roots and the head, without 

 the necessity of cutting the roots to check strong-growing wood. — Mr. Grover 

 formed the draining of his borders with brickbats and lime rubbish ; the soil 

 was made of turfy loam with a small portion of dung, the depth of the border 

 2 ft.; and the fruit trees always produced abundant crops. — Mr. Cooper ob- 

 jected to Mr. Fish's drainage of gravel and coal-ashes, as he knows coal-ashes 

 to have a tendency to cause canker. He always formed his borders 14 ft, 

 wide ; the substratum was composed of brickbats and stones, sand, lime rubbish, 

 and gravel as grit at the top, with a drain at the bottom 2 ft. deep, filled up 

 with large stones, which answered well; his border from 18 in. to 2 ft., filled 

 with maiden loam and very little dung, as he considers dung objectionable, 

 being sure to produce rampant and luxuriant branches, which never produce 

 fruit. — Mr. Grey saw excavations made under pear and apple trees; the roots 

 which penetrated the subsoil were cut away with great advantage to the fol- 

 lowing crops. He saw lands which were subject to springs at certain seasons 

 of the year very much improved by drainings, similar to those recommended 

 by Mr. Fish. — Mr. Jndd believed that roots would rarely descend by gravi- 

 tation into the subsoil, if the border were sufficiently nutritious to keep them 

 within the genial influence of the sun and air near the surface. He thinks 

 that electricity has great influence upon the circulation of the sap ; that ca- 

 pillary attraction is the cause of the sap expanding the top buds when it 

 descends, as was so beautifully explained by the paper brought forward by Mr. 

 Fish. — Mr. Keane. Plants when exposed to the rays of the sun give out 

 oxygen, which purifies the air, and at night they vitiate it by robbing it of its 

 oxygen. He believes that the sap descends through the bark and liber and 

 ascends through the alburnum, and that there are lateral vessels into which the 

 sap insinuates itself to expand the size of the tree. — Mr. Judd agreed with 

 Mr. Cooper in his reasonable objections to dung, and considered good maiden 

 loam, on shallow borders, best for the permanency and productiveness of fruit 

 trees. He prefers planting fruit trees in August or September to any other 

 time, as the leaves would elaborate the sap, which would descend and cause the 

 root to be established before the winter commenced. — Mr. Wragg detailed 

 the system of making fruit-tree borders in his last place, where a rise of water 

 from springs very frequently took place, and it was there necessary to make 



