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January 13, 1912.] 



THE GARDENERS 



CHRONICLE. 



17 



THE 



(garkntrs' Chronicle 



No. 1,307.— SATURDAY, January 13,1912. 



The later experiments have fully con- 

 firmed the conclusion derived from the 

 early ones to the effect that no other treat- 

 ment has so bad an effect upon fruit trees 

 as growing them in grass land. The stunt- 

 ing effect upon wood growth, foliage, and 

 fruit is greatest when young trees are 

 grassed over immediately afc»er they have 

 been planted ; it is less when even a small 



around each tree is kept under 

 tillage or . when, the grassed area is 



space 



nearly as much from grass as trees on the 

 paradise stock. With all necessary allow- 

 ances, however, it must be regarded as a 

 fact proved beyond all doubt that grow- 

 ing young trees in or very near grass has 



dwarfing effect upon root and wood 

 growth, foliage, and fruit. 



To demonstrate the effects of growing 

 trees in grass is a simple matter in com- 

 parison with an elucidation of the cause 

 or causes of those effects. It is highly 



small, so that the 



roots of the trees probable that more than one cause is 



CONTENTS. 



Agricultural statistics .. 



Apple, sport in 



Apples, the colouring of 

 Asparagus, the treat- 

 ment of ... 

 Begonia luxurians 



Books, notices of— 

 Encyclopaedia of Gar- 

 dening 

 Histoire des Legumes 

 La Vie a la Campagne 



Le Jardin 



Keport on the Dune 

 Areas of New 

 Zealand 



Bulb garden, the — 

 Lilium sulphureum ... 



China, the flora of 

 Cotton breeding ... 

 Cypripedium spectabile 

 Elsholtzia Stauntonii ... 



Florists' flowers — 

 Carnations, registered 



Sweet Pea novelties 



from America 



Flowers in season 



Fruit trees in grass land 



Fruit trees, protecting, 

 from hares 



•Gardeners' Royal Bene- 

 volent Institution 



Gibault, M. Georges ... 



Hooker, Sir Joseph, the 



life of 



International Horticul- 

 tural Exhibition 



Iris susiana 



London's open spaces ... 



New invention — 



Saughton plant label 



Novelties of 1911 



25 

 25 



28 



27 

 29 



19 

 19 

 25 

 25 



25 



19 

 25 

 24 

 18 

 21 



21 



21 

 24 

 17 



24 



24 

 25 



26 



24 



19 

 24 



27 

 20 



note- 



Oak, a curious 



Oak, a " sleeping " 

 Obituary— 



Baillie, William 



Brown, A. R. .-. 



Doig, J 



Grahame, Archibald 



Rowan, M 



Pastures, the renovation 



of poor 



Pictures at the Royal 

 Institute Galleries ... 



Plants for a cold green- 

 house 



Plants, new, of Central 



Asia 



Plants, new or 



worthy— 



A new Iris 

 Lselio-Cattleya 



semiliana 



Potato, the, and 



sterility ... • 



Rat-catching, a theory of 



Rosary, the— 

 Fragrant Roses 



Rose William Allan 



Richardson 



Scotland, notes from — 



Societies— 

 Manchester and North 



of England Orchid ... 

 ' National Sweet Pea ... 



Royal Horticultural ... 



Royal Meteorological 



Women's Agricultural 



and Hort. Union ... 



Standard fruit trees, 



training young 



Week's work, the 22, 



Winter, the mild 



'26 

 25 



32 

 32 

 32 

 32 

 32 



25 



27 

 32 

 25 



Mos- 

 florai 



18 



18 



28 

 28 



25 



26 

 26 



extend in time to the tilled soil outside ; 

 and it is least when a large space is kept 

 tilled around each tree, 

 instance ~ is given of some Apple trees 

 showing injury to foliage and fruit when 

 as little as l-l,000th to 1-2, 000th of their 

 root systems extended from tilled land to 

 grass. This is so astonishing that it may 

 be suggested that some cause other than 

 the one assumed must have been in opera- 

 tion. All the varieties of fruit tested and 

 all the forest trees, except Conifers, 

 showed the stunting effects of grass over 

 their roots, while standard Apples on 

 crab stock suffered nearly as much as 

 dwarfs on the paradise. The photographs 

 showing the differences in growth between 



in operation in producing such marked 



effects as those noticed in the Report, 



An extreme and for this reason objection may be taken 



to the dismissal of some of the suggested 

 causes on more or less uncertain evidence, 

 on the ground that each of them separately 

 is shown to be insufficient to account for 

 the phenomena under investigation. It is 

 impossible in an article of ordinary length 

 to follow the writers in the voluminous 

 details of evidence put forward in this 

 division of their subject. That evidence 

 seems to prove clearly enough that the 

 phenomena are not due to any accumula- 

 tion of carbon dioxide or excess of 

 alkalinity in the grassed soil. On the 

 other hand, it cannot be affirmed that the 



trees of various ages in grass and in arable last word has been said in relation to soil 



land respectively are very striking. 



temperature, water supply, food supply, 



Bearing in mind the fact that there are or aeration of the soil : nor to the condition 

 many Apple orchards of large and robust of the soil with respect to bacteria, which, 

 trees in grass land in this country, the as the Report states, are under mvestiga- 



31 

 30 

 29 

 24 



24 



28 

 23 



29 



United States, and Canada, and that the tion by Dr. Hutchinson. The aeration 

 splendid Cherry orchards of Kent, the of the soil and the food supply therein 

 -finest in the country, are generally in 



it must be concluded that the ill- 



grass 



Wob 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Begonia luxurians __ , '*" 



Cypripedium spectabile at Straffan House gardens, 



co. Kildare ... 



Elsholtzia Stauntonii # — --- 



Iris sisiana in Mr. Charles Prentis's garden ... 



Lilium sulphureum in a Northamptonshire garden ... 

 Oak tree, a curious, in Mr. Henry B. May's garden .- 



28 



18 



21 

 20 

 19 

 26 



FRUIT TREES IN GRASS LAND 



Wob 



arm 



Mr 



are allied subjects, and there are strong 

 reasons for supposing that they have 

 an important bearing upon the beha- 

 district than in most places. Nothing can viour of trees in grass and in tilled 

 be said in extenuation of the practice of i an( j respectively. The grassed trees show 

 planting trees in grass without keeping a every s i gn f partial starvation, and many 

 space well tilled around each of them, and ft tree m arab j e ] anc j s hows similar signs 

 extending it as the roots spread, until the of lack of nutr i t i on> j t j B not enough to 



prove by analysis that the soil under grass 

 contains as large or larger proportions of 

 the food constituents of plants as tilled 

 soil. The lack of aeration in the former may 

 make a vast difference to the amounts of 

 food-materials utilisable by the trees, and 

 so it may to the number and activity of 



trees are mature. But when trees are 

 thus treated, or are kept in tilled land 

 altogether until they are mature, they 

 often flourish in all respects, although, 

 perhaps, not so perfectly as they would 

 do if the land were kept under tillage, 

 great number of American Apple growers 

 still stand by the " sod and mulch 



A 



trees in grass 



ments bearing upon 



carried out with Apples, and whilst a 



great number of new ones 



absence of their enemies. The plan of lead- 

 ing a channel of stones down to the roots 

 of a tree to prove that the condition of 

 grassed trees was not affected by lack of 

 soil aeration is in no respect equivalent 



to 



and the 



The authors of the Report state that 



add to the Suable reformation given in ^m," maintaining that the resnlts are benefie.a! tacteria orto tta presenee 



their third Report, issued in 1903, with qu i te as good as those of tillage. But the 

 reference to the effects of growing fruit trees must be standards or half-standards 



land. The early experi- on the crab or free stock, and they must 



this subject were be frequently mulched with farmyard 



manure or other organic matter, a plan 



_ have since which does not appear to have been tried 



been conducted * with this fruit, Pears, a t Woburn. To leave the cut grass in the 

 Plums, Cherries, and forest trees have orchard is not sufficient, 

 also been included in the more recent 

 trials. Further, a great number of ex- 

 periments have been carried on, including ^ 

 some with trees in pots, for the purpose of 

 testing the several suggestions as to the 

 cause or causes of the dwarfing effect of 

 growing trees in grass land. No amount 

 of trouble or expense has been spared in 

 carrying out trials calculated to throw 

 light upon the subjects of investigation^ 

 and fruit-growers in all parts of the world 

 have reason to be grateful to the authors 

 of the Report for the unstinted expendi- 

 ture of thought, time, and money devoted 

 to their important experiments. 



or 



they " are dealing with a general pheno- 

 menon, to which there are many real or 

 apparent exceptions," and that " the 

 majority of their experiments have been 



that anv effect 



Amalgamated Press, London. Price 4s. 9d. 



planned in such a way tnat any 

 which the grass had on the trees would be 

 exercised to a maximum extent." Most 

 of the Apple trees tested are dwarfs on 

 the paradise stock, which are not suitable 

 for grass orchards. Moreover, the soil at 

 Ridgmont, where nearly all the trials were 

 conducted, is a shallow soil over clay, into 

 which the roots even of trees on the crab 



stock 



plains why trees on the crab suffered 



This probably ex- 



converse method of placing a small patch 

 of cement around a tree is equally in- 

 appropriate, besides which it did have a 

 highly injurious effect after two or three 



years. 



With respect to injury done by excre- 

 tions from the roots of grass, to which our 

 authors attribute the dwarfing effect of 

 growing trees in grass land, it is difficult 

 to accept such a deduction from the 

 evidence they supply. Leachings from 

 trays in which grass was growing, in- 

 stead of injuring trees in pots grown in 

 soil free from grass, are shown to have 

 actually benefited them ; but when the 

 trays were placed on the surface of the 

 soil around the trees, so that " the wash- 

 ings from the grass reached the roots with 



