320 



JOURNAL OF HOBTICTJLTUEE AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



[ October 25, 1S77. 



have been planted for two or three years require assisting 

 with manure, and I find it does them most good when forked- 

 in about 2 inches below the surface. 



Fruit trees we never plant until the leaves are fallen, but 

 preparation may be made for planting them now by getting 

 some good loam together, and chop it up ready for putting to 

 the roots as soon as planting begins. — A Kitchen Gabdeneb. 



TEA KOSES. 



I ah of opinion, from the little experience I have had with 

 Tea Boses, that a great future is in store for them and us. I 

 believe they have never yet been grown to anything like per- 

 fection. They are often worked on the wrong stock, generally 

 placed in a wrong position, and always coddled too much. 



They will not last long on the Manetti unless they are 

 planted sufficiently deep to form roots of their own above the 

 union. As standards they are generally miserable objects; on 

 cultivated seedling or cutting-Briars as dwarfs they do fairly 

 well under favourable conditions ; but where the soil is suitable 

 I prefer them, as I do Perpetuals, on their own roots. Indeed 

 Tea Boses on their own roots have more advantages than 

 Perpetuals have, because the very life of a Tea Bose is its 

 suckers. When it ceaEes to throw-up strong shoots from the 

 base it is nearly all over with it. 



Cuttings are very easy to strike. July and August are 

 perhaps the best months to insert them, as they only require a 

 hand-glass and a little shade, but half-ripened shoots will 

 strike fieely at any time in a cold close frame. I prefer getting 

 them rooted, polted-off, and partially hardened before winter, 

 giving them just sufficient shelter to prevent them losing their 

 leaves during the first winter, and potting them on in January, 

 never allowing them to become anything like pot-bound or 

 stunted, for if such a thing once happens they are afterwards 

 only fit to be thrown away. 



If intended for planting-out, 8-ineh pots will do for them, 

 and are none too large, as they ought not to be planted-out 

 before the end of Hay, and then if all goeB on well thsy will 

 produce some good flowers in the autumn. If intended to be 

 grown in pots the above size is not large enough to carry them 

 through the summer, and they ought, if want of indoor space 

 prevents it in the spring, to be placed in pots 10 or 12 inches in 

 diameter early in summer. I have a batch of plants, little 

 more than twelve months old now, which have produced a few 

 fine blooms through the summer, and promise to make large 

 plants in the spring. They have lately been shifted into 

 14-inch pots, and will be kept in a house where the frost is 

 merely excluded. They will not cease growing under these 

 conditions, and will throw-up a few odd flowers through the 

 winter and bloom profusely in April and May, or earlier if 

 assisted with a very little warmth. Forcing spoils them. 



The soil used and recommended is fresh turfy loam, mostly 

 in pieces from the size of a hen's egg to that of half a brick, a 

 good sprinkling of half-inch boiled bones, and a little charcoal. 



For Tea Boses out of doors I believe the best possible 

 position, in the southern and western counties at leaBt, is a 

 well-drained north border adjoining a hothouse or other build- 

 ing, to the walls of which the shoots can be tacked and be free 

 from much frost and also much sun, while they enjoy full 

 exposure to the air. Amongst several plants in such a position 

 a temporary roof was erected over one last winter, and that 

 very plant, selected because it was a good one, was the first to 

 have mildew and has done the worst ever since. — Wh, Tayjlok. 



TRANSPLANTING FEUIT TEEES. 

 In the description of the destruction of property during the 

 late hurricane mention is made of the uprooting of hundreds 

 of Apple trees in Herefordshire ; but unless these trees were 

 old I should think that this accident may turn out beneficial 

 rather than otherwise. It is proverbially an ill wind that 

 blows nobody good. Has not Nature, in this case of uprootiDg 

 Apple trees, herself done what cultivators have been so often 

 enjoined to do in vain ? Will not trees when replanted be 

 more likely to yield fruit in future years ? I have myself this 

 year gathered delicious Apples from a tree which was trans- 

 planted two years ago ; but my experience has been not so 

 much with Apple trees as with Peaches and Nectarines in 

 the orchard house, and it has taught me that an uplifting of 

 trees planted in the ground in alternate years is a good pre- 

 ventive against the growth of gross wood. Trees will grow 

 thus if not discreetly checked. It is one of the arts of orchard- 



house culture to restrain over-luxuriance, for those gross shoots 

 which look so well to an inexperienced eye produce only barren 

 shade. The Bomans knew this full well. Tour classical 

 readers will no doubt remember the lines in which a youthful 

 poet — after describing the causes of such fertility, that Bacchus 

 wondered at his own Grapes and Minerva at her own Olives, 

 and the weight of the fruit was so great as to threaten to break 

 the branch unless a prop were placed underneath it for its 

 support — proceeds : — 



" But since the Plane tree, whose umbrageous leaves 

 Afford a barren shade, most praise receives, 

 "We too the bearing trees, if such am I, 

 Broader and more luxuriant leaves supply." 



Now mark the result : — 



" And now no crop is gathered year by year." 



My advice is, any time after the leaves have fallen, lift all 

 those trees which have been making gross shoots. I urge this, 

 not because it ia a novel expedient, for it has long been recom- 

 mended by the best authorities, but because I have found it 

 by my own personal experience to answer, and now is the time 

 to be thinking about it. Take that opportunity to give your 

 trees a good winter dressing, so as to keep them free from 

 scale, aphides, and red spider. Gishurst is a good compound 

 for that purpose. 



I ventured in the earlier part of the season to give your 

 readers some account of the quantity of fruit in my orchard 

 house this year. Out of the 1600 fruit3 I suppose as many as 

 500 fell off in the stoning, but the remainder proved excellent 

 in quality ; no sleepy Peaches, no woolly ones, but all luscious. 

 One Peach in particular (not one of those turnips that you 

 sometimes see among the clingstones in October, but soft and 

 melting) measured 11-J inches in circumference. While so 

 many lost their hopes of a crop in the spring I attribute the 

 preservation of mine to the good effect of lamp stoves in keep- 

 ing out the May frosts. I find in my cordon border along a 

 back wall 12 feet high an alternation of trees in 20-inch pots 

 with those in the ground a satisfactory arrangement in the 

 case of single cordons. — H. W. Hodson, Ashwell Rectory. 



WINTEEING GEEANIUMS. 



Whenever I see information given on wintering these plants 

 I note that it is not of an encouraging kind to " small people " 

 like myself, and yet those are the very people who are chiefly 

 interested. A light place would, according to our instructors, 

 appear to be indispensable, such as a greenhouse. No doubt 

 a greenhouse is a great advantage to a garden, and is the best 

 place for Geraniums ; but I have wintered hundreds of plants 

 without their having been in a greenhouse, and they have 

 proved very useful. I have a greenhouse it is true, and this I 

 fill with Geraniums — young plants which are struck in August. 

 These are wintered in boxes, and in March they are " turved" 

 (not potted) and placed in turf pits. These make fine plants, 

 which commence flowering early and are planted in the more 

 prominent positions in the garden. But several hundreds of 

 plants are required in addition to those for planting in borders 

 and beds in different parts of the garden, and these are pro- 

 vided on a plan which may be a rough one, but which is none 

 the less useful, for the plants Becured by it make a fine late 

 summer and autumn display. 



The plants are simply taken up in October and are divested 

 of all the fibrous roots. The tops are also cut off, leaving not 

 more than half an inch of the main shoots. The wood there is 

 quite brown and hard, and is not prone to decay ; at any rate, 

 decay is prevented by dressing the wounds with dry fresh lime 

 at the time the plants are cut down. These stumps — for 

 stumps they are — are closely packed in boxeB of moderately 

 moist soil, which is placed firmly round the roots. By making 

 the soil firm sufficient moisture is retained to keep the stumps 

 fresh without watering them during the winter. If the soil is 

 loose it speedily becomes dry, and when water is applied in 

 winter decay succeeds. 



The boxes are placed in an old building which is nearly dark 

 and nearly frost-proof, and all that is required to preserve the 

 Geraniums is to cover them with perfectly dry hay during 

 severe weather. They are examined occasionally, and if there 

 is any evidence of mould a prompt application of dry lime 

 cheoks it at once. 



Eventually buds are formed on the stumps, and Bhoots suc- 

 ceed — white if in the dark, green if under the influence of 

 light. The great source of danger consists in the eyes pushing 

 too soon and before the boxes can safely be removed to a light 



