October 31, 1872. ] 



JOUKNAL OF HOKTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



Keel-skinned Flourball. It will be found that the varieties 

 most liable to disease are the driest and most mealy, which 

 from the farinaceous matter they contain are the most valu- 

 able, whilst those freest of the disease are such as, compared 

 with the others, are mere waxy lumps when cooked; they do 

 not contain so much starch as the kinds of superior cooking 

 qualities, hence they are not acted on so injuriously by a con- 

 tinuance of wet weather during the ripening, or rather swelling 

 period, and they seem to attain an increased size. Varieties 

 of this class are the Bed-skinned Flourball, Early Rose, Bo- 

 vinia, and most of the coarse, large, very watery Potatoes. 

 Last year the first-named was diseased, this year the second, 

 proving that though a variety from some cause may escape, 

 .generally from drier soil or better climate, it will nevertheless 

 be attacked. That dryness exerts a great influence when the 

 -conditions are favourable to disease is evidenced by some rows 

 growing on a garden border. From the row next the wall the 

 wet is thrown off by coping-boards, and it also receives the 

 benefit of the heat radiated from the wall ; it is not diseased, 

 while of the same kind only a few feet off, but wet from rains, 

 more than half the tubers are diseased. 



Cutting off the tops or haulms of the Potato when the dis- 

 ease first appears in the leaves has been recommended. This, 

 as we all know, if practised on the first appearance of the dis- 

 ease and before it has extended to the tubers, will save these 

 from the malady. This proves that the latter has its origin in 

 the leaves or stems. It has, therefore, been attributed to elec- 

 tricity ; but under the same electrical conditions the Potato 

 under glass, protected from rain, ripens off perfectly free from 

 the disease, while out-door crops are disastrously affected. It 

 may be contended that by growing Potatoes under glass we 

 throw off the rain which may bring down the fungus. Is it 

 not rather that the plants under glass are placed under con- 

 ditions favourable to their ripening, whilst those out of doors 

 are exposed to wet, which induces growth instead of ripening ? 

 Instead of removing all the tops by pulling them up, let it be 

 only partially done, and have we not the disease ? The tubers 

 in the one case are free from disease but are not ripened ; in 

 the second case they are diseased but attain a higher state of 

 ripeness — they are not nearly so waxy nor so unpalatable as 

 those having the tops wholly removed. 



Potatoes which are waxy when taken up, in consequence of 

 the haulm having been cut off, attain a tolerable degree of 

 mealiness on keeping, just as sorts naturally waxy become 

 more mealy after having been kept dry for a considerable time ; 

 indeed most of the kinds that at storing time are not mealy 

 improve if kept a considerable time, and are often quite mealy 

 in spring. On the other hand, kinds that at taking-up time 

 are fit for immediate use become waxy after a time. 



I have contended that the disease was a consequence of 

 taking up the tubers before maturity, and keeping them too 

 long exposed to the atmosphere. This does weaken the Potato, 

 tends to earlier and diminished production, but it is in this 

 direction that we must, in my opinion, look for freedom from 

 <the Potato disease. Allowing Potatoes to remain in the ground 

 after the skin is set is not desirable, for doing so does not 

 contribute to the ripening of the Potato, nor to the earlier 

 growth and ripening of the next year's produce, but retards 

 both. Freedom from disease or otherwise is to be expected, 

 not from the lateness, but earliness of the crop in arriving at 

 maturity. So far back as 1S34 it was noted that the evils 

 besetting the Potato crop were a consequence of taking it up 

 before the tubers were mature. Strange that we in 1872 should 

 have found that it is the only means of securing the Potato 

 from those disasters it was said then we were drifting to. We 

 have for many years been endeavouring to insure the more 

 thorough ripening of the Potato tuber, and in doing so its 

 more early growth and ripening, and it is that very thing we 

 find will save us from the disease — that is to say, the early 

 planting of those kinds which come soon to perfection, so as 

 to secure for them the greatest heat of our climate during the 

 ripemng period. Either we must do that — plant early, and 

 early sorts — or if we will plant late kinds, and have them free 

 of disease, we must grow them under glass in order to throw 

 off the rains. We may, instead, take up the tubers before they 

 are ripe, and content ourselves with this food in a waxy state 

 during the greater part of the winter ; in this case we have only 

 to pull up the tops or haulms, allow the tubers to remain in 

 the ground until the skin is set, and then store them. Thus, 

 by planting early kinds early we secure mealy Potatoes in 

 July and onwards, and when they become waxy, as they will do 

 from their early growth, they are succeeded by the late sorts, 



which, though waxy when taken up, are by that time pre- 

 ferable, and which from long-continued early taking-up attain 

 maturity at an early period. 



My experience dates from a time when the Potato disease 

 was considered to be unknown; previous to 1845, however, I 

 gathered Potatoes that were completely decayed to the extent 

 of three parts of the crop. In those days there was such a 

 thing as the " dry rot," a thing now unknown — a result, I 

 believe, of planting diseased tubers, or those whose eyes were 

 destroyed by the disease. In those days it was not uncommon 

 to take from the same field a crop of Ashleaf Kidney that was 

 cleared off at the end of June or early in July, and sold as 

 " new " Potatoes at one of our greatest manufacturing towns, 

 and then plough the ground, placing the haulm of the pre- 

 vious crop in every third furrow, put in the sets on these, and 

 cover with the soil of the next furrow. The produce formed 

 the sets for the next year's crop. This system of cropping, 

 which I know was practised for many years, was given up two 

 or three years after the disastrous seasons of 1845 and 1846, 

 if I remember rightly in 1848, when the second crop was a 

 complete failure. — G. Abbey. 



THE UTILITY OF PRUNING. 



The object of the cultivation of fruit trees in the present 

 day is to obtain from a given extent of ground as great a 

 pecuniary profit as possible. The question is, Do those trees 

 which are properly tended, but at the same time unsubjected 

 to any kind of pruning, give this desirable result ? Nobody 

 has asserted that trees treated in this way are incapable of 

 producing fruit, and even good fruit, provided they belong to 

 good varieties. In this respect they obey the great natural law 

 which ordains that each organic body should, within certain 

 bounds, reproduce itself by means of seed. But it is of little 

 consequence to nature that these seeds be enveloped in a more 

 or less fleshy covering ; whilst for us, on the other hand, this 

 pulpy matter is the important part of the majority of fruits, 

 and we are always trying to increase its quantity. In order to 

 effect this, we take advantage of the power which fruits have 

 of drawing to themselves the sap from the roots ; the leaves, 

 however, also possess this property, and we accordingly are 

 obliged to lessen the absorbing capabilities of these latter for 

 the benefit of the former. 



The different modes of pruning, such as the pinching of the 

 shoots, give us this result. By* this means we divert a consider- 

 able amount of the sap which would have otherwise gone to 

 form woody, and to us useless tissues, into the direction of the 

 fruit. These mutilations, however, if committed during the 

 summer, should not exceed certain limits, for the leaves are 

 those organs which give rise to the yearly layers of wood, bark, 

 and the new roots absolutely necessary for the circulation of 

 the sap. The skill of the performer, in such a case, lies in 

 making use for the formation of woody tissues of only as much 

 sap as is essential for the production of a framework already 

 determined, and for the maintenance of the annual existence 

 of the tree ; all the sappy fluid over and above should be 

 directed to benefiting the fruits. Another style of pruning, 

 which also tends to heighten the body of the fruit, is that of 

 cutting off every year, during the resting-time of vegetable life, 

 a certain portion of the branches developed in the summer. 

 The consequence of this is, that the sap being obliged to act 

 within narrower limits, each fruit is better nourished and 

 grows to a greater size. 



The trees which are not made to undergo pruning give fruits 

 which, if they are not very fine, are sometimes very abundant. 

 But this abundance of fruiting is almost always subject to a 

 somewhat regular season of intermittence, when a very plenti- 

 ful year is nearly invariably followed by a very barren one. 

 Everyone knows that this irregularity of production is due to 

 the fact that during every abundant year almost all the sap is 

 expended in the development of fruit, and that it has not 

 been sufficient to elaborate new flower-buds for the following 

 year. But the methods of pruning, if properly carried out, 

 have succeeded in causing this inequality to vanish. The 

 economising of the sap which is effected by the winter prun- 

 ing, the disbudding and the pinching during the summer, 

 allows the tree to develope its fruits sufficiently, and to make 

 ready the produce of the following year. It is thus, then, that 

 an almost equal number of flowers are obtained every year. 



What we have just said seems to show us plainly that prun- 

 ing has for its object the encouragement of the increase in bulk 

 of our fruits, and the enlargement of their amount for the same 



