December 2, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



481 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



TUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted bv 



Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1896. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — Pruning Shrubs 48 r 



Gratuitous Seed Distribution 482 



The Study of Varieties of Fruits and Vegetables. . .Professor L. F. Kinney. 482 



A Cation near Ukiah. — I Carl Purdy. 4S2 



Foreign Correspondence: — Edinburgh Botanic Garden IV. Watson. 483 



New or Little-known Plants: — Aspidiuin simulatum, Davenport. (With 



figure.) George E. Davenport. 484 



Cultural Department : — Greenhouse Notes E. O. Orpet. 486 



Notes on Roses T. D. Hatfield. 487 



Desirable Bulbous Plants W H. Tallin. 487 



Yucca Gloriosa Joseph Meehan. 488 



Iris macrosiphon Carl Puray. 4SS 



Correspondence : — Notes on the Vermont Apple Crop.. . Professor F. A. IVaugh. 488 



Dendrolene as an Insecticide J Troop. 48S 



Recent Publications 488 



Notes 400 



j li ustration : — Aspidium simulatum, Davenport, Fig. 69 485 



Pruning- Shrubs. 



EVERY year, and often in the course of the year, as a 

 rule, we have inquiries as to the proper method of 

 pruning shrubs, and we have explained more than once 

 the best practice as fully as was possible in a brief com- 

 pass. Nevertheless, continually recurring inquiry deserves 

 repeated answers, and, although we have nothing new to 

 say, it may not be amiss to discuss the subject briefly once 

 more. It is a hopeful sign for American gardens that the 

 use of deciduous shrubs has increased so largely within 

 a few years. Our climate is peculiarly favorable to the 

 growth of flowering shrubs, and when we learn to give 

 them deep rich soil and cultivate them as they deserve 

 their value will be more generally appreciated. As far 

 as pruning is concerned, the most cruel way to treat 

 them is to turn an untrained laborer loose among them 

 and direct him to "trim them into shape." Sometimes the 

 man-of-all-work will shear every one off at an even height, 

 like the top of a hedge, or he will aim to get everyone into 

 the form of a cone or hemisphere, his idea of beauty being 

 that every shrub should be shaped exactly like its neighbor. 

 Of course, each plant to be at its best should develop its 

 special graces in the line of its natural growth, and this 

 primary law is defeated in shrubbery where every indi- 

 vidual is cut to one pattern. This formal shearing not only 

 destroys the shrub's beauty of outline, but it lessens the 

 power of the plant to produce flowers and fruit and weakens 

 its constitution. 



There are two or three elementary rules which are to be 

 observed when the production of flowers is primarily de- 

 sired. Shrubs which blossom earlyMn the spring form their 

 flower-buds the year before and ingeniously protect them 

 during the winter with a warm covering, so that they 

 are ready to open with the early days of spring sun- 

 shine. Any one who will cut off the twig of a Peach- 

 tree in the winter or of an early-flowering Spiraea and 

 put it in water will understand this, for the flowers will 

 expand in a few days after it has been brought into a 

 warm room. Obviously, if the branches of such shrubs 

 are cut hard back in autumn, all the flower-buds are cut 

 away and there is no bloom in the spring. If, however 



the branches are cut back immediately after the flowering 

 season is over, this will encourage the growth of new shoots 

 from buds near the base of the branch and these will grow 

 rapidly to take the place of the part that has been lost and 

 cover themselves with flower-buds for another year. 

 Another class of shrubs, like the Hydrangeas, Althasas and 

 certain Tamarisks, which flower in late summer or autumn 

 from buds which have developed on the wood grown dur- 

 ing the current summer, should be pruned in late autumn 

 after flowering or, at least, before the wood starts in the 

 spring, so as to encourage abundant summer growth and 

 flower-buds for the next autumn. But these are the simplest 

 elementary rules and relate solely to the production of 

 flowers. Shrubs are useful for many other purposes than 

 merely to display their blossoms. They are beautiful all 

 the year round. Even in the winter the variously colored 

 barks of many of them add a singular charm to the land- 

 scape. We, therefore, prune them, not only to promote 

 the production of flowers, but of wood and foliage and 

 fruit as well, to insure grace or symmetry of outline, and 

 to make them vigorous and healthy. 



The simple cutting in of flowering wood in spring or 

 fall is thus a small part of the art of pruning, and where 

 there is a large variety of shrubs there is no time of 

 year when something in this direction cannot be done, and 

 it is especially useful when it is continued throughout the 

 entire growing season. If surplus wood is to be removed, 

 a clean cut in midsummer will heal over much more readily 

 than it will in cold weather, and there is no better time for 

 removing superfluous branches or for shortening in over- 

 vigorous shoots which interfere with the symmetry' of a 

 specimen. Some trees and shrubs whose branches bleed 

 when cut in spring will heal over quickly if pruned while 

 in full leaf. If the strong branches are pinched back in 

 summer the wood will ripen into such a sound condition 

 for withstanding cold that trees naturally tender have been 

 known to endure our winters fairly r well when their 

 branches had been properly stopped. This summer pinch- 

 ing is especially useful in wet seasons, when otherwise the 

 wood keeps growing late in autumn and is caught by freez- 

 ing weather in a soft and sappy condition. It also dis- 

 courages upward growth where this is undesirable, and 

 tends to develop fruit-buds, so that shrubs and trees will 

 bear fruit at an earlier age when they r are properly pinched 

 back. For the same reason shrubs will ripen their fruit 

 more perfectly when the stronger shoots above it have been 

 stopped. 



Just how much to cut is a matter to be learned by expe- 

 rience. Sometimes the best way to renovate a shrubbery 

 is to cut many of the plants to the ground and let them 

 start anew. In others a very severe pruning is often ad- 

 visable If every annual shoot of the large-panicled 

 Hydrangea is cut back in autumn or early spring to a 

 couple of eyes the growth next year will be very vigorous, 

 and even after the new shoots start, if all the weaker ones 

 are rubbed out, enough will remain, each one carrying an 

 immense flower head at its extremity, to completely cover 

 the shrub with bloom. But it should not be forgotten that 

 too much pruning weakens plants. When florists began to 

 sell long-stemmed Roses they soon discovered that they 

 were selling the vitality of the plant as well as the flowers, 

 and they learned to give a long period of rest to the weak- 

 ened plants which were to produce another crop, so that 

 they might recuperate their exhausted energies. Every 

 one has observed how abundantly the foliage .•-tarts out 

 from the stump of an amputated branch of a Silver Maple, 

 for example, but this is not a proof of increased vigor. In 

 reality it is a signal of distress, and shows thai the tree has 

 aroused itself to an extra effort to supply the places of the 

 organs of nutrition of which it had been robbed. A young 

 plant carefully pruned when it is set out in gi wild, 



with room enough to grow in, will sometimes need, as it 

 grows, to have interior branches cut away for the admis- 

 sion of light and air, and the over-strong shoots pinched 

 backed in midsummer and dead wood carefully removed. 



