262 



Garden and Forest. 



[May 28, 1890. 



they are now in Mower, presenting a picture of the strangest 

 character. Seeds are produced freely by cultivated plants, 

 and the seedlings grow into full size in a year. The leaves are 

 a yard long and about half as wide. 



Strikes are the order of the day in England, and the discon- 

 tent which leads up to them has affected the market-garden 

 laborers of West Middlesex. Last week about 500 of them 

 paraded the streets and demonstrated in Hyde Park. Leav- 

 ing their work at this time of the year they have seriously crip- 

 pled the masters, and unless an arrangement is soon arrived 

 at permanent harm may be the outcome. From the men's 

 standpoint, indeed from a common sense standpoint, the 

 men's demands are fair and reasonable, and one hopes they 

 may be granted. In America it will appear strange, perhaps, 

 that men who are adepts in the work of growing flowers, fruit 

 and vegetables for the London market, which means that they 

 are grown as well as they can be grown ; men who cannot be 

 called mere laborers, because the work they perform requires 

 skill and experience as well as endurance ; that such men 

 should have to strike to obtain wages of fourpence ha'penny 

 an hour. This is the men's side. From the masters' side it 

 has to be admitted that the price they can afford to pay for labor 

 is regulated by the market, which is open to the produce of 

 all countries. Put, say, ten per cent, upon the cost of the pro- 

 duction of the market-gardens in England and probably the 

 English produce will be beaten by the foreign. The lot of the 

 market-gardener of London is not by any means an easy one. 



Cytisus Adami. — In the Coombe Wood Nursery of Messrs. 

 Veitch, an interesting experiment is being made with a view 

 to testing the theory that this Cytisus is a graft hybrid between C. 

 pur pur ens and C. Laburnum. A row of plants of the last named 

 have been grafted with C. purpureas and the results will be 

 carefully watched. Messrs. Veitch have undertaken this ex- 

 periment at the request of Dr. Romanes, an eminent English 

 naturalist and a fellow-worker with Mr. Darwin. If the theory 

 with regard to C. Adami is correct, it is strange that amongst 

 the millions upon millions of grafted plants this is the only 

 case of the kind that has occurred. 



London. W. WatSOTl. 



Cultural Department. 



Orchard Experiences. — V. 



'THE " education" of an orchard (in the fundamental sense 

 -*■ of the word) is the nicest and most important portion of 

 the orchardist's work, and that which will both test and de- 

 monstrate his knowledge. A man who can take an orchard of 

 even twenty varieties of Apples and train each one in accord- 

 ance with its habit of growth into a perfect tree, is a worthy 

 candidate for the highest degree of any horticultural college. 

 Such work must begin with the young tree. It ought to begin 

 in the nursery. It is a difficult task at the best, and most diffi- 

 cult of all with varieties unfamiliar to the operator. 



There is an immense diversity of growth among different 

 varieties. Some require almost no pruning at all, having but 

 small tendency to multiply their branches ; while there are 

 other sorts very close-budded, and not a dormant bud amongst 

 them all. Years ago a now eminent botanist suggested to me 

 that the branching of an Apple-tree should be based upon its 

 phyllotaxy — the side branches to be five in number, growing 

 in an ascending spiral around a central trunk. I could never 

 make this system work in practice, except with an occasional 

 seedling, usually a Siberian Crab. 



If Nature were sufficiently compliant I would start the head 

 of every standard Apple-tree with but three main branches ; 

 but a danger in attempting this is that it may end in getting 

 but two. Certainly, the main branches must be far enough 

 apart in the beginning never to become opposite or nearly 

 opposite. They ought to stand in some symmetrical order, so 

 as to make an evenly balanced head, since a tree will always 

 tend to lean toward its heavier side. In northern New En- 

 gland all orchards, the trees of which were set perpendicular, 

 will in fifteen years lean, and most of their branches will point, 

 toward the north-east. With a view to obviate this, many 

 now lean the trees in planting toward the south-west, from 

 whence are the prevailing winds during the period of active 

 growth. These winds will, in the end, win the battle, though 

 the contest is thus somewhat prolonged. 



That pruning is best which keeps the tree in proper form 

 with the removal of the least wood. " Penknife pruning " is 

 strongly advised, and is the ideal method ; but it demands 

 eternal vigilance. Some varieties bear the removal of quite 

 large limbs without much apparent injury, while with others 

 the taking away of a limb an inch through will leave a wound 

 that will never heal, soon making the trunk rotten and 



ruining the tree. It has been often advised to cover all 

 such wounds with some sort of composition or cement, or to 

 paint them with a thick, ochreous paint. This does some good, 

 but not much. If the variety is thoroughly hardy in the climate 

 where it is growing a wound not exceeding an inch across will 

 grow over in two seasons. If not hardy, the attempt to heal 

 will be defeated by the winter-killing of the new growth, and 

 the wound will tend to enlarge rather than heal, the tree be- 

 coming " black-hearted," breaking down and dying. 



What is this disease of " black heart," about which so much 

 has been written ? It is simply the killing of the weakly vital- 

 ized heart- wood by low winter temperature. This takes place 

 with different varieties at different temperatures. Is it the 

 temperature at which the sap freezes, as Mr. Meehan has 

 taught ? I do not know; but this I do know, that nearly every 

 variety of southern New England and the middle states be- 

 comes black-hearted in northern New England and Canada. 

 If no wounds are made that will not heal in one season, such 

 trees, "hardy, but not iron-clad," may live and bear much 

 fruit before dying ; but at last they perish when an over-crop 

 breaks down the weakened branches or a phenomenally cold 

 winter comes along. 



Even with the most thorough iron-clads, I would paint and 

 repaint every season, until healed, all wounds too large to heal 

 in one or two seasons. From my experimental plantings, be- 

 gun twenty-four years ago, I have been removing year by year 

 a good many trees that have proved failures, or for over- 

 crowding. Using the wood of these trees in my office stove, 

 I have had a good chance to study their morbid anatomy and 

 to trace the effects of cold and of pruning upon them. In 

 every case of black heart from pruning, it has been easy to 

 trace the course of decay inward and downward from the 

 point of removal, and the lateral spread of the fungous disease 

 which accompanies it, until the whole trunk is infected. 

 There is no preventing or stopping this decay in any of the 

 tender varieties. Once it begins, the destruction of the tree is 

 sure. But in the "iron-clads," and especially in the Russian 

 varieties, even when the wounds are large and have not 

 healed over for several years, there is not a particle of decay 

 or any fungoid infection. The woody fibres continuous with 

 the severed branches show a changed color and seem desti- 

 tute of life ; but this wood is dry, hard and elastic, and the 

 change does not extend to the contiguous wood. The wounds 

 heal over perfectly, and there are no signs that the tree is not 

 quite as healthy as others of the same variety that have never 

 lost a limb. 

 Newport, vt. T. H. Hoskins. 



Notes on Shrubs. 



In Garden and FoRESTf or May 7 th Professor J. L. Budd writes 

 of the hardiness of Primus tomentosa at Ames, Iowa. This little' 

 Cherry has usually proved perfectly hardy and borne an 

 abundance of flowers and considerable fruit at the Arboretum, 

 but this spring a large proportion of the buds and even some 

 of the branches were destroyed, the injury being most severe 

 to those plants on low, rich soil. This is a pretty little shrub 

 with a broad spreading habit, specimens in the Arboretum at- 

 taining a height of five or six feet and resembling a very large 

 Currant bush. It is one of the earliest of the genus to bloom, 

 and when in good condition the branches are covered with 

 medium sized white flowers, which usually have a more or 

 less pinkish color. The flower stalks are so short that the 

 blossoms appear almost sessile. The ripe fruit is of a light 

 cherry-red color and has an agreeable flavor. It is a small 

 Cherry and contains a large stone. Dr. Bretschneider col- 

 lected seed of this plant in the mountains about Pekin, China, 

 and as a rule it maybe counted hardy in every way. 



Among the four or five species of eastern North American 

 Plums there is none so hardy or so showy when in blossom 

 as the Wild Red Plum {Prunus Americana). In regard to 

 hardiness it is what the gardeners term "iron-clad," and il 

 found in the open woods far north in Canada. The vigor and 

 endurance of the species in Manitoba and other equally trying 

 regions where it is indigenous have in recent years caused 

 some attention to be given to its cultivation and the improve- 

 ment of the quality of its fruit. The fruit, which is either red, 

 orange or yellow, varies much in size on different trees when 

 growing wild. It is often of a pleasant taste and is sold in 

 some northern markets. At the Arboretum the showy snow- 

 white blossoms of plants from the north and north-west appear 

 before the leaves during the first week of May and continue 

 for seven or eight days, but it is noticeable that plants from 

 Ohio are nearly a week later in flowering. When varieties 

 of Prunus domestica and other cultivated Plums are very 

 seriously affected by " black knot," the Wild Red Plum is often 



