August 12, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



379 



attack the fruit of the Myrobalan here, and the trees are very 

 productive. In Europe the fruit is much esteemed, especially 

 in cooking and for compots and preserves. 



There are other plants in the collection which are hand- 

 some this week from their showy fruit, and some which are 

 interesting from their flowers, but the columns of Garden 

 and Forest are not elastic, as the editor feels obliged to re- 

 mind me once a week, and the time to bring these notes to a 

 close has already elapsed. 



Arnold Arboretum. -< • c. 



High Culture and Tenderness. 



A WRITER in the Weekly Tribune says : "Mr. H. M. Gree- 

 ■£*- ley remarked of Osage-orange, ' Hardy under neglect ; 

 tender under high culture. This is true alike of all the fruit- 

 trees and vines we cultivate.' " He then quotes the veteran 

 pomologist, J. J. Thomas, as advising only a moderate growth — 

 say, for an Apple, Pear or Cherry, not less than eight to twelve 

 inches of new terminal growth, and not much more. Excess 

 either way is a sign of impending decay. 



All my early instructions in fruit-growing, received in Maine 

 and Massachusetts, agreed with this formula; and when later, 

 in Kentucky, I undertook to surround my garden-farm with an 

 Osage-orange hedge I received the same caution. Later still, 

 in northern Vermont, trying to establish an orchard where all 

 the old settlers insisted that no tree-fruits other than the Sibe- 

 rian Crabs and the native red Plums would survive the hard 

 winters, I tried, but in vain, by following this tradition, to suc- 

 ceed with the hardiest known varieties. 



But when, after much discouraging failure, I got hold of the 

 Russian Apples, behold a joyful change ! Vermont's winters 

 (with forty degrees below zero no unfrequent experience on 

 Lake Memphremagog) had no power to harm them. In the 

 beginning my land was not very rich ; but as I kept on im- 

 proving it our young orchards of Russian varieties persisted 

 in far outgrowing these standard rules, and I feared the con- 

 sequences threatened under them. For a while I cut back, 

 though with a new growth yearly of three or four feet I hardly 

 had the courage to retrench it to the extent of the rule. I tried 

 summer pinching ; but this resulted in a brushy growth of 

 small branches, which would not do at all. 



Seeing no evil resulting where the luxuriant new wood was 

 suffered to remain, I abandoned the practice of cutting back, 

 and limited my pruning to the removal of ill-placed shoots. I 

 have continued this practice now for twenty years ; and as I 

 received from year to year various new Russian varieties 

 I have followed it without variation, not only with Apples, but 

 with the Plums, Cherries and Pears of the Budd-Gibb importa- 

 tions, and in every case where the variety has proved a true 

 iron-clad, with unvarying success. 



Frequently of late I have been honored by visits from emi- 

 nent fruit-growers from different sections of the continent ; 

 but I need here perhaps only refer to the remarks upon the 

 thrift of my orchards appearing in the notes of Mr. Van Deman 

 in the last report of the Secretary of Agriculture. Some of 

 these visitors have shaken their heads warningly at the free 

 growth allowed, especially with the Russian Pears, one variety 

 of which, Bessemianka, has never made less than three feet 

 growth of its leading shoots, yet not one has suffered the loss 

 of a bud from successive winters exceeding in severity any 

 previous ones in my experience here. 



Some of my expert visitors have assured me that I would 

 never get any fruit on these Pear-trees unless I root-pruned 

 them, or otherwise arrested their strong growth. But I had not 

 found such a resort to be necessary with the Russian Apples, 

 nearly all of which, nevertheless, proved early bearers. After 

 six years of such vigorous existence, with a present height of 

 twenty feet, several of my Bessemianka-trees (after blooming 

 fruitlessly the two preceding years) are now carrying quite a 

 respectable crop ; and though the curculios, in this plumless 

 year, have defaced the young fruit, I am in good hope that I 

 shall eat my first Russian pear before winter. 



Now, what is the lesson to be learned ? I think it is that the 

 dictum of moderate growth holds good mainly where the trees 

 in question are not quite hardy. Where the growth of the 

 shoots, however free, becomes early determinate bv the ma- 

 turity of all their buds, their luxuriance does not indicate a 

 likelihood of "impending decay" in the orchard or in the 

 forest. Take the Osage-orange, which in Texas is a large 

 tree, as an illustration. In the Ohio Valley it is far from " iron- 

 clad" — being often badly killed back in winter where its 

 growth is vigorous. About Louisville I have never seen it 

 become a tree of much size, even when grown singly. It is 

 there much the same as with the slightly tender fruit-trees in 

 our northern orchards. In the light of my experience I would 



never cut back, or restrain by economy of manure, the growth 

 of any fruit or forest-tree that, so treated, survives the hardest 

 winters entirely uninjured. And I am inclined to add, that I 

 would never, or hardly ever, plant any other sorts — certainly 

 not in the "cold north." 



Newport, Vt. T. H. HoskhlS. 



Crowded Shrubberies. 



CROWDED plantations and shrubberies are far too common, 

 where private grounds are laid out and planted, either by 

 landscape-gardeners or by nurserymen, or by both. What thev 

 have to study is, how best to create an immediate effect, at 

 the same time arranging the trees and shrubs, deciduous and 

 evergreen, so that the best of everything should ultimately be 

 left in sole possession. The latter being distributed with due 

 regard to their habit of growth, all intervening spaces are filled 

 in with what may be termed supernumeraries as distinguished 

 from those permanently planted. In many cases, <?r where 

 carte blanche is given to the planters, comparatively thick 

 planting is practiced, the shrubberies having a well-filled ap- 

 pearance at the outset, and the ground being trenched and 

 otherwise well prepared, the growth of the majority of trees 

 and shrubs is rapid. Before, however, the commoner and 

 more vigorous occupants of these newly formed shrubberies 

 overrun, impoverish, and literally spoil the choicer and more 

 delicate subjects, the thinning out ought to commence, leav- 

 ing only those originally intended to be permanent. In how 

 many instances is this judicious thinning carried out ? Chaos 

 is the word that really describes the state of these neglected 

 plantations. The more robust subjects do certainly manage 

 to hold their own, but even these would have been far more 

 handsome and valuable had they not been obliged to struggle 

 for the supremacy. 



There are two ways of getting over this difficulty of thinning 

 out plantations and shrubberies : one, wholesale transplanta- 

 tion, entailing a considerable amount of labor, and often 

 shirked accordingly ; and the other the destruction of, in the 

 shape of cutting down or rooting out, much that might well 

 have been saved. If the thinning out was taken in hand be- 

 fore the trees and shrubs had overrun each other, those not 

 required for their present position could be safely transplanted 

 elsewhere, much other effective planting up being done largely 

 with the aid of these thinnings. Forest-trees should be con- 

 fined to the park or anywhere else well away from shrubbery, 

 flower-garden and kitchen-garden. 



Nor would I tolerate the presence of the heavy Scotch Firs 

 and several others of the more dense Pines anywhere near 

 dwelling-houses and shrubberies, where they soon overshadow 

 everything else. Either isolate them or else cut them out. 

 This rule may not be so strictly enforced in the case of various 

 other conifers, but the majority of these even are out of place 

 in mixed shrubberies, being far more effective well clear of 

 everything else in a pinetum or on the turf. Whether only 

 common Firs or choicer species of conifer are used, and 

 whether planted in groups or in long belts, at the outskirts of 

 parks, the same rule holds good as to the necessity for timelv 

 thinning out, all the trees being kept well clear of each other, 

 and thus allowed to develop in a natural manner. 



Forest-trees and conifers are not the. only subjects re- 

 quiring thinning out. Other strong-growing deciduous trees 

 and shrubs should be restrained, for if allowed to extend as 

 much as they will, the coarse, hungry-rooted kinds completely 

 overrun the borders and monopolize more than their share of 

 head-room. Many of them ought either to be transplanted 

 elsewhere or rooted out, and the least that can be done is to 

 cut them well back, so as to give more valuable shrubs all 

 the room and daylight they require. 



If fewer shrubs were planted in the first instance, far more 

 pleasure would, in many instances, be derived from the 

 shrubberies. In this case it would be possible and commend- 

 able to intersperse Hollyhocks, Foxgloves, Delphiniums, Sun- 

 flowers, masses of Sweet Peas, Lilies, perennial Asters, 

 and many other flowering bulbous-rooted plants, perennials 

 and annuals, among the shrubs, and there would then be 

 something in the flowering line to admire, and, it may be, to 

 cut from, all the year round. — The Field (London). 



Raspberries in 1891. 



npHE first red Raspberry to ripen is Thompson's Early. It is 

 -*- a fairly good berry, but I get nothing of marked' value 

 from it. In size it about equals good wild berries or Marlboro 

 when not grown in hills. Close after comes one of my own 

 seedlings, a cross of Philadelphia and Cuthbert, a large dark 

 red berry, growing like Philadelphia but much larger! It not 



