2o8 THE FRUIT GARDEN 



species {A. reticulata) is called the custard apple, while A. squamosa is known 

 as the sweet-sop. 



Custard apple, or sweet-sop, is a fruit of first-rate quality for dessert, and one 

 that can only be obtained in anything like perfection in this country from 

 home-grown trees. It has been successfully fruited in a few gardens here, but 

 only casually. There is, therefore, an excellent opportunity for some enthusiast 

 to distinguish himself by devoting a house to its cultivation. There is no 

 doubt that it can be done successfully, because plants grown in pots under 

 ordinary stove treatment and without any particular attention, flower annually, 

 and now and then ripen fruits. House, soil, and conditions generally ought to 

 be the same as for forced peaches. Bullock's heart has long smooth leaves, 

 flowers two or three together, and sub-globose fruit with a rough exterior. 

 It is not worth growing except by the curious, but care must be observed 

 that it is not taken in error for the custard apple, as it bears this name in 

 the West Indies. 



A. Cherimolia (the cherimoya) has small ovate fruits, which are eaten by 

 Creoles, and are good enough to find favour with some Europeans. Fruits 

 produced a year or two ago in the palm-house at Kew were delicious in flavour. 

 A. muricata (the sour-sop), has large green prickly fruit of medicinal value 

 only. 



PERSIMMON, OR DATE-PLUM 



Diospyros Kaki, the persimmon, or date-plum, is an Eastern tree which for 

 centuries has been cultivated in China and Japan for its fruits. It is scarcely 

 known in English gardens, although it has been cultivated for many years in 

 Southern Europe. It forms a bushy tree, very similar to the apple, and is 

 deciduous ; the leaves are oblong, rather leathery, and about 5 inches long ; 

 they assume brilliant colours in autumn. The flowers (female) are green, an 

 inch in diameter, and are borne singly in the axils of the leaves. The fruits 

 ripen in late autumn, and remain long on the tree after the leaves have fallen. 

 They vary in size and flavour almost as much as apples ; in colour they are 

 usually bright scarlet. The male and female flowers are borne on separate 

 plants, and the varieties are propagated by grafting. Most, if not all, the 

 cultivated plants we have are females. The ovaries swell to full size without 

 having been fertilised, but the fruits are seedless. Fruits matured in a sunny 

 greenhouse at Kew were as large as a Ribston Pippin apple, and when ripe 

 were as red. Soft, and juicy as a ripe tomato. 



It would appear that the conditions most suitable for the persimmon are 

 what we term sub-tropical. It is not likely to be hardy anywhere in England, 

 except in the warmer parts, although fruits have been ripened on a plant grown 

 against a wall in Canon Ellacombe's garden at Bitton. So far as Kew experi- 

 ments have gone, the conditions most congenial to this plant are those of the 

 agave house. Here it is planted out in a border of loamy soil in a position 

 where it gets plenty of summer sunshine and air, while in winter the atmos- 

 phere is dry and the temperature never below 50 degs. The pruning of this 

 plant is identical with that recommended for peaches. In Japan the trees are 



