176 



CASSELL'S POPULAR GARDENING. 



Hence, roots under mulclies enjoy comparative 

 uniformity of temperature, and escape all those ex- 

 tremes so injurious to fruit and other trees and 

 plants. 



Sewage, house-slops, soap-suds, or manure-waters 

 made of different droppings, soot, guano, and bone- 

 dust, dissolved bones, &;c., are better than clean water. 

 As to the strength of these and other manures, 

 weak and often is a good safe rule ; especially 

 must this be adopted with drainage from stables, 

 piggeries, &c. From six to a dozen parts of clean, 

 soft, rain or river water, to one of such manures, is 

 sufficiently strong for Apple or other fruit trees ; for 

 guano- water, dissolved bones, &;c., an ounce to a 

 gallon is a safe measure. Two pecks of pigs', sheep's, 

 cows', and one of fowls' or pigeons' droppings, to 

 an eighteen-gallon cask of water, is sufficient. 



Importance of Thorough Waterings. — 



Sufficient should be given to penetrate through the 

 entire mass of roots; how much that may need 

 will depend on circumstances ; four gallons may be 

 ample for a cordon, while a hundred may be needed 

 for a full-sized Apple-tree in an orchard. Unless 

 the watering is thorough, it had better be dispensed 

 with. Driblets are worse than useless ; they simply 

 tempt and tantalise the roots to their destruction. 

 One thorough watering may double the weight of 

 the Apple crop ; a dozen di'iblets may end in most 

 of the crop dropping before ripe, and a weakly mil- 

 dewed condition of ti'ee. 



Water, too, in dull, or even showery weather if 

 possible. This may seem strange advice to give, 

 but it is sound nevertheless. The water will do 

 twice the amount of good while the tops are thus 

 placed en rapport with the roots, luxuriating in 

 a welcome flood of water. Flooding is in fact a 

 better word than watering to designate the proper 

 mode and extent of watering fruit-trees ; and ap- 

 plied in this copious sense, it will seldom be needful 

 to water Apple-trees more than twice, or at the most 

 thrice during the driest season. In normal seasons 

 one good watering in July will probably suffice. 



Protection of the Blossom.— With dwarfing 

 stocks and miniature trees, some slight protection to 

 the blossoms against the destructive etfect of late 

 spring frosts becomes practicable and easy. Any 

 sort of thin canvas or bunting, wool-work, or other 

 netting, is suitable for this purpose. And in the 

 case of an Apple orchard of dwarf bushes or cordons, 

 the whole could be covered over easily, with a few 

 posts and rails used for a framework ; the canvas 

 could then be made portable on rollers or otherwise. 

 In the case of wall and espalier trees, or cordons, 

 protection is still more simple and easy. A few 



newspapers have jjroved quite efficient against ten 

 degrees of frost, and fortunately, when protection is. 

 most needed, that is on clear, frosty nights, neither 

 wind nor rain is apt to displace or render the 

 paper useless. 



Better even than papers are a few boughs of Yew. 

 Spruce, or other evergreen tree. Laurel, or other 

 boughs. These may be laid on loosely, or stood up 

 over cordon or other trees, with a minimum of 

 labour and of trouble, and a maximum of success, 

 in protecting the blossoms against any frost that is 

 likely to occur. 



All this may seem troublesome work to the unini- 

 tiated, but once done it is the more easily repeated : 

 and such flimsy and universally available means of 

 protection have proved themselves more efficient 

 than the more ponderous and costly systems that 

 have yet been devised. Some, indeed, reason and 

 act as if no protection were needed, or as if no 

 amount of it could save the crops. But seeing is 

 belie^-ing in such matters, and the writer has again 

 and again gathered good crops of Apples by means 

 of those simple modes of protection, while unpro- 

 tected trees all round have been fruitless. 



Thinning of the Fruit.— This is a far more 

 pleasant matter than that of protecting the blooms. 

 But it is almost equally important, if fruit of full 

 size and the highest quahty is desired. And few 

 sights are more painful to the skilful pomologist 

 than that of trees broken down by crops of small- 

 sized and consequently worthless fruit, when judi- 

 cious timel}- thinning would have saved the trees 

 from disfigurement, and furnished reasonably hea^y 

 crops of the highest quality. 



Nor is it only the current year's crops that sufiPer 

 deterioration ; the trees themselves are often crip- 

 pled, almost ruined, for a series of years, if not for 

 life, by one or more enormous crops. 



The modern methods of forcing and intensify- 

 ing fertility have strengthened the necessity for the 

 prompt and vigorous thinning of the fruit. The 

 Apple flowers in bunches or trusses of flowers vary- 

 ing from three to a dozen, and it is only reasonable 

 to suppose that if all remained on the spur, room 

 could not be found for a fourth part of them. As 

 modem cultui'e aims at multiplj-ing fruit-spurs 

 until the tree is closely covered with them from base 

 to summit, it follows that should the blossom set 

 freely, occasionally the entire crop is dropped in 

 this way. Too many mouths in the food-basket 

 have exhausted the supplies, and the embryo fruits 

 are starved off en masse. 



Such contretemps may be avoided, or mitigated 

 within the range of a useful crop, by timely 

 thinning. 



