62 



FLORA AND SYLVA. 



scarecrows, running up a long way and doing 

 little when they get there. 



Though conditions that would make this 

 light brushwood of value are never likely to 

 obtain in England, for the sake of beauty and 

 the welfare of the trees themselves, far more 

 should be done than at present in the way of 

 pruning. All over the country one may see fine 

 trees spoiled by lack of attention, the vigour of 

 the tree running to waste in a mass of weak suck- 

 ers and side branches, instead of being centred 

 in the trunk and crown. There are branches 

 by the removal of which a tree gains in beauty 

 and in health— puny inner sproutings which 

 impede light and air and are only destined to 

 wither away sooner or later ; — -crowded limbs 

 that cross and chafe each other, or will do so 

 if left alone; and lower branches which have 

 lost their strength and beauty, and only serve 

 to conceal the beauty of the trunk. I learned 

 the value of these touches from a dear old friend 

 who delighted in his trees and spent much of 

 his leisure among them. He used to argue that 

 you must give character to a tree as you would 

 to a child, by encouraging its natural bent while 

 repressing its wayward humours, just in the 

 spirit of Captain Cuttle, " Train up a tree in 

 the way it should go, and when you are old sit 

 under the shade of it." His plan was to carry 

 a keen-edged folding hand-saw (couteau a scie) 

 in his pocket, and a second affixed to a stout 

 handle 9 or 10 feet long; thus equipped he 

 removed in the course of daily walks over his 

 extensive property, an immense amount of 

 woodland waste, and unwieldy as his long tool 

 appeared, it proved most effective. I have seen 

 him, in a few minutes, with a few deft strokes 

 transform a shapeless mass of verdure into a 

 tree of beauty and character, by laying bare a 

 trunk here or freeing crowded limbs there, till 

 the branches seemed to fall into picturesque 

 and individual outline distinct from any tree 

 near. With a little training it is astonishing 

 how sensitive the eye becomes to such matters, 

 and how involuntarily the phrase suggests it- 

 self : That bough would be better off. The 

 final maxim is, when in any doubt don't cut in 

 a hurry ; come back the next day and look 

 again, and the day after that if need be. Your 

 trees will soon repay you and you will learn to 

 love them, and even such a time as the present 

 will not be without its interest. — Rusticus. 



THE DOUBLE JAPANESE 

 CHERRIES. 



We have never seen among all the 

 flowering shrubs, double or single, in 

 our gardens any that so well with- 

 stands bad weather and storms as these 

 Cherries. Like other trees they are in- 

 fluenced by wet years, and in such will 

 not ripen the wood, but in years of good 

 bloom they are amazing in their beauty 

 even in times of storms and gales, night 

 and day. In Japan it is said, by those who 

 have seen it there, to attain a height of 

 80 feet, but in this country we mostly 

 have young trees, mostly grafted, which 

 cannot give us the same results ; there- 

 fore we cannot say what it may finally 

 do, but it promises very well even in the 

 grafted state. By the Japanese it has been 

 cultivated more than any tree for cen- 

 turies — used in all gardens and temple 

 grounds, and by highways, in some cases 

 in avenues a mile in length ; thousands 

 of trees being planted in this way in Ja- 

 pan. It is an excuse for a great holiday, 

 and not being a short bloomer as some 

 of our Cherries are here, it gives time for 

 such festivities. It would be interesting 

 to know the wild tree from which this 

 comes. The handsome Cherry known 

 as Waterer'sis a variety of the Japanese, 

 and a very good one. The deeper co- 

 loured one lately introduced by Veitch 

 is another variety. In all there are said 

 to be quite twenty double -flowered 

 varieties of this fine tree. One some- 

 times called Sieboldi is another form of 

 it. We have lately been happy enough 

 to get double forms of one variety on 

 their natural roots, and have planted 

 them side by side with the grafted trees. 



