440 



PLANTING, SOWING, AND CULTIVATING. 



remainder and filled in; or if mixed with good maiden loam, so much 

 the better. This is in imitation of a plan, long followed with success, 

 by the Lancashire growers of prize gooseberries ; all the difference being 

 that they use an excessively rich compost (see Gooseberry^ in our Fruit 

 Catalogue), which we do not think would be so suitable for peaches, 

 apricots, &c., as for that fruit and the vine. Where the tree trained 

 on espaliers appeared to require a similar treatment, we would take 

 up a narrow trench between the espalier and the walk, or on the other side 

 of the espalier just beyond the footpath ; and where dwarfs or standards 

 seemed to require additional nourishment, we would dig a circular trench 

 round them, at three feet or four feet from the stem ; and in all these cases 

 fill it up with rich compost. It might be advisable to do this work by 

 degrees rather than all at once, by taking out every third yard, in the case 

 of wall and espalier borders, and the third part of a circle in the case of 

 dwarfs and standards. The second yard might be taken out in two years, 

 the third in two years more, and at the end of the sixth year the operation 

 might be recommenced, because the rich soil would very soon be filled with 

 fibrous roots. In this operation, as in every other of the kind, the gardener 

 or the amateur must exercise his own judgment, bearing in mind that the 

 object is not to produce luxuriant branches, but blossom-buds. 



929. Management of the culinary crops. — All culture must necessarily 

 consist in the application of general practices, or in the performance of such 

 operations as are required by particular species or for particular objects. 

 The former are given in the different subsections on the operations of 

 culture (p. 289 to p. 411), and the latter will be found when treating of 

 the culture of each particular culinary plant in our catalogue of Culinarv 

 Vegetables. 



930. Gathering^ storing, and keeping of fruit, — " The principles on which a 

 fruit-room ought to be constructed are, darkness, a low and steady tempera- 

 ture, dryness to a certain point; for apples are found to keep best, as regards 

 appearance, in a rather damp atmosphere, but for flavour a moderately dry 

 air is preferable, and exclusion of the external air. If the light of the sun 

 strikes upon a plant, the latter immediately parts with its moisture by per- 

 spiration, in proportion to the force exercised on it by the sun, and inde- 

 pendently of temperature. The greatest amount of perspiration takes place 

 beneath the direct rays of the sun, and the smallest in those places to which 

 daylight reaches with most difficulty. Now, the surface of a fruit perspires 

 like that of a leaf, although not to the same amount. When a leaf perspires 

 while growing on a tree, it is immediately supplied with more water from 

 the stem, and thus is enabled to bear the loss produced by light striking on 

 its surface ; but when a leaf is plucked it withers, because there is no longer 

 a source of supply for it. So it is with a fruit : while growing on the tree, 

 it is perpetually supplied by the stem with water enough to replace that 

 which is all day long flying off from its surface ; but as soon as it is gathered, 

 that source of supply is removed, and then, if the light strikes it ever so 

 feebly, it loses weight, without being able to replace its loss. It is thus that 

 fruit becomes shrivelled and withered prematurely. Light should therefore 

 have no access to a good fruit -room." 



" Temperature should be uniform. If it is high, the juices of the fruit will 

 have a tendency to decompose, and thus decay will be accelerated ; if, on the 

 contrary, it is below 32°, decomposition of another kind is produced, in con- 



