420 



GARDENERS' MAGAZINE. 



July 



2. 



one, and was formerly, I believe, a gravel pit ; m any case it appeared 

 to be the very place for the thrift. Lily of the valley flowered very in- 

 differently with me this year. A charming yellow primula which grows here 

 to a height of eighteen inches is P. luteola. Roses on walls are flowering 

 splendidly ; all the monthly or China roses are a mass of flower in beds ; 

 a few tea varieties are expanding in the open garden, while the hybrid 

 nerpetuals promise a good return in due course. Masses of Mrs. Smkins 

 pink are charming now, filling the air with their delicious perfume. 

 Double rockets, iris in variety, single and double peonies day lilies, St. 



Bruno's lilies are making up the bulk of hardy 



Fruit Production. 



The question of flower-bearing in its relation to fruit product!™ 

 has often engaged the attention of fruit growers wU ?c?.; n » wh,cl > 

 "A. D» (pa|e 398). Of the fact stated that S^SbS^ 

 periods is often followed by very moderate crops of ^n^S^'H 

 vators are generally agreed. In endeavouring to account for it 



Bernard's and St. 

 herbaceous subjects yet in flower. 



markably well this year. The strawberry crop will be a very heavy one 

 Apples, too, will be a first-rate crop, judging from present appearances. 

 Raspberries are promising well. Cherries, I regret to add, have dropped 

 practically all their fruit. Potatos have recovered from the damage in- 

 curred by the frost experienced during the middle of May, and are look- 

 ing very well now. Peas and broad beans are producing excellent 

 crops. The splendid weather we are now getting after the heavy rains 

 suits all crops admirably. A terrific thunderstorm, lasting the whole 

 day passed over this locality on the 12th inst, accompanied by a deluge 

 of rain. Agricultural prospects are exceptionally promising ; the hay 

 crop is an enormously heavy one, and is being well saved now during the 

 fine weather. Wheat and oats look remarkably well. Mangolds came up 

 weakly, but since the advent of warmer weather they have made good 

 progress. Swedes, carrots, and parsnips are doing first-rate, and grass 

 is everywhere very abundant. 

 Qet ans town Gardens. 



Setting Muscats. 



Some idea prevails that Muscats must be very carefully handled during the 

 blooming period, and that they must be brushed over with a camel's-hair pencil, fan 

 or rabbit's tail, the latter being about the best for the purpose where its use is 

 necessary. That young vines set better than old ones, is, I believe, taken for 

 granted. This may or may not be correct, but in the free setting of Muscats none of 

 these artificial devices are of material use if the roots of the vine are not healthy 

 and active, nor is it so necessary to have the temperature of _ the house so 

 hot and dry as is sometimes recommended, but I believe in not having the border 

 really wet till after setting. At this time, they should have the first good 

 soaking with tepid liquid manure, as this will at once start them with that vigour so 

 necessary in Muscat growing — if the vines are healthy. I find a good and, 

 perhaps, the best way to set them is to gently spray them with soft water from a 

 syringe just before closing time, say, at two p.m. With this carefully done they 

 set like Hlack Hamburgh. This spraying process may be done several times with 

 distinct advantage, inasmuch as it clears away all rubbish and berries which do 

 not set, and are so troublesome to the thinner. When these grapes fail to 

 set well—and aiterwards those left sometimes shank — it is a sure sign something is 

 wrong with the roots or border — or both — and when the vine has lost that robust 

 constitution it had better be rooted out and a new start made. 



Vines last much longer on some soils than others. I know a large place, not 

 many miles away, which was at one time noted for famous Muscats — they have 

 not one on the place now, either young or old. Upon cold, badly-drained soils 

 grape vines will not last in full vigour as they will on dry, well-drained soil, and 

 all attempts to arrest them in their backward movement oftentimes prove futile. 

 Of course, in their native countries, where they thrive and grow so well outside, 

 they are chiefly planted upon sunny slopes, which are naturally well drained ; in 

 fact, it is well known that in several notable cases of old vines here at home the 

 roots have rambled far away from the cultivator's control, and when they do this 

 roots always always travel a long way in search of suitable food. Take any tree, 

 plant, climber, or otherwise, when it has got beyond the limits of the border or 

 flower how rampant they will grow, with much more freedom than when confined, 

 and yet if the plant was given its freedom in the first place it would be ruined 

 possibly. 



Grape growing has of late years made rapid strides in this country, and bids 

 to completely outdo all imports. The imported grapes will not bear comparison 

 with our own home-grown produce, either in size or quality. Grape growing has 

 become an important industry unknown to many gardeners, though many 

 are fast becoming to learn the fact that they must produce grapes cheaper. Some 

 of our wealthy proprietors are already alive to the fact that they can buy cheaper 

 than they can produce ; so gardeners must look alive that the market growers do 

 not oust him from his position. On the other hand, the grower for market has 

 large, roomy houses, and spares no expense in providing suitable manures for 

 growing a heavy crop, and do not have to strain the vines by keeping the crop 

 about on the vines as in the case of private growers ; neither are the vines ex- 

 pected to last for generations. Grapes that cost 20s. per pound twenty years ago 

 can now be bought at 2s. 6d. What a difference ! But is it not so with all com- 

 modities of the present time ? 



Compton Bassett. ' ® W. A. Cook. 



few fruit growers seem to have anticipated Darwin's eeneral thl n ° l a 

 the struggle for existence Granted that only a limited amount of nl° f 

 . um»u* B u F .xx. uu:, v,* plasum, sap, or growing force is available on each fruit tree or h>X 



Rhododendrons are flowering re- for conversion into fruit, and that these trees or bushes have each t 



-i, t_ t i mes or a hundred times the exact proportion is of little moment if 



more flowers are presented than it can feed or satisfy, the excess u 



' *• It'll* "^^J 



as we see, whether or not w<» 

 have snap frosts or blighting winds or not, there are too many mouth* 

 in the feeding ground, and the weakest fall or go empty away. X or 

 this all or the worst in the scramble and rush for food, the whole of 

 the fruit may be starved off. 



More mouths than food, hence the advocates of bloom bud and open 

 blossoms thinning to fill with greater plenty the mouths left, and save the 

 embryo fruits from sheer starvation. This theory thus stated seems sound 

 enough, but somehow in practice the thinning of flower buds and blossoms 

 has never become popular. Unless the cultivator's selection of fruit 

 buds or blossom left for growing into mature fruits were identical w 

 Nature's the bud and blossom-thinned trees would have fewer fruits than 

 the unthinned. The cultivators need to know Nature's selections and 

 Nature's favourites before he thins off freely, or otherwise, his redir 

 dant bloom buds or blossoms. Besides, modern science and practice has 

 shed much new light on the nature and functions of bloom buds and 

 flowers. During their early stages they are not depleting, but filling 

 agencies of probably equal, perhaps more, subtle and potent force th 

 the green leaves. Now, fruit buds or blossoms are by no means hungry 

 animals, jostling - and crushing each other for the first and deepest dip 

 into the trough of vital life and being ; but rather the powerful auxiliaries 

 of roots and leaves, light and air, heat and moisture, and other stimu- 

 lating forces that are constantly adding to and enriching the food supplies 

 of our fruits and fruit trees. These coloured blossom buds and blossom 

 perform through all their earlier stages the feeding and other functions 

 of green leaves. Hence, the more of them the more food, and vice vers^ 

 unless, indeed, it be contended, that the mere act of expansion of too 

 many blooms may so strain the strength and waste the vital power of 

 the trees as to cause the whole, or most of the flowers, to drop off. Htrt 

 so far as at present known, the mere expansion or development of budi 

 into full-sized open blossom, puts no greater strain on fruit trees than the 

 unfolding of their myriads of usual buds and leaves. And it would be as 

 reasonable to thin leaves as blossom as a certain means of husbanding 



Weli 



the vital energies of fruit trees. 



in these prodigal 



As to the strength and vital force expended 

 developments of fruit buds, this is mainly the gift of the previous season, 

 rather than a drain on the resources of 1898 that the vital force needed 

 to expand fruit buds. We have no proof that more is needed to deve ope 

 these up to the stage of setting, than would be necessary to cleyelope 

 green leaves and yet we find that the buds or blooms, viz., the coloured 

 leaves fall, while the green ones do not, though the foundation 01 me 

 colour was well and truly laid by the autumnal sunshine of io^7,aM 

 could hardly exhaust the vital lorce or protoplasm of our truit treo 

 in the early months of the present year. 



Of course I am well aware that not a few attribute the failure of profu« 

 blossoming to ensure full crops of fruit, to previous starvation or 0 . ercrop- 

 ping. They do not believe in buds or blooms however num ^, ou '; h s ;^ 

 or crushing each other off, until few or no fruits are left. Bu ^^ he ^ r n " 

 almost all practical growers are forced to believe through bitter *P*f™ 

 that an excessive crop the year before results in a scant or no u f 

 following season, and at times for two or three years in 

 the crushing crop. At times this scene of total stcn hty takes thtjorm 

 of a lack of bloom ; at others there is an excess of bloom, too 

 imperfect to set or swell into perfect fruit. It is this last phase or p. 



or complete barrenness that puzzles cultivators the mos ^ ^ouiTcaS i 

 understand how trees over-fruited for one or more Y ea [ PYtenc i their 

 halt and demand a rest to recruit their health, or save or exi ^ 

 lives. But why the trees should clothe themselves with J^ 1 * rf ^ 

 to be merely shed or cast to the earth seems inexpiicaDie, - 



wr utk, y oij^vx ui K+ixzi lu Luc ««sm<w . • ,~rr»nninL r or under 



shedding of fruit flowers originates, however, ^overcrc PP « 

 feeding. Fruit trees and bushes are endowed with the P° w Xalur€ t be 

 either or both through the shedding of their fruit buds. _ q{ ^ 

 life and health of plants is of more moment than majjj. ,„ 

 and hence their power of recruiting vital force by as P ei ' fruit buds and 

 these modern days of hurry and rush, the thinning tise d were 



blossoms is too troublesome and uncertain to be ; >/ woa |d check 

 the fact established, which it is not, that over JJ' nn '^ e direc „on. 

 the plants in their more thorough proceedings in me » ^ ^ ^ ^ 

 But the thinning of fruits in their earlier stage V n ' rtjoltf tc 

 between their setting, stoning and swelling, to »« ona ^ t r0 ad to I* 

 the size and strength of fruit' trees and bushes, is ^ tocoromerctfj 



reaping of annual crops of fruit of the highest <p»iny> the fW »m 



value one perfect fruit is worth from three to_six^sn^ fruj( 



Fortunately, too, for the pockets and P° we " ° f t haV'the lack <* 

 bushes suffer far more for the want of ware « 



A Blue Geranium. — The public generally have become so imbued with the 

 belief that the well-known variety of pelargoniums are all geraniums that it is very 

 difficult to disabuse their minds of this notion. It does seem as if the appellation 

 geranium would stick for all time. But there seems largely to be ignorance of 

 what proper geraniums are, and although many may know the pretty Robertianum 

 of the hedges to be a crane's-bill, they do not recognise it asageranium. What, 

 then, will they say on seeirg the above heading. Certainly some will remark, 

 and I know there are readers of the Gardeners' Magazine who are not pro- 

 fessionals, that if there be yet no blue dahlia, or rose, or chrysanthemum, at least 

 we have a blue geranium. That, however, is not a blue pelargonium, which 

 seems to be as far oft as the rose or dahlia. I have been led to these reflections 

 when recalling the marvellous mass of colour, a deep rich blue, which I saw a day 

 or two since at Messrs. Cannell and Sons' Eynsford seed farm. Here was a huge 



A n £\ ds , ,n *"» Hteral 'y » solid body of blue flowers, a veritable 

 * ? J g J 0t of beau < ifa! . ha ' d y P lants ' Geranium platypetalum, 

 The lS tX£S*Z Seed * L nor $ P ecial »y for stock, although that is abundant, 

 beaut SttS th « «rt«nin becomes very varied in colouration and exceedingly 

 KcnSes the who, the a "'ntion of an enterprising dealer, * ho now 



from thS t;S r « t * fc £sr no ripens ° v nd s£ ■ t rr A n 



decorative one. I am «fS? bowever . the plant is, indeed, a superb 

 other day, it woulJ U^Z^^^ * widd * S « n " 1 ^ * lhe 



vaiue one perfect fruit is worth from im^ l " Der fect rruu 



may drain the tree of as much vital force as the nne o ? frui , trees 

 F«rt.,„o».i„ — <u- .i. w» and nowers of cuimaro". ^ 



auu uusucs suuer rar more lor tnc wau>- — «f hlooms and em **T* 



Drought at the roots shrivels off its thousands of o ]e food in t* 



fruits to the trees starved off for lack of sufficient or ^ i 



soil. Water is food as well as drink to our frui«j ^ lld 0 i 

 absorb and assimilate the other foods provided 



solvent properties and qualities. D. T - 

 Fettes Row, Edinburgh. 



Fish. 



