114 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
CHERRIES AND PLUMS IN POTS. 
By Mr. H. Somers Rivers. 
[Read July 31, 1900.] 
In a most interesting book, bearing the date 1653, entitled " A Treatise 
of Fruit Trees," by R. A. Austen, the author is at great pains to prove 
why fruit should be grown. Many of his reasons are such as can hardly 
be read to polite ears of two and a half centuries later, but one of the 
very numerous " Arguments of the Dignity of Fruit Trees and Art of 
Planting " appeals to most of us strongly, especially with Cherry orchards. 
" It is pleasure to the Eare to heare the sweet notes and tunes of singing 
Birds, whose company a man shall be sure to have in an Orchard, which 
is more pleasant there, then elsewhere, because of other concurrent 
pleasures there." Perhaps in those days the birds had not acquired such 
a taste for fruit. I believe that not so very many years ago starlings did 
not touch Cherries ; now, if it were not for the orchard house, we should 
have very few ripe Cherries at Sawbridgeworth. Directly the first tinge 
of red appears there is a rush on the part of the birds : rooks, starlings, 
thrushes, and others make away with the fruit as fast as they can, and 
apparently without any regard for their digestions. An orchard house is 
the only safeguard against them : with double doors, the inner of half- 
inch mesh wire-netting and with the ventilators wired over with the same, 
we can ripen crops of such Cherries as it is impossible to grow outside. 
When ripe they will hang for three weeks or more on the trees, secure 
from feathered depredators. The most convenient orchard house is a 
span roof 24 feet wide, 4^ feet high at the eaves, and 12 feet to the ridge. 
Ventilators 18 inches wide, hinged at the bottom, run round the sides ; 
the top ventilators are 3 feet wide by 15 inches, 7 J feet apart, on alternate 
sides of the ridge. We used to fruit ouj Cherries in a smaller house, 14 
feet wide and 9 feet to the ridge. This scarcely allowed sufficient head 
room for the large trees, many of them fifteen years old. Certainly they 
seem grateful for the increased breathing space. As soon as their crops 
are finished the trees are taken out of the house and plunged nearly up 
to the pot-rims in a border outside. The reason for plunging is two-fold : 
first, the earth which envelops them keeps the pots and their contents 
moist and renders the labour of watering less heavy ; and secondly, the 
somewhat top-heavy trees are thus in no danger of being blown over. 
Water must be given to the trees during dry weather, and occasional good 
syringing helps to keep them clean and healthy. In October the trees 
should again be brought into the orchard house for repotting, before which 
process they must be under cover for a time, so that the earth in the pots 
shall not be sodden. This also applies to the earth to be used for re- 
potting, a good loam with which is mixed rotten manure in the proportion 
of one load to two, and also broken-up mortar rubble, a barrow-load to a 
load. In repotting, the outer soil, filled with fibrous rootlets, is scraped 
away, leaving a ball of earth containing the larger roots ; the tree is 
replaced in the pot, and the new soil rammed in firmly and evenly nearly 
