DESSERT PLUMS. 



211 



trees of Plums will produce fruit of extraordinary size and richness 

 of flavour. I have known the Early Orleans and Goliath become 

 dessert fruit. They are, however, although pleasant, rather flat 

 and insipid ; their principal merit always appears to me to be the 

 ease with which they can be split open. Old and apparently 

 worn-out trees of the Green and Purple Gages on a wall are worth 

 keeping, although the fruit is produced very sparsely. Its excellence 

 when borne by these decaying trees has, I think, given rise to 

 the traditions of the wonderful Green Gages produced in former 

 days, accompanied by lamentations that the true sort no longer 

 exists. This is hardly true, as the Green Gage is still to be found. 

 Unfortunately the facility with which the Green Gage reproduces its 

 characteristic excellency has been the means of introducing a 

 number of varieties which do not equal the prototype, a raiser of 

 seedling fruits being generally in the habit of thinking that his 

 own seedlings must be improvements on all existing sorts. 



BOOT PRUNING OF FRUIT-TREES. 



By Mr. George Bunyaed, F.R.H.S. 



[Bead September 6, 1892.] 



Those who would maintain a proper balance between the growth 

 of a fruit-tree and its production of fruit can only do so by 

 attention to the position and development of the roots. Left to 

 itself, the natural tendency of a fruit-tree is to make foliage and 

 timber at the expense of early fertility. 



Roots are generally classed under two divisions ; the surface 

 roots, being for the most part fibrous, are supposed to have a 

 closer relation to the perfecting and production of fruit-buds and 

 fruit than those tap-roots which strike down, and to these latter 

 the growth of woody extension shoots is generally attributed. 

 Cultural science has taken advantage of these distinct and special 

 root functions, and has assisted nature in the production of fruit 

 at an early stage of the life of a tree by using what are called 

 dwarfing stocks — viz. the shallow-rooting Paradise stock for 

 Apples and the Angers Quince stock for Pears. The nature of 

 these stocks is to root on the surface, and this they will do if 

 sufficient nutriment is provided for them ; but, failing this, they 



