238 
CONTEiMPORARY WRITINGS. 
we have an insuperable objection to cutting the 
leaves at all, except those few that we must take 
right away, that is, those below the third good 
joint. These are necessarily removed to enable 
ns to make the incision, and lay down the shoot. 
The only object we have here, is to denounce the 
shortening of the leaves, for the plant is thereby 
greatly weakened, while no single object is 
attained by it ; besides, nobody likes to see a 
mutilated plant, and the ridiculous excuse that 
it gives more room is untenable. 
Thinning of Standard Trees. — Standard 
fruit trees are confessedly neglected. What- 
ever fruit comes is left to swell and ripen as 
well as it can ; and unless the wind lessens 
their number by blowing some down, which in- 
variably leads to the bruising of the remainder, 
the tree is distressed by having to support three 
times the number, perhaps, that it ought, and 
the fruit is not worth the trouble of gathering, 
because it has only had among the whole, what 
ought to have been devoted to a smaller 
quantity. As soon as the fruit is set, and 
has begun to swell, they should be gone over, 
and full half, if it be a full crop, should be taken 
away, chiefly from the crowded parts. This 
may seem troublesome, but it well pays for the 
trouble by the hardiness and advanced value of 
the remainder. When they have swelled to 
nearly half their size, all the ugly and deformed 
and blighted fruit may be removed, and only a 
proper quantity allowed to perfect themselves. 
In going over these to get them in, a little time 
bestowed upon a first gathering — which should 
be early and only comprise the largest and for- 
wardest fruit — will pay well ; and the removal 
of these will aid the remainder in completing 
their growth and ripening. We have not here 
mentioned any particular fruit, for the thinning 
applies to all ; but the gathering once quite 
early, before one-fourth of them are either use- 
able or marketable, applies to all soft fruits 
that are taken ripe to market. Cherries, for 
instance, may be half-a- crown a pound to-day, 
and one shilling and sixpence to-morrow, and 
come down to ninepence the third clay. The 
great object, then, is not to lose a day nor an 
hour, if it can be helped. Plums are also of 
the same changeable prices. If you can be 
first at market or first at table, the profit or the 
fame belongs to you ; and in most instances 
this can be achieved by thinning the fruit, that 
it may have tlie benefit of a larger share of 
nourishment, and gathering a few as soon as a 
few can be obtained. The same applies to wall- 
fruit trees, but they are generally better at- 
tended to ; it is only the standard trees which 
are so commonly neglected, and to which we 
would direct attention. 
A Proposal to Florists — It has always 
struck me as a great inconvenience that we are 
obliged to pay so much carriage for plants, and 
that because we have no general association 
under proper management ; and therefore, if I 
want Mr. A's Fuchsias, Mr. B's Verbenas, Mr. 
C's Dahlias (and perhaps also Messrs. D, E, F, 
G-, H, and I's), Mr. Somebody-else's Gera- 
niums, and so on, I have to write to all these 
separately, and obtain them as I can, at a large 
cost of carriage, and (as little orders are not 
always worth serving) sometimes not at all. 
Now, if there were any society to which all 
these people belonged, the entire orders re- 
quired to be executed could be sent there, and 
one carriage do for twenty people's plants. 
Think of this.— P.P. 
The Cholwell Pear. — This is a good 
hardy early Pear, worth cultivating, as it 
comes in season at the end of September or 
the beginning of October, when the supply 
sometimes becomes broken off*. The form of 
the fruit is curved pyramidal, about three 
inches in length, and one inch and nine-tenths 
in diameter at the widest part of the section, 
which is about two-thirds of its length from 
the stalk ; the eye is small, but open ; the stalk 
slender, and obliquely attached, from half to 
three quarters of an inch long ; the skin is 
smooth, thin, yellowish green on the shaded 
side, faintly tinted and obscurely streaked witli 
dull red next the sun, which is also sprinkled 
with small dots ; the flesh is yellowish-white, 
melting, buttery, very sugary and rich, with a 
musky flavour resembling that of the variety 
called Henri Quatre, or less so, that of the 
Seckel. 
Judging Apples and Pears. — " The way 
I test the merit of an Apple or Pear, is by 
reducing the flesh of the fruit to a pulp, by 
means of a little wooden bowl and pestle. The 
reduced pulp is then placed, in small quantities, 
on an earthen dish, and exposed for about fif- 
teen or twenty' minutes to the air. This I have 
practised at home, to decide the merits of cider 
apples, for years past ; but last October, at 
our exhibition, I told my two fellow-judges of 
fruit, that 1 would save their teeth from the 
effects of tasting sour apples. I accordingly 
set to work, and having arranged the reduced 
pulp of about a dozen apples, in rows on a 
dish, where, with a number corresponding with 
each fruit, it remained about fifteen minutes, 
I then pointed out what I expected we should 
all agree was. the best fruit for the press, by 
the depth of the brown tint assumed by the 
absorption of oxygen." (Mr. Williams, in 
Journ. Hort. Soc.) It has been experienced 
that apples which cook of a white colour may 
be made to acquire a fine tint by paring and 
cutting a day before, so as to expose the juice 
to the action of oxygen, which invariably 
changes the colour. 
Melons. — The Duke of Sutherland's gar- 
dener at Trentham adopts the following plan 
