56 
THE CULTURE OF THE ORANGE TREE, 
be allowed to grow every year, therefore there 
would be the under branches taken away, and 
all undergrowth completely stopped. The graft 
having taken, the management of the head 
is very simple ; the first year, cut down to 
two eyes, or three at the most ; the second, 
shorten all the branches to two eyes ; the third, 
remove those which are useless, or in the way 
of the others, and only shorten where there is 
not sufficient wood to fill out. The pruning 
then may go on as before directed for esta- 
blished plants, for such they are. Among the 
various modes of grafting for dwarf plants or 
standards, we like the saddle graft, the cleft 
graft ; in short, so that a piece of two-year- 
old wood with one or more buds on it, be cut 
so as to fit a stock of two years or more of age, 
it will unite and make a plant, and the plan 
to be adopted may be varied to suit the several 
kinds of scions or buds that can be most easily 
procured. 
RAISING BY CUTTINGS. 
There are various modes adopted. Wood 
of two years old requires a cold frame, and 
the result is not certain. Wood of one year old, 
that has done growing, r^equires bottom heat. 
The former is adopted after sharp pruning in 
the spring, to give all the wood a chance of 
striking ; the latter is adopted as a matter of 
business. Plant in the same soil they are 
grown in, cover with a bell glass, water and 
plunge them in tan or a hot-bed not too pow- 
erful. Wipe the glasses every morning, 
shade from the burning sun, and when struck, 
'pot into forty-eights, thirty-twos, and twenty- 
fours successively, as the plants advance and 
fill their previous ones with roots. No dif- 
ference is required between the treatment of 
seedling plants and struck cuttings. While 
young they must be shaded ; in all other re- 
spects they should be the same. The cuttings 
of more matured wood that have been put into 
a cold frame will in three or four months have 
struck or died or callused. If the latter, they 
may be put in separate small pots, be sub- 
mitted to bottom heat, with a bell glass over 
them, and they will soon push roots, when 
they must be treated like established plants, 
and be changed as soon as the pots are filled 
with roots. 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
The Orange tree has been set down among 
neglected plants, and many in this country 
which still exist have perhaps never had a 
change of soil for many years. Constant 
top-dressing, perhaps, keeps tlrem alive though 
not in health, and they drag on a miserable 
existence, yielding neither flowers nor fruit, 
except almost by accident, and becoming un 
sightly and valueless. It would be invidious 
to mention names, but we have recently paid 
visits to an establishment in which the gar- 
dener takes no heed of the orange, lemon^ 
citron, and lime trees, and literally does 
nothing but remove them into the orangery 
(as a dark, miserable room, with a brick wall 
for the back, and plastered ceiling for the top, 
and half a dozen arched windows to the ground, 
is called) in the fall of the year ; and putting 
them out on the lawn in the summer, lets 
them take their chance ; the consequence is, 
they live and that is all. On remonstrating 
with him upon their condition, all he could 
say was, they were too old to be trifled with, 
and " he was afraid to tackle them." It was 
clear that he did not understand them. He 
had read what this man said and the other 
had said, and found them contradicting each 
other on the very soil they grew them in, 
and therefore there was no chance of knowing 
what to do ; they had not been shifted since 
he had been there, and that was five years, and 
he did not see any difference in them from 
what they were when he came. But this is not 
an isolated instance, it is the case with many 
establishments, and likely to continue so, unless 
the employers rouse their gardeners to a sense 
of the fact, that the whims of the new school 
do not compensate for the neglect of duties 
that were performed by the old. The decayed 
state of the Physic Gardens at Chelsea, and 
the Royal Gardens at Kew, until we routed 
the authorities up a little, was only a sample 
of hundreds of private establishments in which 
the proper duties of the gardener were neg- 
lected for some whimsical tomfoolery that did 
no good to the employer or the employed. 
Nothing will sooner make a good show in some 
establishments we could mention, than a com- 
plete reformation in the condition of the orange 
tribe. We say by them as we said by Kew 
Gardens and Chelsea, — have them in proper 
condition, or do away with them. 
MONTHLY TREATMENT. 
January. — All the orange and lemon tribe 
should now be housed, and if the temperature 
out of doors be forty, or upwards, they may 
have all the air that can be given ; but if 
below that, they should be closed, and the house 
kept up to forty degrees, (whichis the minimum 
heat to be kept up,) either by matting the house, 
or if necessary by the aid of a little fire in the 
flue. They should not be kept wet during the 
winter season, for whether mild or otherwise 
they will not be doing much in the way of 
growth. A strange notion entertained by 
some of the old writers cannot be too soon got 
rid of, though there are too many books always 
being made up from old writings by people 
