454 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND C01IAGE GARDENER. 
[ June 4,1835. 
are now soft as well as the thorns, and can be done with the 
thumb and finger. All strong shoots that may be issuing 
from the base should also be removed wherever they can be 
observed, and not left to grow until the end of the season. 
The bushes grown on this principle of pruning must be 
treated exactly the same as advised for Currants. Those 
that are not subjected to too much pruning during winter, 
merely thinning the shoots, require attention at this season 
of the year, or they soon grow too large and crowded in the 
apace allotted to them. The leading shoots would often 
extend a foot or more in length if allowed to do so during the 
season, and this means a great addition to the size of the 
bushes annually where the young wood is not much shortened 
back during the winter pruning. Pinch all the leading 
shoots at once, and they will branch again into two or three, 
which if the season prove moderately fine will be well ripened 
and will fruit abundantly. The shoots produced can be 
thinned after the fruit has been gathered, or the majority of 
them removed if thought desirable during the winter pruning, 
and the wood first made will be found to have formed abun¬ 
dance of fruiting spurs or buds. 
I know bushes that have been grown on this principle, 
and that have had the whole of the wood that was made after 
stopping removed during the winter pruning, and they have 
never failed to produce heavy crops of fine fruits annually. 
Such Gooseberries are moderately thick, and therefore covered 
early with good foliage, and thus the fruit is safely protected 
from spring frosts. Stopping the shoots at this season of 
the year is an admirable practice, especially noticeable in 
the case of young plantations that are operated upon during 
the present month. Young vigorous bushes grow strongly 
and make a number of long shoots that at the winter pruning 
are probably pruned hard back. It is a great mistake grow¬ 
ing wood to be cut away, and often that left is strong, and 
therefore insufficiently ripened to bear fruit. If the shoots 
are pinched now—that is, all strong ones and any likely to 
take the lead—they will soon break again into growth and 
produce two, three, and often four each. The result of this 
treatment, which is simple and takes up but little time, is 
shapely bushes well filled with moderately strong wood 
certain to fruit freely. To allow the shoots to extend the 
whole of the growing season is a waste of valuable time in 
furnishing the young specimens as well as of labour in prun¬ 
ing during the winter that can be considerably reduced by 
early pinching. 
Raspberries really need very little attention at the present 
time if well manured or mulched during the past winter. If 
this was not done, or the canes are weak, a thorough soaking 
of liquid manure will help them wonderfully; afterwards 
mulching the ground with half-decayed manure. Suckers 
that spring up freely between the rows may be removed as 
they appear, and the growths that have started from the base 
should now be thinned, leaving the strongest and best placed 
for furnishing the requisite number of fruiting canes another 
year, the remainder being removed. Many stronger and 
more luxuriant canes would be produced if attention were 
only paid to the removal of such shoots that are not wanted. 
To grow the whole of the season a number of canes that are 
aot required is so much strength lost that would be much 
better reserved to assist in the swelling of the fruit and the 
development of the canes for future use. This matter being 
attended to without delay, farther attention is not needed 
accept for the removal of suckers between the rows, and any 
weeds that may appear, until the fruits have been gathered 
and the old fruiting canes require to be removed, so that full 
air and sunshine can reach and ripen the young canes. 
Timely attention to these matters will lead to the most 
successful results. —Wm, Bardney. 
SUMMER TREATMENT OF WINTER PLANTS. 
Well-grown plants of Ricbardiasethiopica, Spiraea japonica, 
Rnpatoriums, Salvias, Solanums, and Schizostylis coccinea, are 
not only very useful and attractive in winter and spring, but 
they are also of such easy culture as to bring them within the 
reach of everyone in possession of a small garden and a green¬ 
house from which frost and excessive damp can be excluded ; so 
easy, indeed, that I wonder at their not being more extensively 
and better grown by amateurs and gardeners generally than they 
would appear to be at the present time. 1 am, however, aware 
that the plants indicated are admirably grown by most practical 
gardeners—gardeners who require no instructions from me on 
their culture ; but there are other readers of the Journal besides 
the experienced amateurs and the practical gardeners to be con¬ 
sidered—readers whose previous attempts to grow the plants 
under consideration have not, perhaps, been so successful as they 
could wish. It is therefore with a view to assisting these that 
our remarks shall be as brief and simple as it is hoped they are 
opportune. 
Richardia ^thiopica. —This is the month in which to lay 
the foundation for a successful floriferous issue by dividing, and, 
if necessary, pulling the plants to pieces according to the number 
required. The plants having been thoroughly watered the 
previous evening should, as already hinted, be divided, and then 
planted in the open ground in rows at from 10 to 20 inches apart 
every way, in a mixture consisting of rather more than three 
parts loam and one of well-decomposed short dung. In planting, 
they should receive a gentle shake upwards to settle the soil 
among the roots, treading according to the condition of the soil, 
which, when the planting of each plant is being finished, should 
be drawn back from the stem, thus forming a sort of basin for 
the reception of water. This done, a stick should be put to each 
plant and the leaves secured to it, to prevent their being broken 
with the wind, which would be detrimental to speedy root-action. 
These leaves will, however, gradually die, but not before 
the roots are pushing forth into the prepared soil and fresh 
crowns or leaves are being formed, and which, by the middle or 
end of August, will have developed into good-sized sturdy plants. 
The only summer attention which the plants require is keeping 
them well supplied with water at the roots and free from 
weeds. 
About the middle of August they should be cut with a 
spade as far from the stems as the size pots into which they 
are intended to be potted, to sever all rambling roots, and 
thereby prevent the plants from experiencing so much check as 
they would otherwise be subjected to in being potted early in 
September in a compost of three parts loam, and one of horse 
droppings, leaf mould, and coarse sand. The pots should be 
stood on coal ashes in a warm situation out of doors, and the 
plants shaded from bright sunshine for a few days until the 
roots have taken to the soil; then they will be benefited by being 
fully exposed to the sun, and after the lapse of ten or twelve 
days from the time of potting, the plants will have thoroughly 
re-established themselves and filled their pots with healthy and 
hungry roots. At this stage of growth the plants, or a portion 
of them, may either be rested for a few weeks by partly with¬ 
holding water from the roots and keeping the plants in a cool 
house until they are required for the forcing house, or they may 
be grown on steadily with a view to securing an early display of 
their large white trumpet-shaped flowers borne on stout stems 
well above the equally imposing large dark green leaves. The 
Richardia aethiopica being a gross feeder, it should therefore 
receive copious supplies of tepid diluted liquid manure at the 
roots throughout its flowering period, so as to secure the best 
possible results in the way of a long succession of large well- 
proportioned flower spikes, and healthy foliage. 
Spir^a (Hoteia) japonica. —In usefulness and showiness 
this gracefully habited hardy plant has few equals, and if well 
grown furnished with abundance of Fern-like foliage of a dark 
shining green colour, depending gracefully over the edge of the 
pots, and surmounted by a mass of white feathery plumes, it amply 
repays for good treatment, and this is simple. Annually, from 
the middle of May to July, as the plants have done flowering, 
they should, whilst thoroughly moist at the roots, be divided 
and planted in a favourable situation out of doors from 15 inches 
to 18 inches apart, according to the size of plant aimed at, in a 
compost similar to that recommended for Ricbardias, and which 
will also be suitable for the growth of all the plants referred to 
in this paper. The Spiraeas should then be watered and mulched, 
and, with the exception of keeping them free from weeds, and 
in case of the summer being a dry one, giving them an occasional 
soaking of water at roots, they will not require any further 
attention until the time of potting them arrives, sixteen or 
seventeen months from the time of planting. Thus plants which 
were planted out this time last year in the manner indicated will 
be taken up towards the end of next November, and be potted in 
suitable sized and properly crocked pots—that is, in sizes ranging 
from 6 inches to 10 inches in diameter, and those planted out this 
