JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 20, 1882. ] 
325 
tree will not allow itself to be overcropped. It will develope 
healthy shoots before the fruit, however thickly they may be 
placed, make any great call on the tree. Afterwards it is merely 
a matter of heat, sunlight, and air, and heat, moisture, and neces¬ 
sary food in the soil, when the tree will show that the crop has 
been too large alone by the smallness of the individual fruits. 
Here it would be well to note that the more numerous the fruit 
on a tree may be the greater quantity of food will it require. 
Everybody knows that two trees growing together under similar 
conditions in all ways except in the matter of size of crop exhibit 
a very striking difference in the results. While the thinly cropped 
tree has fruit of large size and keeps a healthy appearance, with 
comparative immunity from insect pests, its neighbour will be 
brought to a standstill, its leaves lose their healthy colour and be 
infested by red spider, the fruits stop swelling and either become 
prematurely ripe or fall. Both trees may have the same amount 
of food and the same treatment every way, but it is forgotten that 
the one which bears the larger crop requires very much more than 
its neighbour. Potash salts, especially, in greater quantity are 
what the highly worked tree requires ; but I would not, nor do I, 
confine heavily cropped trees to a regimen of potash alone as a 
means of bringing the fruit to a healthy maturity ; I would include 
nitrogenous matter and superphosphate to act their parts. I have 
added lime, but begin to suspect it is useless on our soil ; others 
may, and will find it a necessity. I am not in a position to secure 
urine as a fertiliser, so strongly recommended by “ Single- 
handed,” but I do not think that we are confined to sulphates 
for our potash. Chloride of potash is a readily soluble manure, 
though perhaps it is not always possible to obtain it as pure as 
desirable. If the superphosphate is of mineral origin an addition 
of bone meal will be found advantageous, and I use sulphate of 
ammonia in preference to nitrate of soda for fruit trees. Bearing 
these facts in mind and acting on them, the question of over¬ 
cropping may be dismissed. It is when the fruit calls for its 
appropriate food and no food is at hand that a tree fails. Treat 
it intelligently, and you may either allow a heavy crop to mature 
or a small one without damage to the tree itself. I may say that 
the fruit is thinned as much as wanted just now ; as soon as we 
can see that the fruits have been properly set all superfluous may 
be removed.—B. 
SPRING FLOWERS. 
It is pleasing to read the interesting accounts in our Journal of 
the spring-flowering plants that are rising in interest among the 
cultivators and admirers of the outdoor garden. I know none 
Fig. 67.—Mr. BARTER'S MUSHROOM GROUNDS. (See page 317.) 
more interesting and beautiful than the Corydalises; they were 
very beautiful during March. The Corydalis can be made to do 
good service for both in and outdoor decoration. C. bulbosa 
makes a pretty edging plant in the flower garden at the roots of 
trees, peeping up among the grass by the walksides in the rockery. 
Perhaps the finest of the race is C. nobilis. It is a fine plant for 
culture in pots or as a single specimen in the border; but to 
be fully appreciated it must be seen in a mass. C. lutea is a 
charming plant, and is worthy of more extensive cultivation than 
it is at present receiving. C. albiflora is a very showy plant, 
its curious coloured flowers and glaucous green leaves have a very 
pleasing effect. C. Hallerii has fine foliage ; the beautiful white 
flowers rising above have a pleasing effect, and in my estimation 
is one of the finest spring-flowering plants we have, but it must be 
seen in quantity. C. lutea, common as it is, is full of interest, 
locating itself on old walls, spreading everywhere. It is very 
beautiful in the spring and summer, becoming in time quite 
troublesome by the rapidity of its increasing. All the species are 
very desirable for the rockery and border and other places, and 
will well repay the cultivators for any care they may bestow 
upon them. They are readily increased by seed sown as soon as 
ripe in light compost, and by dividing the plants in early autumn. 
—Verna. 
FERTILISERS. 
Allow me to express my thanks to “ Single-handed ” for 
the reply on page 281 with which he has favoured me. His 
answer, if it has not quite satisfied my doubts, has at least given 
to me, and probably to many others as well, much to think about. 
It has also shown me that I cannot have perfectly expressed what 
I wished to say. Unfortunately I have mislaid the number of 
your Journal in which my letter was published, but I certainly 
did not intend to imply that I doubted whether the addition of 
potash to stableyard manure might often be useful, though I felt 
uncertain whether it should be considered as so necessary an in¬ 
gredient in artificial manures as nitrogen or phosphoric acid ; or, 
indeed, whether such an addition of potash to stableyard manure, 
as that which “ Single-handed ” names, was to be recommended 
without qualification for an ordinary rotation of garden crops. 
“ Single-handed ” says that “ he thought that with nitrogen 
and phosphoric acid scientific men were agreed that potash should 
be associated in a generally applicable manure,” and, of course, 
if he is right in this opinion my question is answered ; but if, on 
the other hand, I can show him that Voelcker, on whose authority 
he chiefly—as I do also—relies, manifestly must differ from him 
in his views on this point, I am still left in doubt. I should have 
been less surprised than I am if he had referred me to Ville, who, 
in his recipes for artificial manures, makes potash a larger in¬ 
gredient than any other substance, excepting lime. 
In his annual report to the Royal Agricultural Society,' pub¬ 
lished in 1865, Voelcker says—“ Should potash be found to have a 
decided beneficial effect upon some of our crops, which I think is 
likely to be the case under particular circumstances, <fc,” The 
italics here and below are not in the original. “ Experiments on 
