418 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ November 10, 1881. 
Wo cannot plant such crops as Celery and Cardoons in 
trenches, or they would he in the clay ; we therefore plant them 
on the surface rather wider apart than usual, and the plan 
answers perfectly. 
Once again I would say to those having a heavy soil on a 
clay bottom, and anxious to deepen their tilth, Do it by ad¬ 
ditions to, and by well working the surface, but do not go 
down unless you are prepared to spend more money than the 
land is worth to render it fertile.— Wm. Taylor. 
A DOCKERY FOR ALPINE PLANTS. 
( Continued from page 404.) 
Having warned those who are inexperienced in rockeries what 
not to plant, we will now tell them what to plant and how to 
plant them, first mentioning some of the materials desirable for 
the welfare of the plants. These are leaf soil well decayed 
and about a year old ; good fibrous peat, for which leaf soil 
mixed with cocoa-nut fibre is the best substitute ; clean coarse 
sand, the coarser the better, up to the size of Mustard seed ; stone 
—limestone is best—broken to the size of Wheat ; and lumps 
of rough hard stone from the size of a Filbert to that of an 
Orange. Fine seashore gravel the size of Wheat is also very 
good for a top-dressing in the hollows, but on the slopes it easiiy 
gets washed ofE. Old mortar is also useful. 
The surface of our rockery is about 1000 square feet, and the 
average room required for an Alpine plant is not more than a foot, 
making allowance for alternations of spring, summer, and autumn 
plants. A thousand plants sounds a large number, but some 
favourites deserve to occupy several places, and you will soon 
find that you have too little room even for plants of high merit. 
Later on I shall give directions for raising Alpines from seed, in 
which I have had moderate success. It is not wise to be over- 
fastidious or sentimental about admitting none but Alpines to 
your rockery, at any rate until you have collected together your 
thousand Alpines. There are many choice and neat annuals, and 
half-hardy plants and shrubs, which do better on a rockery than 
anywhere else, and may fitly be admitted to keep the vacant 
places gay till the Alpines are ready, and being annual or tender 
they cannot refuse to give room. It is hardly possible to define 
an Alpine, and some true Alpines, as I said before, are the very 
reverse of desirable. Beware also of the fallacy of considering 
generic names any test of habit, or you may find a choice com¬ 
partment encumbered by an Astragalus or an Achillea 6 feet high, 
or your rockery spoilt by a Cornnilla which comes up everywhere 
but where it is wanted, and is inextricable. The limits proposed 
for this series of notes will not admit of anything like a complete 
catalogue of the Alpines and other plants which my rockeries 
contain, much less of all (he species cultivated in England in this 
way ; but I shall mention from fifty to a hundred, all of which 
grow here, and are therefore not particular about climate. 
I will begin with Saxifrages, though the name has nothing to 
do with their habit of growth amongst rocks, many of them not 
being rock plants at all, but it refers to supposed medicinal pro¬ 
perties in which the ancients believed. The genus is practically 
endless and the habit very various. The rapidly growing and 
spreading kinds, chiefly varieties of S. cae«pitosa and S. hypnoides, 
luxuriate in leaf soil with a retentive subsoil, and spread their 
tufts of brilliant green over bare surfaces of rock ; but you must 
strictly limit their hounds, and be inexorable about allowing them 
to pass them, or they will become a nuisance. I find it best to 
place such plants, since they spread downwards, in such a way as 
to allow them a free fall to the bottom of the rockery. All the 
Saxifrages with stiff crowns resembling small Artichokes or Pine 
Apple tops, are less encroaching, and may all be planted without 
fear of the consequences. They like crevices of rocks where they 
can grow resting against the sides ; leaf mould or peat helps their 
roots, and loose stone and gravel over the surface of the soil is 
good for them. They are represented by S. Aizoon and its varie¬ 
ties, S. Cotyledon and its varieties, S. longifolia, and many others. 
Some of the choiee-t sorts, as S. valdensis, require packing round 
with stone to keep t >em from the soil, and all seem to like this 
attention. Another distinct class flowering in very early spring 
is represented by S. oppositifolia ; it is a lovely little plant, liking 
bare rocks, of which the surface is constantly damp, as its native 
home is usually in the clouds. Others have leaves shaped like 
large stiff Lichens, the best of which is S. Wallacei. A neat little 
annual, S. Cymbalaria, must not be admitted too freely, from the 
trouble it gives in weeding out the seedlings. This list of Saxi¬ 
frages will be largely added to as you learn the habits and merits 
of other species < f the genus. One important point must not be 
omitted here, which refers not only to Saxifrages of the S. Coty¬ 
ledon and S. longifolia class, but to plants of similar growth in 
some other genera. The crown which produces flowers dies after 
flowering, after the manner of a biennial plant. If, therefore, you 
have a choice Saxifrage with a single crown, and it seems likely 
to flower, nip out the bud directly it appears, and it will then 
probably form more crowns, by which you can increase your 
stock. 
Of the genus Sempervivum little need be said, not because it 
lacks merit or number, but because you may safely plant any of 
them you can get. They delight in the angular cavities amongst 
the rocks, and appear to grow almost without sending any roots 
into the soil. S. tectorum may be taken as the type of one class, 
of which S. calcareum and S. Regime Amalife are also choice 
representatives. S. arachnoideum represents another form. The 
name should be spelt “ araebnoides,” but it is thankless work 
trying to reform the barbarisms of botanical names. It is a 
Greek word and means “spider-like,” not that the plant is at all 
like a spider, but it looks as if the leaves were interwoven with 
fine silky webs of gossamer. S. spinosum is interesting, almost 
like a little sea urchin ; and S. triste is of a distinct dark purple 
colour. I meant to speak also of the Sedums, but what I have to 
say about them would make this article too long.—C. Wolley 
Dod, Edge Hall, Malpas. 
(To be continued.) 
LIFTING FRUIT AND OTHER TREES. 
We have recently re-arranged many of our fruit trees, and so 
easily, and I can confidently assert so successfully, was it per¬ 
formed, that I have decided to briefly describe the operation. 
There is nothing novel about it, yet it may be of service to the 
inexperienced. Not only is it absolutely necessary to move some 
of the fruit trees, or shrubs, as the case may be, where crowded ; 
but the operation if properly performed is often really conducive 
to fruitfulness in the case of the fruit trees, and to floriferousness 
and healthy growth in other instances. It is more especially in 
its infancy that a tree is disposed to form deep-running roots, 
and these, coming into contact with cold uncongenial soil, inju¬ 
riously affect the top growth. Arrest the growth of these deep¬ 
running roots, and a healthier growth of surface roots will invari¬ 
ably result. I have noticed, especially in the case of Peach trees 
this autumn, those that are deep-rooting—that is to say, with a 
tendency to strike downwards and form but few fibres—are less 
healthy and profitable accordingly. 
The transplanting m the nurseries does much to prevent deep 
rooting, but in our case I find it really necessary to lift and re¬ 
plant several Apricot and Peach trees received from the nurseries 
in the autumn of 1879. If this had been done in the case of a 
number of old trees in a Peach house and on the open walls we 
should not now be obliged to undermine, and to cut some and 
bring up other roots nearer the surface. It is useless to take the 
precaution of bringing up the roots nearer the surface and then 
to neglect to feed them in order to keep them there. Starve the 
roots, and down they will inevitably strike. 
Shrubberies when first formed are generally planted thickly to 
insure immediate effect, and not a few are allowed to remain 
undisturbed till the most valuable specimens are spoilt. If pro¬ 
perly planted the choicer specimens, and which are to be perma¬ 
nent, are thinly disposed according to their respective habits, the 
intervals being planted with commoner shrubs. These, as the 
first-mentioned extend, should either be cut away or transplanted 
elsewhere. To successfully transplant large specimens proper 
mechanical appliances and some skill in their use are requisite ; 
but any small tree or shrub, say with about 2 cwt. of soil attached, 
may as a rule be easily shifted without any machinery. Where 
the soil is very light and gravelly it is almost impossible to secure 
a ball of soil without previous preparation, such as cutting a trench 
round or forking a quantity of leaf soil in to induce the formation 
of fibres ; but in heavier loamy or clayey soils no previous pre¬ 
paration is necessary for small specimens. 
Labourers as a rule are disposed to drag the trees up, but this 
will not do. What should be aimed at is a good-sized ball of soil 
in proportion to the size of tree, and as many roots all round as 
can be secured. What the size of the ball should be, or the dis¬ 
tance from the stem to commence operations, it is useless for me 
to attempt to determine, as all depends upon the size of the tree 
and the nature of its roots. Disproportionately large balls are 
liable to break away in large pieces with the roots attached ; 
therefore it is advisable to be satisfied with a moderate amount 
of soil with a certainty of preserving all the best roots. The 
simplest, if most laborious method, is to cut a trench round the tree 
18 inches wide, having the tree at your side so as not to cut the 
roots, and throw out the soil to below the depth of the principal 
