164 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ Angust 21, 1884. 
flower garden, which must tax the resources of the gardener to the utter¬ 
most. 
It only remains to state that the kitchen garden is well cropped with 
produce of the highest quality for present use, with abundance for 
successional supply. Onions are good, and Runner Beans, despite the 
drought, are excellent. Peas have suffered from the prolonged dryness, 
and may be considered as over. There is no bare ground and no weeds, 
the whole of the grounds and gardens being in excellent order. 
This is no show place, but it is one in which there is good gardening, 
much praise being due to the gifted gardener, Mr. Petfield, who has 
T'resided over work done so thoroughly and well in these gardens for 
nearly thirty years with the approbation and esteem of the late and 
jiresent proprietor.— G. Abbey. 
P.S.—I enclose the plan and planting of a carpet bed (fig. 28), 
which forms pait of the flower garden. The whole is very fine, and in 
spring bedding is even more gloriously gay than now.—G. A. 
LIFTING PEACH TREES. 
It is often difficult to obtain a good crop of fruit from Peaches 
that make extra strong growth, such as young trees or those in the 
most luxuriant health often produce. It is almost impossible to bring 
such trees to a standstill, for they persist to the last in bursting their 
buds and making lateral growths. The crop is most uncertain the 
following year when growth is continued until the foliage is forced 
off to induce the trees to rest. Fire heat may be used in assisting to 
ripen the w’ood, but in the end no advantage is gained. Even if they 
are left until the foliage falls and are then severely root-pruned to 
check over-luxuriance a season is lost, for the buds are sure to fall 
just at the time they should commence swelling. If the buds remain 
upon the trees until they develope, the flowers upon examination are 
found to be imperfect and incapable of proper fertilisation. If the 
flowers appear to set, seldom indeed do the fruits swell as they should, 
and they finally fall. These evils are often attributed to dryness 
at the root and other causes, but it is simply over-luxuriance, and 
often when the wood seems to be ripe the same results follow. It is 
impossible even in the best and brightest seasons to ripen the wood of 
trees that will grow until the days shorten ; the rights are cold and 
the foliage naturall}^ falls 
Such evils can even in strong young luxuriant specimens be 
remedied to a great extent without losing a season in so doing, and in 
all probability the crop of fruit can be saved as well. This can only 
be accomplished by causing a cessation of growth early in ihe season, 
say as soon as the fruit has been gathered, or, if there has been no 
fruit, about the time the crop would have ripened. It takes a long 
time to bring very strong trees to a complete standstill by drying 
the borders even if very shallow and limited in size. This may be 
persisted in to a certain extent, but the foliage is very liable to suffer 
from attacks of red spider, which in the end will prove as injurious 
as if the trees were allowed to grow unchecked. The safest and most 
effectual pdan of ai’resting the growth of trees in the condition 
described is to lift or root-]'ruue them, b'uppose the trees have never 
been lifted from the time of planting, such trees are in a worse condition 
to be operated upon than those which have been lifted annually or 
periodically. The latter may be safely lifted ; and if in an early 
house, and the fruit intended to be ripe towards the end of May or 
early the following month, they, will have been pushed forward to 
make their growth. These trees may be dug round and root-pruned 
not later than the middle of June, the second house a month later, 
and later houses during August. The rvood of luxuriant specimens 
will be green and the foliage fresh during these months, but no harm 
will result from lifting sufficient to thoroughly check the growth. 
Trees in luxuriant health that have been annually lifted can be cut 
back at the roots and further growth prevented without even the 
foliage flagging. Young trees that have not been lifted since they 
were planted, say three or four years ago, may flag if the whole of the 
main shoots are shortened, as they should be, but this will prove no 
detriment if they are syringed well afterwards and shaded from bright 
sun for a few days. 
It is difficult to lay down rules to what extent the roots should be 
cut back, but sufficient should be taken off to arrest the growth, and 
if this can be done without causing flagging so much the better. 
Those which are subjected to early lifting, if syringed to keep the 
foliage clean and wintered thoroughly at the roots, commence at once 
to ripen their wood, and their flower buds become plump. Fire heat 
during the day can then be emplojmd with advantage in assisting the 
work of maturation. If the work is done as it should be, all who 
w'ere not eye-witnesses that the trees had been root-pruned wmuld 
scarcely believe after the space of a week or ten days that they had 
been subjected to such treatment. Seldom indeed do Pevches lifted 
early as described fail to keep their buds and carry a crop of fruits. 
These early-lifted trees will form an enormous quantity of roots 
before the foliage falls. If they are not again lifted just as the leaves 
show signs of falling, they will grow the following season with the 
same vigour and luxuriance, but they must be root-pruned on a more 
extensive scale. The old trench must be dug out and the soil worked 
from amongst the roots considerably nearer the stem than was neces¬ 
sary the first time. It must be done to such an extent that the culti¬ 
vator can insure wood of moderate size, which will become firm and well* 
studded with buds before the foliage falls the followung season. These 
trees should then be subjected to a system of annual lifting after the 
wood is ripe. This not only satisfies the cultivator that the soil is not 
diy at the roots, but also insures water when applied passing freely 
into the border. Trees annuallj’^ lifted betw'een the time the fruit is 
gathered and the falling of the leaves are capable of carrying very 
heavy crops of fine fruit, and remain in perfect health for many 
years. Further, I have never known them cast their buda. I have 
lifted those under my charge for six years out of seven, and the year 
they were not lifted they threw' off nearly the whole of their flower 
buds, wdiich I am convinced was due to no other cause than over¬ 
luxuriance and no lifting. 
The system of annual lifting as I have recommended in these 
pages has been criticised, as all innovations generally are, but it has 
been clear that those w'ho differed widelj'from me never practised the 
system, or they would have been able to point out as an argument in 
favour of non-lifting, the disadvantages that are likely to follow from 
the system recommended. From experience I have found that the 
system has at least one drawback, and this I intend pointing out for 
the good of others. The evil to which I refer is the formation of too 
many feeders—a good fault, some may remark. The trees being lifted 
so frequently they become accustomed to it, and make so many 
fibry roots that ordinary working round them, cutting back the roots 
to where they started from the previous year, is not sufficient to keep 
the growth checked and the trees within due bounds. By frequently 
lifting, the mass of soil round large plants becomes so full of feeding 
roots as to resemble door mats, that it is difficult to work out the soil 
from amongst them with a fork, and trees in such condition never 
feel the removal of a quantity of roots, but appear to grow the 
following season wuth increased vigour. Some of your readers will 
scarcely credit that trees with such roots as described, and a spread of 
branches of from 20 to 30 feet, had 18 inches to 2 feet of roots cut 
off them during the months of June and July, and never even show’ed 
signs of flagging. The trees in our third house have just been done, 
and the others w'ill be served the same as soon as the fruits are 
gathered. Many w'ould consider ihis rather a severe root-pruning, 
even if the trees had no foliage upon them, but it is not sufficient 
to check the luxuriance of our trees—it onh'just brought them to a 
standstill. These trees will be lifted again as advised above, and 
more severely dealt wuth. 
Such trees may, I think, safely be termed fair-sized specimens, 
and it should be understood that the roots which support them do not 
extend far from the stem. The borders are scarcely 18 inches deep, 
the stem of the trees about 1 foot from the front walls, and all roots 
that attempt to go through the arches that have been formed, I dare 
say when the house was built, are cut off. The roots at the front of 
the trees are only allow'ed to extend to the front pipe scarcely 2 feet 
6 inches from the stem, and right and left of the stem about the same 
distance, or 6 inches more. Such facts should, I think, be ample 
proof to those making borders for Peach and Nectarine trees that 
large deep borders are only a waste of labour and material.— 
W. B. 
DRY WEATHER AND WATERING. 
Ix has often been said that a certain amount of discontent is essential 
to happiness ; and grumblers, even those habitually so, often enough live 
to a good old age, carrying with them the propensity they acquired in 
their youth ; grumbling, therefore, like medicine, may be regarded as very 
good in its way, and may, doubtless, be quite as necessary. Jn the various 
avocations of life there is always something to grumble at if an object is 
looked for, and too many of us are apt to hunt after one. Gardeners 
complain in winter of its being too cold ; by-and-by we find, perhaps, that 
the soil does not work well, and we complain then that the winter has not 
been cold enough ; while in summer contrarieties are alike wished for and 
found fault with. At the present time (August) we think we are sufiering 
extremely from want of water, while in all probability the crop of fruit we 
may have next year may owe its origin in a great measure to the dryness 
of the present period. Dry, bright, sunny weather is at most times 
gi-ateful to vegetation, certainly so to that which is established some 
depth in the ground; and wffien w'e consider that in such is embraced a 
considerable portion of the vegetable kingdom we must not be too hasty 
in finding fault. It may be true that an equally good result would have 
followed if more rain had fallen; nevertheless, our ideas of what con¬ 
stitutes perfection in such matters are yet far from perfect. Let u=, 
therefore, be thankful for the advantages a dry summer brings with it, 
and try our best to obviate some of the inconveniences arising from it in 
other ways. 
That water forms an important constituent of every vegetable is well 
known and admitted; and products of rapid growth necessarily require 
much water, or they fail in arriving at perfection. Most of the products 
of the kitchen garden contain a large per centage of water, and to obtain 
