December 4, I8S4. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
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2nd Sunday in Advent. 
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Royal Horticultural Society Fruit and Floral Committees at 11 A.M. 
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CANKER IN FRUIT TREES. 
ANKER in fruit trees is considered by most 
cultivators as caused by unhealthy root-action. 
For many years I have each season had some¬ 
thing to do with the renovation of fruit trees, 
and in many cases had to deal with canker in 
its worst form; but wherever lifting the roots 
from unhealthy quarters was practised, the 
wounds well cleaned with the knife, and a good 
coating of clay and lime painted into the 
wounds, the trees recovered and did w’^ell. By inducing the 
roots to grow upwards into wholesome mulching disease dis¬ 
appeared, and the wounds healed. I can point to many cases 
where such manipulating was practised, and the trees are 
now healthy. This experience dates back from the present 
time to the earlier days of my gardening life while an tender 
gardener in the south and west of England, and I will refer 
to a few cases, which is better than theorising. I cannot at 
any time point to a case where I could have blamed insect 
agency as being the direct cause of canker, but I have very 
often seen the disease accelerated (after it was established) by 
insects harbouring all over the wounds, American blight 
being the most formidable enemy to contend with. 
Many years ago I had charge of a fine stock of Apple 
and Pear trees. Many of the former—especially the finer 
varieties of dessert fruits—were cankered very much. They 
had been skilfully planted in excellent soil, but in course of 
time the roots had found their way to the inert soil under¬ 
neath. Numbers of the trees were lifted and replanted on a 
firm bottom of plaster rubbish, which put an end to canker. 
They rooted upwards into the mulching and succeeded 
admirably. Others which had diseased roots were cleared of 
them, neatly cut with the knife, and a hard bottom of the 
same material as the above placed under the roots. This 
seemed to suit them, the trees and fruit having changed for 
the better. A number of large Apricots which were much 
diseased recovered, and the wounds healed. 
Passing over a number of cases which could all throw 
light on canker arising from diseased or sluggish action of 
the roots, I will refer to trees which have been under treat¬ 
ment at a later date at Impney Park in Worcestershire, where 
I accepted a temporary appointment to form a new park, 
gardens, and grounds. The first duty I found was to take a 
note of the vast quantities of shrubs and trees which were 
already on the place. These were placed together in a kind 
of nursery ground, being left to the mercy of sheep or what¬ 
ever quadruped might fancy food or shelter among them. 
Tied in bundles and heeled in were numbers of fruit trees, 
but crowded among rank vegetation. These evidently had 
been selected with much care and in proportion to the wants 
of the place, being mostly Cherries, Pears, and Apples on 
tall stems, which are very suitable where sheep are to feed 
under them, or where the ground is to be cropped with 
vegetables. From the position in which they had remained, 
the nibbling of the bark by sheep and other injuries, the 
trees were in a sad plight, most of them with little life. 
No. 232.—VoL. IX., Third Series. 
Had they been my own I should have burnt them, but under 
the circumstances I began to clear off the suckers, dead wood, 
and diseased bark to prepare them for recovery if possible. 
After their being in rather uncomfortable quarters for a year 
or more a place was chosen on which they were to be planted 
—a sloping bank of marl, which it was said had never pro¬ 
duced any herbage or corn worth the name. Stakes were 
driven into the then trenched soil, large very shallow holes 
were formed, in which were placed turf and lime rubbish. 
The trees were planted above this in well-prepared soil, care¬ 
fully mulched, and the ground between the trees was planted 
with Potatoes. 
A new difficulty arose. The mulching, which seemed ex¬ 
cellent decayed manure, had been (so I was told) gathered off 
streets where salt dropped freely when carted to the stores or 
for transit. The trees struggled hard for life, but none died. 
The following season they made a clean healthy growth, the 
cankered bark healed, and the trees assumed a clean and 
fruitful appearance. The fruit trees in the gardens and else¬ 
where which I mulched with what I thought the best manure 
I had ever seen all suffered alike. Raspberries and a number 
of bush fruits having nearly died. They all recovered after 
the soil had been drenched by the winter’s rains, and I think 
on the whole were none the worse for their punishment by 
the manure which had been brought to the place the year 
before I saw it. The Vines and trees for glass structures 
which were ordered before my arrival were mulched with the 
manure referred to, but extra drenchings of water, removal 
of the soil, and replanting the stock saved them. After these 
battles with canker and disease I was, as I had been for many 
years, certain that healthy root-action in fruit trees was sure 
to ward off and cure canker. 
In the county of Worcester fruit trees are very abun¬ 
dant and succeed admirably with the most ordinary attention, 
yet it would be difficult to find in any other county in 
England so many cankered and half-dead trees. This applies, 
however, more to the farming districts where Nature is 
allowed her own course, and so trees perish and are not 
renewed. But, on the other hand, we can go to market and 
private gardens and see such fine quality as would create 
wonderment in northerners who had not seen high quality 
Apples, Pears, and Plums. Two years ago I made many 
removals of fruit trees because of canker. Some which were 
never worth replanting and receiving the usual attention have 
carried good crops this year, and all traces of canker are gone. 
In speaking of canker I do not overlook the pernicious 
practice of close cutting in the top growth, which in due 
time ends in canker if the trees are growing vigorously. If 
trees are to be kept dwarf—and in few places all the trees 
cannot be of large size—cut in the bottom roots, and the tops 
will change from wood to flower buds.—W. Temple, Canon- 
house. 
DESTROYING INSECTS. 
What an enormous amount of labour the insect tribe 
causes to gardeners ! Scale, bug, aphides, thrips, red spider, 
ants, wasps—what a list of troubles the very names call up ! 
Extermination is the only remedy, but how may hard-pressed 
gardeners can effect this ? In most cases it is an impossibility. 
The next best thing to getting rid of them altogether is to 
keep them so well under as to minimise their powers of 
destruction, and no better time than the present is to be 
found for that work in the case of those insects which thrive 
at the expense of our house plants. Plants at this season 
are in a condition to stand a much more vigorous attack on 
insects than at any other season—at least in most cases this 
is so ; and the insects themselves do not increase so rapidly 
as they do in the warmer months. I do not think that we 
ought to overlook either red spider or thrips in the course of 
our autumn and winter campaign, for these are perhaps as 
numerous as at any other season, though the signs of their 
presence may be less conspicuous. At any rate these should 
i ^ No. 1888 .—Yol. LXXI., Old Series. 
