Aliens; 7, 1890. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
107 
W HEN fruit trees are barren, or nearly so, as is the case with 
the majority this year in British gardens and orchards, it is 
perhaps only natural that the circumstance should be taken advan¬ 
tage of by hypochondriacs for pointing out what they conceive to 
be the uselessness of planting more trees. It is the way of the 
world, or at least the habit of several persons in it, never to be 
satisfied. When trees are bent to the ground with their loads of 
fruit, as they have been in the past, and will be again, the same 
objections are heard to the planting of trees, but on the ground 
then that there is more fruit than can be profitably sold or eaten. 
If persons who, we will not say thus reason, but assert themselves, 
were to be accepted as guides, the planting of fruit trees would 
cease. We are counselled not to plant on the one hand through 
the fear of providing too much fruit, and on the other because the 
trees do not bear half enough. Since such peculiar conclusions are 
arrived at and expressed, and as a considerable number of persons 
are influenced by them, it is desirable, and even necessary, to keep 
the question of the home fruit supply prominently before land¬ 
owners and the fruit growing public. This is what the British 
Fruit Growers’ Association is doing, and holding some of its 
meetings in the provinces is a step in the right direction. 
The meeting at Leicester in connection with the Horticultural 
Show held there this week, while adding a feature of interest to 
-the Exhibition, will probably give an impetus to fruit culture in a 
-great and important district. There is no better soil nor more 
favourable positions for increasing and improving the home fruit 
supply than in the midland counties. No finer grain, root, 
and leguminous fodder crops can be found than in the midlands, 
and wherever Wheat and Potatoes yield abundantly and ripen 
•early, and where Clover and Turnips grow luxuriantly, there the 
finest of fruit is capable of being produced. But varieties and 
sites must be judiciously chosen, and cultural attention afforded to 
the trees for the attainment of the object. This is necessary for 
the production of the most familiar farm and garden crops. To these 
much thought is directed and labour applied, otherwise they would 
be complete failures. But it has not to anything approaching the 
same extent become the custom to cultivate fruit trees with equal 
care. On the contrary, the practice of planting trees and leaving 
them to take care of themselves has too long prevailed,and the neces¬ 
sity for establishing young trees long before the old have become 
unprofitable has not yet become recognised. But the system will 
have to be adopted before the British fruit supply can be regarded 
•as satisfactory. Farmers might with as much reason rely on 
rickety worn-out horses for doing their work, and toothless sheep 
for paying the rent, as on exhausted canker-eaten trees for 
yielding fruit worthy of the name for home use, and for com¬ 
manding attention in markets. 
The fruit of the future that can alone be profitable to the 
grower will be the produce of young trees, or trees in the best of 
health, because of the nourishment they need being afforded by the 
soil, and with the branches exposed to the full influence of the sun. 
Such trees yield large, well fed, juicy, glossy, and attractive fruit, 
and this, moreover, can be abundantly produced in a very few years 
by planting trees on dwarfing stocks which feed near the surface of 
the soil where the food is the best, and can be so easily provided. 
Crowded mop-headed trees, a mere thicket of interlacing branches 
No. 528,—Vol. XXI., Third Series. 
and stunted growths, are essentially incapable of providing what is 
needed, and the crops from thousands of 3uch trees can only be 
regarded as waste. 
Relative to the failing fruit crops of any particular year check¬ 
ing the planting of trees, Mr. A. H. Pearson, in his practical essay 
read at the Leicester Conference, pertinently observes that Irish 
Potato growers have not been frightened by the disease from cul¬ 
tivating the crops, nor, he goe3 on to say, “ are we going to turn 
our backs on fruit culture because of a few difficulties.” That is 
fairly representative of the British characteristic of combating 
obstacles till they are surmounted, and it is so doing and not 
“ turning our backs ” on them that has made the nation rich and 
great. If the failure of a crop occasionally was to have a deterring 
influence, not a few persons would cease growing even grass for 
hay because they practically lost their crop this year through con¬ 
tinuous wet weather. Through the same cause—violent storms — 
grain crops have been ruined over and over again, yet the work of 
sowing and reaping ha3 continued, and will continue, in spite of 
occasional impediments, though the culture cannot compare with 
fruit growing for yielding profit over an average number of years 
when this is well conducted. It is not for the sale of fruit 
alone, however, that trees should be planted, but for affording 
fruit of superior quality for home use. The character of the 
supply for that purpose is, generally speaking, quite unsatis¬ 
factory. It is true that some of the outdoor crops must fail 
occasionally, as other garden and farm crops fail, but where 
fruit of all the useful kinds are intelligently cultivated under 
ordinary favourable conditions, a total failure of the whole may 
be said never to occur, and a thoroughly useful supply of 
some can be relied on, as well as can a supply of vegetables. 
With extra, and the reverse of extravagant, provision in the 
form of cheap glass structures, which so many have ample 
means for erecting, coupled with good management, fruit of the 
highest possible quality of any desired kind can be had with 
almost absolute certainty. Mr. Rivers refers to this in his ex¬ 
cellent paper on stone fruits, but he does not tell half of what 
he has accomplished this year at Sawbridgeworth ; in fact, he 
gives no adequate indication of either the quantity, quality, or 
value of the fruit that we have this year seen in his unpre¬ 
tending structures, and on trees in pots removed from them after 
the crops were safe, and plunged in the open air. 
Apart, however, from this system, fruit culture ought, and 
no doubt will, be greatly extended; it is rare that even all varieties 
of Apples fail. Mr. Pearson very pointedly recommends a free 
and one of the most certain bearing of Apples, Duchess of 
Oldenburg, and thinks it will surprise his friends in the south that 
he should give it the post of honour in his short but useful list. 
We suspect those southerners who have been close observers of 
Apples during recent years are fully alive to the value of this 
Russian variety. One cultivator of great experience who has been 
planting trees for profit has excluded all others and is growing this 
alone. Mr. Rivers could give testimony of its usefulness, for he 
commenced sending fruit of it to market in August, and we may 
almost venture to state that there is not one other variety in his 
great collection that will be of equal value to him this year ; and 
in a note on another page Mr. Bunyard quotes the market price of 
this distinct and good early Apple ; and though this is 2s. a bushel 
less than for Irish Peach, the former is the greater bearer. 
Mr. Bunyard also communicates interesting information on the 
influence of stocks as affecting the crop of fruit. Trees on the Crab 
and Paradise stocks produced ample blossom, but the difference in 
the crops of fruit following is remarkable and significant. He can 
scarcely account for this. The colder and slower moving sap of 
the deeper rooting stock at a critical time was possibly prejudicial. 
Be this as it may, the roots of the Paradise stock would be in a 
warmer medium during the blossoming period, and it may be ex¬ 
pected that the supply of sap for sustaining the embryo fruit 
No. 2181.— Vol. LXXXIII., Old Series. 
