440 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ November 20, 1890. 
condition of the plants plainly showing how well they are attended 
in all respects. 
The preceding remarks apply more especially to the variety 
already named (Miss Joliffe), which has now been before the 
public for nineteen years, as the Royal Horticultural Society 
awarded Mr. Masters a first-class certificate for it in 1871 ; they 
are, however, equally applicable to other varieties grown for winter 
flowering. Of these a good general collection is grown at Ascott, 
including all the best varieties in cultivation, and amongst the 
newer forms is one that appears to be of a most promising 
character—this is named Winter Cheer, and was sent out by 
Messrs. J. Yeitch & Sons. It possesses very rich deep red flowers, 
is of good habit, similarly floriferous to Miss Joliffe, and as the 
plants become stronger it is likely to make a first-rate companion 
for that variety. The present time is not the best for seeing the 
Souvenir de la Malmaison, though some plants are bearing grand 
flowers ; but it can be imagined what a display 3000 bushy speci¬ 
mens would produce. The various forms of this type are all 
grown. Princess of Wales, Lady Middleton, the crimson, the 
rose, and the old form are included. Madame Warocque is there 
much finer, richer in colour, and more satisfactory than I have yet 
seen it, and is evidently worth a place in collections. 
Concerning the brilliant Zonal Pelargoniums, the plentiful stock 
of Roses, and the attractions of the garden generally something will 
be said on another occasion, and with this promise I must conclude 
my notes for the present week.— Lewis Castle. 
RENOVATING ORCHARDS. 
[A Paper by Mr. John WRIGHT, read on bebalf of the British Fruit Growers’ Associa¬ 
tion, at a meeting of the Falmouth Horticultural Society, -November I2tb, 1890 .] 
I have pleasure in complying with the wish of the Secretary 
of the British Fruit Growers’ Association in writing a paper on 
the subject in quest ion in the hope of its being of service to those 
for whom it is intended. 
There are no doubt thousands of orchard fruit trees, not only 
in the kingdom, but almost in every county, which are little less 
than cumberers of the ground. Some of these trees cannot he 
profitably restored, but unquestionably many of them may be 
materially improved. 
The one great fundamental error which appears to have taken 
possession of the minds of the majority of men who have planted 
orchards is in apparently supposing that the trees would go on 
growing and bearing good fruit year after year, from generation to 
generation, without the soil having restored to it such mineral con¬ 
stituents as have been abstracted from it by the wood, leaves, and 
fruit of preceding years. It is well known and recognised that all 
crops of a much more ephemeral character than fruiting trees cannot 
be reproduced on the same ground year after year without return¬ 
ing to the soil in the form of manure the constituents removed by 
those crops, or in so arranging successional crops in farms and 
gardens that require in the main either different foods, or at least 
widely differing proportions of the same kinds. All farmers know 
that they cannot obtain even half crops of gram, Clover, or roots 
from the same field for half a generation if they put nothing into 
it ; and it is the same with garden crops. They can only be pro¬ 
duced year after year in a satisfactory manner when the ingredients 
necessary for their production are in the soil. 
Everything that grows in the vegetable, as well as in the animal 
kingdom, needs appropriate food, and just in proportion as the 
supply fails in the same proportion is the debility of animal, plant, 
or tree manifested. The same principle governs all. Food is the 
motive power in the growth and productiveness of fruit trees, and 
is as essential to them as heat is as supplied by coal for the genera¬ 
tion of steam to enable our engines to do the work for which they 
are intended. And not only must the supply of fuel be adequate 
for the object in view, but the machinery must be kept in clean, 
smooth, free-working order, or the fuel would be wasted. It is the 
same with fruit trees. The parts above ground must be clean, the 
branches bright and clear, the leaves stout by direct exposure to 
light and air, or whatever food there may be in the soil for the 
roots to imbibe will avail little in the production of fruit. This is 
plainly seen in the case of young trees growing in over-rich soil, 
and where the knife is freely used in cutting back the luxuriant 
growths yearly. They become mere thickets of sappy growths 
and flabby leaves, few or no blossom buds forming. This is men¬ 
tioned for showing the necessity of light and air acting directly on 
the foliage of fruit trees for maintaining them in a healthy fruit¬ 
ful state. Good leaves, thick in texture, deep green in colour, and 
clean, are manufacturers of fruit. They are the machinery, so to 
say, of trees, but differ from mechanical productions, inasmuch as 
they are formed in a large measure of matter supplied by the roots* 
Produce good leaves by good food from the soil, and full exposure 
to the air for breathing and benefiting by the atmospherical 
gasses, then will the trees be healthy and productive. 
Now let us turn to orchard trees that need renovation. The 
first question that naturally arises is this, What is the cause of 
their unsatisfactory condition ? It is only when the cause of an 
evil is determined that the best remedy can be directly applied. 
After what has been said on the necessity for adding fertility 
to the soil for annual or biennial crops, it will be seen how 
utterly impossible it is for trees that have been draining the 
soil of its virtues for half a century more or less to be other¬ 
wise than in a debilitated state. They are struggling for existence 
in famine-stricken soil. The fruit they produce is small, hard, 
juiceless, or more notorious for core, kernels, and skin than for 
thick, tender flesh and the red or rosy flush on the clear and 
speckless cheek. These are the fruits that are so much coveted, 
and they can only be produced by good sustenance or an adequate 
supply of suitable, well-digested food. If the fruit food, which 
consists mainly of lime, potash, phosphorus, and soda, is in the 
soil with sufficient moisture the roots wfill imbibe it in solution 
and good leaves digest it, then there can only be one result—- 
healthier growth and better fruit, and it may be as good as the 
variety is capable of producing. 
Some orchards are unproductive through the roots having passed 
deep down into water-logged soil. They first seized the food that 
was nearest, then sought for more further afield so to say, just as 
sheep do in pastures ; but if they get into a bog they perish. Water is 
the first necessity of fruit trees, but if it is stagnant it is the reverse 
of nourishing, and may even be poisonous, the effects of this being 
seen in the form of gangrenous swellings, canker, gum, mildew, 
and a horde of insects that find suitable conditions in which to 
thrive. Orchards that are failing through the roots of the trees- 
being in a quagmire can seldom be restored to health, and the only 
way of improving them is by fresh soil and manure placed in 
actual contact with the upper roots, from w r hich new rootlets may 
be tempted to form, as they will when surrounded with a suitable 
medium. It is better to plant new orchards than to spend much 
money in the form of labour and material on old under those 
circumstances. Those who have established or inherited such 
orchards are now paying the penalty of the mistake that w r as made 
of planting the trees in the wrong places, or for not having kept 
the roots near the surface by periodical applications of food. In 
years of long ago any site appeared to be thought good enough for 
an orchard, and trees seem to have been planted in places that 
were too wet for growing Potatoes. We can only hope that the 
errors of the past may be taken as lessons that will teach the 
present generation wisdom in the cultivation of fruit. When an 
orchard is in a low wet site that cannot be drained perhaps the best 
thing to do is to plant it wfith Osiers. These give a fair return,, 
draw much water out of the land, and the myriads of leaves that 
fall from them gradually enrich the surface soil and encourage the 
production of fibrous roots there, which never fail to benefit fruit 
trees. Ooiers established in extensive orchards where the land is 
wet realise sufficient for paying a good rent and something more, 
while the trees above them bear excellent crops of valuable 
fruit. 
But where one acre of orchard fruit trees needs renovating 
through excessive wetness of site, twenty and more, probably fifty, 
if not a hundred, acres of trees have been rendered comparatively 
effete from an exactly opposite cause—namely, soil so dry and poor 
that there is little to be imbibed from it by the roots of the trees,, 
and certainly not half so much as is needed for enabling them to 
yield even moderate crops of scarcely marketable fruit. In such 
case the trees, if not too old and canker-eaten, are amenable to 
improvement, and they may give, as many have given, a good re¬ 
turn for the assistance that has been rendered than in feeding the 
roots and thinning and cleaning the branches, also by grafting 
better and free growing varieties on the inferior, for it should 
always be remembered that a tree of a bad variety takes up as 
much room as a good one, and, moreover, a tree that neither bears 
good fruit nor makes little beyond cankered growth, may be 
transformed into a healthy specimen and bear fine fruit by putting 
a new head on old shoulders in the form of a number of grafts of 
a strong growing hardy sort, always provided there is nutriment in 
the soil for the roots to appropriate. Strong growing Apples and 
other fruit trees established on weak stocks increase the root-action 
of those stocks, and if these can find the requisite support for the 
growths new layers of bark form on the old stems and a new lease 
of life is thus given to tfie trees. 
(To be condoned.) 
