December 4 18M. J 
485 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
tion of air cannot be maiiatained. For years we have kept Grapes 
well in a room behind a north wall with a door and window to the 
north, the circulation of air being maintained by the fireplace in 
the south-west corner. Years ago, when we kept a steady fire 
during dull bad weather, the Grapes kept badly. When we dis¬ 
continued its use and threw open the door and window whenever the 
w'eather was anything like favourable we found no difficulty. 
The closing weeks of August and September were all that 
Grape growers could desire, and the fruit should have been well 
ripened under the most favourable conditions, and therefore may 
be expected to keep well after being bottled if ordinary care is 
exercised.— Wm. Bardxey. 
RENOVATING ORCHARDS. 
A Taper by Mr. JOHN" WRIG ifT, read on behalf of the British Fruit Growers’Associa¬ 
tion, at a meeting of the Falmouth Horticultural Society, .November 12tb, 1830.] 
(Continued from page 440.) 
Several instances of success resulting from grafting profitless 
trees could be given, but two will suffice. Mr. Robert Garrod of 
Ipswich planted a number of fruit trees some years ago in good 
soil. In the course of time some of them instead of growing and 
bearing commenced cankering, and were soon worthless. By 
-simply cutting back the branches of these, and grafting them with 
varieties that flourished, he made the useless trees useful, and they 
have since borne profitable crops, and the stems are free from 
canker. In this case there was sufficient nutriment in the soil, but 
the paralysed roots of the stunted trees could not imbibe it, but 
•the free growth of the grafts caused an extension of root action, 
and sufficient nutriment was appropriated for the continuance of 
healthy growth and the support of good crops of fine fruit. I am 
at liberty to mention Mr. Garrod’s name, because it has appeared 
in the public press, but I am not free to mention the name of the 
owner of some Apple trees in inferior varieties and of stunted 
growth. They did not afford him £5 worth of fruit a year. He 
was advised to cut them down and insert a number of scions on 
•each of the hardy and strong growing Bramley’s Seedling. They 
commenced bearing in three years, and the seventh after grafting 
yielded considerably more than £100 worth of fruit. Nothing was 
clone to the roots. How, then, is the improvement to be accounted 
for ? In this way. The stunted trees had roots, but they were 
of necessity weak, and did not extend far from the stems. They 
had impoverished the ground within the small occupied radius, but 
the strong variety established on the weak imparted strength to 
the roots, and these pushed beyond the impoverished radius into 
fresh feeding ground, and practically virgin soil. When endea¬ 
vour is made to improve fruit trees by grafting, much stronger 
.growing varieties should be chosen than those which are cut down 
for the reception of the scions, because of the increased power that 
is thus imparted to the roots, for the character of the roots is 
changed by grafting as certainly as are the tops of the trees. 
The process of grafting cannot be made clear to the uninitiated 
without illustrations, but these, with concise details, are given in the 
essay which I wrote for the Fruiterers’ Company, and which can 
be had by post tor Is. 3d. from 171, Fleet Street, London. I have 
the less hesitation in mentioning this, as I derive no advantage 
whatever from its sale. 
I wish to make it quite clear that when old trees are 
renovated by grafting alone, it is because there is soil that can 
be reached by stronger roots which has not been deprived of its 
fertility. Where the whole surrounding ground is impoverished, 
grafting is not of much permanent value. Strong growing and 
rooting sorts will live where the weaker fail, just as active 
animals with good teeth have an advantage over others that are 
afflicted with the foot-and-mouth disease in getting the best share 
of the pasture ; but where the food is scant it is soon devoured. 
And thus it is that we see grafted trees grow very well for a few 
years only, then collapse. They succumb because they have emptied 
the larder, for the earth is the great larder of Nature, and it is the 
duty of cultivators to keep it replenished with the food that is 
needed by the crops. The soil itself is not food, but only the 
medium for containing it, as a sponge contains water. We use the 
water and leave the sponge, and fruit trees draw the food out of 
the earth and leave the soil. There are not many exhausted fruit 
trees that cannot be improved by enriching the soil or placing in it 
the fruit-growing constituents which have been drawn out, and 
especially when the trees are also judiciously pruned and cleaned 
from insects, moss, and other parasitic encrustations. 
The quickest method of storing food in the earth for immediate 
appropriation by trees is in the form of liquid manure, such as the 
drainage from stables and manure heaps, or the contents of cess¬ 
pools—sewage. After much experience I am justified in recom¬ 
mending the application of liquid manure to debilitated fruit trees 
in the winter under certain prescribed conditions. It may be 
applied usefully in the summer also if the soil is moist, not on the 
surface only but 3 feet or more below it, otherwise a minimum of 
benefit will accrue from a maximum outlay in material and labour. 
On this subject I cannot do better than reproduce what I wrote in 
the Journal of Horticulture a litt’e more than a year ago. Those 
who have read it I ask to read it again and find all the fault they 
can with it. They had better do this before making full trials of 
the method indicated, because they will not have such a good 
chance afterwards. Here is the article that was founded on iong 
practice. The simple plan advocated has since been tried by others 
and not found wanting :— 
“Some time ago a correspondent said he £ tiled to see how 
liquid manure given to fruit trees in the winter could be of any 
benefit, as the roots were then in a dormant state. In the first 
place they are not in a dormant state after the leaves fall, though 
they do not imbibe nutriment from the soil to anything like the 
same extent as in summer ; and in the second place they do not 
imbibe what they need either in summer or at any.other time 
when the food for which they are hungering and thirsting is not in 
the soil. That is the condition of thousands of trees in summer 
and winter. They have been planted for years or generations, and 
manure may or may not have been placed round their stems from 
time to time. Be that as it may, the roots hive deprived the soil 
of all that was good for the trees, and gone further and deeper in 
search of more —seeking, but finding not that which is necessary for 
their sustenance. They have lived but not prospered, and never 
can prosper until the impoverished food store (the earth) is 
replenished—supplied with matter which is essential to their health. 
“ Unquestionably this may be given with great advantage in 
summer if obstacles do not forbid its application then, and in no 
other way can it be so quickly effective as in a liquid state. At no 
period are the roots of fruit trees of all kinds so active as early in 
September, and at no period can so much nutriment be imbibed 
from the soil in a given time when the earth is in a fit state for its 
reception. It is not in a fit state when it is dry, and I have no 
hesitation in saying that the best of liquid manure that can be 
procured does immeasurably less good applied in summer,, when 
the soil, in which the roots are situated or trying to move, is dry, 
than in winter, when it is moist—not waterlogged,. but moist 
enough for absorption, while at the same time permitting of^ free 
percolation, for where water passes through the soil air follows, 
and there can then be no stagnation. The earth, then, to be in the 
best condition for the reception of liquid manure, must be moist, 
yet sufficiently drained naturally or artificially. 
“ During the summer months the earth may appear moist, and 
is moist, it may be, to a foot or so in depth, even under and near 
long planted, large, yet enfeebled trees ; but below the moist layer 
in which there are few or no roots, we fiud on digging that the 
earth is as dry as powder, and it is in this dry under stratum 
that the chief of the roots are established. This should be 
thoroughly moistened with clear water, then, and not till then, 
following with liquid manure. But it is often most difficult, and 
may be impracticable, to make the impoverished soil moist during 
the summer season of the year, in which the roots of starving trees 
are established ; and beyond question the autumn rains and winter 
snows do the important work more effectively and cost nothing. 
Then is the time to empty cesspools and pour the contents into 
the ground ; of course, when the surface is moderately dry. At 
that season of the year the liquid can be given of. twice the 
strength it would be safe to apply it when the roots are in an active 
state ; in fact, it is not easy, I suspect, to give it too strong m 
winter. Some of the virtues may pass away, but the bulk w T ill be 
retained by the moist soil, and be imbibed by the roots to the 
certain benefit of the trees. 
“ I have used thousands of gallons of the contents of cesspools 
that could only be emptied in winter, with the most striking benefit 
to all kinds of fruit trees and bushes which only needed sustenance 
to render them bearers of excellent fruit ; as I gained courage 
from experience the liquid was less and less diluted, and the 
stronger it was the more marked was the effect beneficially on the 
trees. If the soil is moist in summer liquid manure may be given 
w r ith advantage to fruit trees that obviously need support ; but the 
very strong may need to be somewhat diluted. It is worse than 
useless applying it to dry soil, as it drains down, leaving little or 
its virtues behind, and may in passing do injury to some ot the 
roots ; but apart from that the practice is wasteful, and therefore 
should be avoided. , 
“ When travelling in Lincolnshire in August last year I had the 
pleasure of calling on a clergyman, who is also an. ardent gam ener - 
I had known the old espalier and other trees in his garden toi 
years. Many of them had the appearance of being worn out, and 
most persons of an improving turn of mind, with the means of 
I carrying out their ideas, would have destroyed the old trees and 
