May 5, 1892. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
881 
I think I have noticed a tendency to deprecate all digging among 
hardy flowers as being an old-fashioned and exploded system of 
culture, while at the same time the other method noticed has been 
exalted as the only plan to be endured in this enlightened age. I 
incline to the belief that there is something to be said on behalf of 
the merits of both plans. No doubt gardeners of past generations 
were unacquainted with some items of garden economy which 
are matters of everyday knowledge to us of a later day. At the 
same time there were some general principles which have been the 
common property of cultivators of the soil from all time, conse¬ 
quently it is not always wise to set aside a practice just because it 
happens to be somewhat antiquated, and I think there is some¬ 
thing to be said in favour of digging hardy flower borders. 
Our main borders run in the aggregate to over 800 feet in 
length, and since forming them they have been widened twice ; at 
present they are 15 feet in width. They are in two longitudinal 
sections, some 6 or 7 feet to the front being thickly planted with a 
variety of bulbous plants in addition to those of evergreen or 
ordinary herbaceous growth. The other portion of the border is 
almost solely devoted to the latter. Every few years I find it 
necessary to re-arrange the plants, so many of them attaining very 
large proportions, while bulbous plants, such as Daffodils, Crocuses, 
Snowdrops, and many others deteriorate if left too long in an un¬ 
tended state. But in the intervals between these times of general 
re-arrangement there is annually the dressing of the borders to be 
taken in hand. In the case of the front portion, which is quite full 
of plants, and the greater portion out of the way, it would be, to 
say the least ot it, an injudicious task to interfere with anything 
helow the surface. It is, however, very important to apply some 
fertilising agent, and nothing in this case is better than the applica¬ 
tion of something to the surface. I am not very particular what it 
is, as even a thin layer of fresh soil results in an improved growth. 
This season I applied a dressing of sifted material from the 
compost heap. In May or June a dressing of superphosphate of 
lime will very probably be applied additionally. Last spring a 
thick dressing of the above fertiliser was put on and covered by a 
thin coating of soil out of the back portion of the border. I have 
also employed spent manure from the Mushroom house, in this case 
also hiding it with soil, and a very good and fertile material is 
found in dry cow manure broken finely down. 
With the other portion of the border I follow the old-fashioned 
plan of digging. In the case of some kinds of soil to dig the 
borders may not be necessary, but in the case of others it is. I 
invariably add a moderate amount of cow manure, and dig it in so 
that the roots may get the benefit of it. I am aware that the 
practice of digging and cutting the roots is considered an operation 
approaching the barbarous. However, the dislike to interfering in 
any way with the roots is more a sentiment than a reason based 
on a physiological fact. Every horticulturist knows the beneficial 
results which follow the partial removal of roots in the case of 
numerous plants cultivated in pots at the period when growth com¬ 
mences for the season. Azaleas, Fuchsias, and Crotons are examples 
of plants which are universally subjected to this treatment as an 
essential condition to successful cultivation.—B. 
NOTES BY THE WAY. 
A Great Fruit Farm. 
We must not quarrel with our Kentish friends when they claim that 
their beautiful county is “ the garden of England,” even though some of 
us may give preference elsewhere. In Kent scenes of pastoral beauty 
are met with on every side, and flowers and fruit abound. We need not 
ask whether the scenes are fairer, the flowers brighter, and the fruit 
richer than they are elsewhere, still less ought we to be inclined to 
institute disparaging comparisons considering the lessons the southern 
county teaches us m commercial horticulture. England’s garden, to 
accept the phrase without cavil, is full of beauty in the springtime, as 
all gardens worthy the name should be. We do not see the breadths of 
plant bloom that will be observable later in the year, but the broad 
fruit farms spread a glory of blossom across the landscape and whiten it 
as if with snow. A journey down the Dover line when the trees are 
strefching their silvery arms far and wide is one never to be forgotten 
by those who love to store up memories of the bright pictures that are 
seen from time to time. The panorama is now unfolding, and for the 
next week or two the display will be such as no exhibition tent on earth 
could provide. 
There must be many who have shared in my vague speculations as 
to what the huge fruit gardens of America, California, and Florida are 
like in spring, when the spurs that have been matured and ripened by a 
more constant and generous sun than ours burst into blossom. The 
flowers should be of the largest, the substance of the stoutest, the colour 
of the purest an l brightest theie. But here at home we have some 
reflex of it, and Kent redeems the character of the Old Country—not 
yet quite played out, as some would have us suppose—by her noble con¬ 
tribution to the soil’s riches. And the garden goes on growing. Fields 
are noted in which young standards—slender striplings as yet—and 
small bushes have recently been planted. They look somewhat bare, 
for thin planting is rightly practised, and their branches are few and 
slender, but they are planted well, the soil is good, and their progress 
will be rapid. The favourite undercrop is Gooseberries, also furnished 
with abundance of space. What they will bring forth time will show ; 
but it is significant that the farmers who have both corn and fruit are 
decreasing the former and increasing the latter. To suggest that they 
would do this if experience had taught them that fruit growing is 
unprofitable is to intimate that the men whose enterprise and skill have 
increased the resources of the soil a hundredfold are purblind, ignorant, 
and foolish. 
Not far from Sittingbourne, a pleasant old town in the heart of the 
fruit and Hop-growing district, is the great farm of Mr. Albert J. Thomas. 
He has 600 acres of laud, and the fruit portion has kept on growing 
until 150 acres are now devoted to it. He has the experience of a life¬ 
time behind him, and is a competent all-round farmer. Is it not, there¬ 
fore noteworthy that he is planting more and more fruit as each season 
comes round ? If fruit-growing spells ruin to farmers, as Shakespeare 
was said to do to theatrical managers, it is strange indeed to find one 
of the ablest and most experienced of the Kentish cultivators giving 
more and more attention to it. Mr. Irving taught that with modern 
management of the best kind the Shakespearian play did not close the 
doors of the theatre, and Mr. Thomas is showing in the quiet Kentish 
village near which he lives that fruit may be grown profitably on English 
soil. He is not a one-fruit man. Apples, Pears, Plums, Cneiries, 
Gooseberries, Currants, and Strawberries are all grown on an extensive 
scale, and to the number of each additions are male. What is the 
secret of it ? He is not specially favoured as to district ; indeed, the 
records of the Good Friday storm speak of exceptional severity in the 
neighbourhooi of Sittingbourne, bent telegraph poles and twisted wires 
speaking only too forcibly of the fury of the gale, while the frost is keen 
there as elsewhere. I think the reason is twofold—firstly, in the best 
principles of garden culture being brought into play upon the farm, and 
secondly, in the unfailing practice of fair dealing as between grower 
and purchaser. 
The two points are worth dwelling upon. What, to begin with, 
does the first mean? It would be almost a platitude to draw imaginary 
contrasts between the fruit farm as it too often is, a hospital for diseased, 
worn out, and worthless trees, and the fruit farm as it should be, 
orderly, clean, well cultivated and judiciously p anted with healthy 
trees. But it is no platitude to point a lesson from the latter when 
it is found, not in the imagination, but in an honest Kentish village half 
way between London and the sea. Mr. Thomas’s fruit farm is a garden 
of fruit trees, and the distinction is not without a differeuct. There are 
many scores of acres, as has been indicated, and many hundreds of 
thousands of trees, hut the land is as clean and free from weeds as a 
garden border under good management, and the trees are living examples 
of wisdom in the allowance of abundant room to grow, in adequate 
support, in thorough cleanliness, and in good training. Tney are in 
robust health and vigour, a picture of beauty and promise now that the 
bold spurs with which they are studded are developing the load of buds 
upon them, and, doubtless, a still more impressive sight when laden with 
fruit in the summer and autumn. 
Pears are grown as we rarely see them on fruit farms, and not often 
in gardens. There are trees of Pitmaston Duchess now bursting into 
blossom that strike one as masterpieces of skilful management. What 
thinks the reader of £7 being realised by the crop of one bush 1 It has 
been brought by one of these Pitmastons, and individual fruits have 
been sold to dress the windows of fashionable fruiterers for fid. each. 
Many will remember the fruit table furnished by Mr. Thomas at the 
Guildhall Show, and the magnificent examples he there exhibited ; such 
may be seen in plenty when his trees are in bearing at Sittingbourne. 
They are in splendid condition, fifteen years old, or thereabouts, branch¬ 
ing from the base, the main growths trained wide apart, and furnished 
with large healthy spurs that speak of the beneficial influences of sun 
and air. Tears ago the site they occupy was a Pear orchard, full of 
huge old trees, but these were done away with, and the orchard became a 
brickfield. In due course the last brick was made, Mr. Thomas turned 
the ground into a Pear garden once more, and now his Pitmastons there 
are one of the bright features in England’s garden. The trees are 
liberally fed ; that would be judged from the way they g>ow and bear, 
even if the handle of a sewage pump in their midst did not tell its own 
story. One of these trees on the Pear stock is worth six of the same age 
on the Quince. 
Further away in the country, where his chief farm lies, there are 
evidences of the same sound cultural principles. Gooseberries are grown 
in such abundance that it is hard to imagine that the produce can all 
be disposed of; yet it goes somewhere, not all at once, but succassionally, 
and a point that is worth bearing in mind is that the Goo-eberry 
gathering keeps the pickers employed until other fruits are ready, and 
skilful pickers are at hand when specially wanted. The Gooseberries 
bear heavily every season, because the bushes are grown wide apart 
and the branches are thinly disposed. The invaluable Wninbam’s 
Industry is largely represented, and so are Crown Bob and a 
variety cultivated under the name of Berry’s Early Kent, which 
is probably synonymous with Keepsake. Golden Drop is also found 
useful, although the blossom suffers somewhat from the frost owing to 
the upright character of the bushes, which leaves it more exposed 
than on those with pendent branches. Warrington is to be discarded. 
Of Cherries, there are many huge trees like ancestral Beeches. Tney 
