May 11, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
879 
year’s growth must be interfered with to some extent. It shows how 
well the wood was matured last year while it was being made, thus 
laying the foundation for the future crop of fruit. I always relieve 
newly planted bush trees of three-fourths of the bloom buds directly 
they form, reducing these later on, and in the case of standards I pluck 
off all. Much better growth is then obtained the first year, and this is 
of far more importance in the future than a full crop of fruit the first 
year. An abundance of moisture at the roots, afterwards mulching the 
surface with manure, will do much towards securing a full crop of good 
fruit and avoiding that wholesale self-thinning which happens to too 
great an extent in some seasons. 
Cherries are no exception to the rule for a full crop of fruit. On 
trees on walls the first swelling appears to be quite satisfactory; the 
foliage, too, is particularly exempt from the usual full crop of black fly 
.so far. Various other kinds of fruit, including Medlars, outdoor Figs, 
Quinces, and several forms of Crabs, such as the Siberians, and Pyrus 
Malus rosea, both of which are highly prized for their fruit, all promise 
heavy crops. 
All kinds of fruit will give the best return that receive the necessary 
amount of attention in supplying the roots with moisture when required, 
and the foliage free from insect pests, which, not only blight the 
immediate fruit crops, but injure the next season’s prospect by inter¬ 
fering with the growth and maturation of the wood. 
As showing the difference between two seasons here a standard tree 
of Apple Worcester Pearmain was fully in bloom last year. May 10th. 
This tree was in flower April 20th this year.—E. Molyiteux, Swamnore 
Parli, Hants. 
It is early to speak of fruit prospects, but they are sufficiently 
clear to say that the fruit promise will be falsified. The actual state 
at the moment is this—Pears, except on walls, a failure ; Plums and 
Damsons promise fairly ; Apples are suffering very severely from attacks 
of weevil, caterpillar, and, worst of all, I think, Psylla mali, rendering 
it impossible to speak definitely at present; Peaches, Nectarines, and 
Apricots have set a heavy crop. 
The Gooseberry caterpillar has stripped many bushes in this part. 
Currants and Easpberries promise a fair crop. In face of the insect 
attack and the prolonged drought no opinion is worth much. We find 
“ Stott’s Killmright ” kills most of our enemies if carefully applied at 
proper strengths, but as the various eggs continue to hatch out, it is 
necessary to repeat the sprayings. The season is one month earlier than 
last year.— S. T. Weight, Gleioston Court Gardens, Boss, 
Everywhere on the Yale of Clyde the fruit prospects are most 
promising, and with the absence of frost in May point to glutted 
markets, and possibly low prices, especially with those who have made 
no provision with an alternative to preserve the fruit. It is not yet too 
late for that. Evaporators, boilers, and other accessories can be had at 
a reasonable price, and those who “go in’’for these in time will not 
regret it.—W. T. _ 
Taking the Pear crop as a whole, I have here a most excellent show 
of fruit. The older trees are the shyest— I mean the trees from eighty 
to a hundred years old — in the orchard. Windsor and Catillac are 
sparsely set, whilst a younger tree by fifty years of Beurrd Hardy which 
is usually shy, in the same orchard, is well flowered and set. Mar^chal 
de Cour, which is also shy as a bearer in the orchard, is fairly 
well set this year. Jargonelles are well set, and especially so Beurr6 
d’Amanlis. Louise Bonne de Jersey and Pitmaston Duchess (here fniit- 
ing most prolifically as a tree in the open). Doyenne du Comice, and 
Beurr6 Superfin, usually shy, are fairly well set this season. Williams’ 
Bon Chretien and its ally Souvenir du Congr^s are generally good, and are 
so this year. My favourite midseason Pear, Fondante du Charneuses, 
has a fine crop well set. 
Fondante d’Automne and Winter Nelis, not ordinarily constant 
fruiters, are full and setting well. Josephine de Malines is the barest 
of flower of all my Pears this year, as Baronne de Mello is the fullest, 
being one sheet of bloom a week past, and now setting well; Beurrd 
d’Anjou was white over with flowers, but the set of fruit is only 
indifferent; Triomphe de Jodoigne looks like giving some good fruit ; 
Doyennd Boussouch and Beurrd Hardy, crown grafted three years ago 
on a nameless and worthless stock, are well set all oyer ; Beurrd Diel is 
an average set; Clapp’s Favourite is well set, and also its near growing 
neighbour Rivers’ Fertility, well named as to quantity, but not proved, 
so far, up to dessert fruit quality. These Pear remarks apply to trees 
and bushes in the open. 
My wall Pears are not quite up to average produce this year. Marie 
Louise has a few, Easter Beurr6 a few, Beurrd Diel scarcely any. Brown 
Beutrd the same, Marbchal de Cour well set, but Nec Plus Meuris, 
which usually I can rely upon for a crop, is almost bare this season. 
—P. H. N. 
POCKET-BOOK NOTES. 
I AM full of sympathy with “ W. P. W.” in his opening to his valu¬ 
able “ Notes by the Way ’’ in last week’s Journal of Horticulture. No 
doubt many gardeners’ notebooks are crammed full of really useful 
practical notes which would be of immense service to their brethren 
were they only printed. I am, however, rather of opinion that 
those notes do not get into print just in the same way that many pro¬ 
posed and thought-out kindly letters to friends do not get into fact by 
reason of the supposed necessity of, and unreadiness of, the orthodox 
means of letter writing, pens and ink. As we get on in life the practical 
duties of the daily round so exhaust us that in the evening, and even 
through the rest periods of the day, we find the armchair and the daily 
or gardening paper, or monthly, a book with perhaps the pipe of peace 
more to our comfort than the going to the desk, getting out paper, pens, 
and ink, and deliberately beginning to write either letter or gardening 
note. We, therefore, put off the writing, and the habit of putting off 
grows like other habits, until at last the getting out of these writing 
materials becomes—except to professional writers, of course—a nuisance. 
Now the editorial instructions to correspondents being emphatic 
that communications shall be written in ink and on one side of the 
paper, &c., bars many a good note from getting into their hands, as also 
the generally accepted idea that letters must be written in ink, though 
not on one side of the paper, hinders many a kindly letter from being 
written and sent. I think it would be a good thing if we could break 
down this rule, and as far as I am myself concerned with respect to 
letter writing generally to intimate friends and own relatives, I scarcely 
ever use pen and ink. I find the 6d. reporting books (Fono series. 
No. 5) admirable for my purpose. The leaves are so fixed in them that 
they draw out at the end without tearing. (These notes are written on 
such pages.) With this book and a Winser and Newton or Rowney’s 
B B pencil I can sit down in the garden at an odd five minutes and jot 
off a letter to a friend without any trouble, and I can testify that many 
letters to friends do get so written that would not be written if they 
waited for pen and ink. I specially mention a B B pencil. It makes a 
good black mark, not too soft or loose to rub out without that ever¬ 
lasting putting to the lips to moisten, which is inevitable with the 
commonly used H B. Indeed, no gardener ought to use a H B unless 
for drawing purposes, A “B B” is also best for writing on wooden labels 
with. My contention, therefore, from all this is, that if editors would 
relax their rules it would be good for many a busy practical man with 
a plethoric notebook and good resolutions like “ W. P, W.’’ and we, the 
readers of the Journal of Horticulture and other gardening papers 
would benefit in consequence. Can it be done ?—P. H. N. 
[If all our correspondents could use the pencil as “ P. H, N.” has 
done we should not trouble about ink ; but some pencillings are so 
obscure when they reach us that they could only be hurtful to the eyes 
of compositors, who in dull and foggy weather have to work the whole 
day under gas jets ; but there is an important practical reason for 
requiring matter for press to be written only on side of the paper, and 
we cannot relax that rule. Send us some more well pencilled leaves 
from your pocket book, Mr. “ P. H. N.” You can do them when sitting 
on a flower pot under a tree in hot weather, in the potting shed when 
it rains, and others may do likewise who use B.B. pencils on white 
paper, the same as we are now using. Many a bright idea and good 
suggestion is lost to the world by want of recording them first in a 
pocket book, then in the press]. 
GRAFTING : DOES THE WOOD OF THE STOCK AND 
SCION UNITE? 
Referring to this matter on page 343, I may say that a similar 
question was asked me when giving an illustrated lecture on grafting 
fruit trees at Inkberrow, under the Worcestershire Technical Education 
Committee of the County Council, some weeks ago. At first I was 
quite under the impression that the woods united, and made a firm 
and lasting solid growth ; but on the matter being discussed by the 
questioner, on second thoughts, which are sometimes best, I felt quite 
inclined to alter my opinion, especially on some of the principles of 
inserting grafts, of which I showed about half a dozen of the best. 
I consider that splice grafting on a small stock, with same size of graft, 
would be the best test.—J. IIlAM. 
To disprove that the stock and scion unite I have had many an 
argument, and even when I produced evidence of cut timber, both where 
grafted or where the bark and wood had covered a lopped-off branch, 
the disputants would declare there was something wrong, as the wood of 
the stock and that of the scion did unite. I have cut hundreds of such 
specimens, and never yet failed to see the dark coloured portions of the 
ununited wood, so can corroborate all you say on the subject.—W. T. 
I FIND it very difficult to believe that no real junction of the hard 
or heart wood of trees takes place after the process of grafting. Budded 
trees are of course very different, but there must be myriads of old 
trees about the country which have grafted heads, and it seems 
incredib’e, assuming no real junction of the heart wood has taken place, 
that they should withstand rough winds and not snap off at the 
junction. Is it not the case that trees thus worked, if they do not really 
unite, the wood yet secretes a sappy compound which fills the interstice 
formed by the grafting, and acts very much as glue does to dead wood 
by holding the sections tight together ? 
The section of tree figured at page 343 is a somewhat unusual one 
for a grafted tree to show, because as a rule the graft exceeds the stock 
in dimensions, whilst in the illustration the case is so much reversed 
that the stock is double the size of the graft. That would rather tend 
to show that the grafting was at the first badly done, or else that the 
stock and graft were badly assorted. Still, grafting as ordinarily done 
when stocks are young, and of course if such non-union exists it would 
