•374 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 2, 1896. 
in their habits of life, and, in fact, •worthy men and excellent 
neighbours ; but regarded in connection with the fruit trees they 
think they are growing, they are mere children, untaught ard 
untrained, either doing nothing or doing mischief. That this is so, 
any observer who has been trained as a grower of fruit may see 
for himself if he drives through sundry villages, and looks over 
the hedges into the gardens of amateurs and tradesmen as he 
passes along. It is a pity that it should be so, but so it is, and 
it is evident that the teaching of practical horticulture in schools, 
and among the community generally, has been delayed too long. 
In the particular garden in question excellent young trees had 
been planted, as could be clearly seen, some three, some two years, 
with others about as many weeks. Also a number had grown old 
enough to be “trained ” into bashes and pyramids, and ought to be 
now in excellent bearing condition. We pause to look at them. 
Bushes and pyramids ! This is what they were some feet above 
the ground, but by no means down to it, for a good reason, 
showing very bad management. They had been very much let 
alone in their early years, and then, when they were “ getting too 
tall, cut into shape.” They are now weak, much too weak, at the 
base, and strong, a deal too strong, at the top. Bat the owner 
ssems determined to keep them down, or rather cut them back in 
the winter, for they rush up in spite of him in the summer, but 
are practically blossomless, and obviously therefore can bear no 
fruit. Nor will they produce any if they are similarly treated 
for a generation. They simply represent the mischief of a 
®hild who cuts and slashes, and is perhaps proud of his skill with 
the knife. 
It is butchery, undisguised glaring butchery,’ the outcome of 
ignorance, and fruit trees similarly mutilated may be seen over the 
length and breadth of the land. Their root force predominates so 
powerfully that the annual grossness is but the natural result, 
and the annual mutilation, miscalled pruning, increases the evil it 
Is vainly hoped to prevent—barrenness. Shorten those strong 
Toots instead of the branches, but removing entirely a number of 
these so that those which remain are 18 inches asunder, per¬ 
mitting no others to grow between them, and the trees would soon 
bear more pecks of fruit than they now bear pounds. Digging 
Tound them, and severing some of the strong roots now would be 
going veritably to the root of the evil; and preventing the thicket 
of summer growths by rubbing out nine out of ten of the shoots 
now pushing to produce them, would be a change from common 
mischief to common sense. 
Now let us look at the young trees. Just as the older with 
Mieir powerful roots have been pruned ten times too severely, so 
with remarkable perversity the recently planted trees with weak 
roots—the majority of the food imbibers having been left behind 
in the process of digging up—have not been pruned or had their 
long young branches cut back at all. Some of these were 3 feet 
long, about three of these with one or two shorter formed the 
“head.” There they remain now, just the same in number and 
very little more in length than they were three years ago, seme 
©f them studded with blossom, especially towards the tips. The 
two-years-planted are in much the same state, and if all the 
Mos-oms set and fruit remains the trees will be exhausted— 
ruined. In that way thousands of trees are brought into a stunted 
condition, and are to all intents and purposes useless during the 
rest of their miserable lives. 
The trees now making their first start into growth after plant¬ 
ing are pushing into leaf from the tips of the 2 to 3 feet long 
branches to a third of the way down, and over the lower half or 
more of each stem the buds will remain dormant. The Willow-like 
branches will be the same in number next year as this, but hard, 
thin, and hide-bound, because it is impossible that the comparatively 
few roots can do much more than keep them alive. They should 
fee cut back now, and the sap having been summoned into activity, 
■would have its force concentrated on a third of the length of the 
stem and buds, these latter be forced, and an increased number of 
branches issue for forming the framework of a good tree in each 
case daring the coming summer. Of that there can be no reasonable 
doubt, for the trees are clean, healthy standards which had grown 
with great freedom last season. They are capable of being made 
valuable in a very few years, but are in danger of being spoiled, 
in this case through the want of timely pruning, as certainly as 
the established trees before mentioned are rendered profitless each 
year by the excessive and irrational use of the knife. Exactly 
what is wrong is being done in these two cases in entirely opposite 
directions, and it is very unfortunate that so many persons, and 
some even who call themselves gardeners, do not appear able to 
differentiate between the nature and capacity of trees which on 
the one hand have roots out of all proportion in strength to the 
branches, and the other where the branch growth to the same 
extent preponderates over the power of the roots. 
It does not follow that every tree which has been recently 
transplanted must of necessity have its branches shortened for 
insuring its growth. It is a fact that unsold trees in nurseries are 
commonly planted late in the spring—brought together in a 
quarter, and not cut back; but just because these trees were not 
sold they were far less vigorous than those that were, and the roots 
are equal to the support of the naturally shorter and weaker 
branches—weaker because the best trees go first, and so the 
selecting continues till the worst only are left behind. These are 
kept alive the first season and shortened the next, by which time 
they have made sufficient roots to produce free growth the second 
summer, and make thrifty saleable “stuff” in the autumn. 
As in the case with Apples and such-like trees in the amateur’s 
collection above referred to, so in the case of the so-called bushes. 
Gooseberries and Currants, with three or four long branches, have 
not been cut back after planting, and there they have stood for two 
and three years, gaunt and ungainly, miserable apologies for what 
fruit bushes should be, instead of occupying vacant air space all 
around them and forming profitable examples through shortening 
the long young branches after planting, and thus producing more. 
This shortening may be done now—at once—with great advantage 
to young trees innumerable that are pushing growths from the 
extremities of the long summer shoots of last year ; but if last 
season’s shoots of removed trees are weak they may remain 
unshortened, not forgetting to cut them back in the autumn.— 
A Traveller. 
TO-MORROW. 
“ ‘ It will do to-morrow ’ is the kind of insanity that makes 
aphides laugh, rusts Carnations, mildews Roses, freezes houses, and 
brings the sheriff right in across your threshold.” So says “ The 
American Florist,” and although this habit of procrastination may 
not with us put the man in possession, nor enable us to see the 
smile of an aphis, not less does it emphasise the proverb, “ Preven¬ 
tion is better than cure.” Even farther does it go, and provide 
explanations of things which cannot otherwise be argued away. 
There are in the field of horticulture abundant pegs which serve 
to hang on an excuse for that putting off to a more convenient 
season, and by no means unjustifiable excuse either. The past 
year of unhappy memory provided a plethora of them. It also 
furnished some happy examples of prompt action which were at 
the time duly recorded for our benefit. 
A practical illustration was that afforded by the Queen’s gar¬ 
dener (Mr. Thomas) and all his men turning out on the eve of 
that cruel May night, fighting the elements and obtaining a right 
royal victory. To borrow another trite phrase from our friends 
across the water, he “ licked Creation,” and it may be added the 
proverb, for without preventive measures there would have been 
no cure—to-morrow. 
With the text pure and simple but little dissertation is neces¬ 
sary. Positively, it points with no uncertain hand to the evils of 
procrastination ; negatively, to the benefits of the stitch in time. 
There is no phase of a gardener’s duties nor place in the sphere of 
his work to which it is not applicable. It is a golden rule, the 
observance of which will, by the timely use of the hoe, save endless 
labour in handweeding. The stormy wind which springs up 
suddenly in the night will be baffled of its prey amongst the 
Chrysanthemums tops, and the hundred and one things for which 
