420 
JOURN-AL OF HORTICULTURE ANT) COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May IG, 1895. 
exposure of such tender plants sooner, and they have sometimes 
prospered, but it was more by good luck than good management. 
It is all the same fortunate that such escapes are possible, or it 
wonid be a dreary outlook for fruit growers who cannot protect 
their trees. 
When gardeners and others so manage fruit trees that they are 
wreathed with stout blossoms on firm wood, from the base to the 
extremities of the branches, they have done their share and their 
duty, and, taking one year with another, the yield of fruit, assuming 
^be varieties are of the best, will repay for the outlay in cultivation, 
provided the site and soil are not inherently unfavourable for the 
attainment of the object in view. In this fact, for fact it is, there 
is hope and encouragement. The man who possesses the soundest 
knowledge on the subject of fruit, and who exercises the best 
judgment in the choice of site, soil, and varieties, at the same time 
following the most intelligent methods in procedure, is bound to 
have an advantage over his fellow worker, who, through lack of 
knowledge, pursues an erroneous course of routine. One of the 
questions asked by the Royal Horticultural Society for students to 
answer is whether trees can be made to resist canker and other 
maladies by good management and cultural attention? We are 
Qot quoting the question, but simply giving its purport. Un¬ 
doubtedly those evils can be, to a large extent, prevented when 
their nature and origin are understood; and similarly, though 
perhaps less certainly, the blossoms of fruit trees can be, to a 
material extent, hardened—or sufficiently so to enable them to 
®8cape destruction by a passing frost to which others might 
succumb. 
If this were not so, why is it that a plantation of several Apple 
ifees in well-chosen varieties planted at Chiswick nearly twenty 
years ago have never failed, in spite of varying seasons, to give good 
crops of fruit, and in most years very abundant crops, while other 
trees in the gardens have often been barren ? As there is a reason 
for everything, there is naturally a reason for that disparity. The 
trees which boar unfailingly are on a surface-rooting stock. 
A multitude of fibres ever dividing in firm fertile soil produce firm, 
short-jointed, fertile wood ; and if the branches of the trees are 
so thinly disposed that the sun can shine between them—every 
leaf, so to say, being directly exposed to its influence—a maximum 
amount of starch will and must be manufactured, and this and 
©ther mineral matter deposited and stored in the buds and 
the stems—ten times more than is possible when a thicket of 
growths is produced by constantly shortening the branches for 
cutting the trees into shape, and driving strong roots down¬ 
wards,. as robust summer growths will do, and the more certainly 
if the surface roots are either starved out hy the lack of 
an occasional top-dressing or dug out by the reckless use of 
the spade. 
It should never be forgotten that as the roots of trees are so 
are the branches. If the parts of a tree within the ground are 
long, strong, and fibreless, so are the parts above ground, long, 
strong, and tissueless ; and if the leaves are made in a crowd, each 
endeavours to stretch itself out for reaching the vitalising light 
which the “ cultivator ” denies it, becoming apparently large and 
atroag, but really thin, weak, and tender; then the blossoms 
(if any) are weak and tender in turn, for though the petals may be 
showy they will be flimsy, the essential organs weak, the pollen 
faulty, and the whole inflorescence vanishing under a whiflE of 
frost or a few days of bright sun, leaving not the semblance of 
fruit behind. Now grasp the converse—a mass of small fibrous 
loots imbibing what the trees need, and producing not strong, long 
succulent stems, but short substantial growths ; every leaf being 
free from its neighbour and the sunshine glistening on it, compara¬ 
tively small in area, but stout, thick, and “ hard,” will do its 
wondrous work in preparing and depositing nutrient matter in bud 
and stem ; and the essential organs of the plentifully formed 
Sowers will be like the leaves, firm, structurally perfect, with 
Q^ollen well developed, the whole tree and every part of it being in 
the best condition for passing through a time of trial without the 
loss of the whole of the hoped-for fruit. 
Thus it will be perceived by those who think the matter out on 
the lines suggested that the cultivator may do something towards 
turning the promise of May into fruition in the case of such of 
his trees that are under cultural control. But how ? In a very 
simple way. There is nothing complex or elaborate about it, no 
mysterious manipulation, but just the exercise of rudimentary 
common sense. Start the trees right and keep them right. Shorten 
them somewhat after planting for originating the requisite branches, 
then be content with what may be thought too few, rather than 
doing more shortening for producing too many. With the branches 
absobitely clear of each other when in full leaf they will form 
blossom buds if not shortened, and will divide naturally for form¬ 
ing sufficient branches in most cases ; cut them back closely, then 
blossom formation is prevented, and fruitless growths promoted. 
But surely if the young branches get strong we must cut them 
back,” say some persons—or at least they do it. No, it may be 
the ivorst thing that can be done, at least if the too strong growing 
young t'ee is not dug up and replanted. This replanting is 
usually the best thing that can be done, and then there may be a 
little branch-shortening for balancing a tree. Get it into bearing, 
then use the fruit as a lever for governing the growth. If this is 
inclined to he robust let a good crop remain to subdue it ; if growth 
is slow and likely to be weak, remove sufficient fruit to relieve the 
pressure and let the branches extend. Avoid stunting the tree by 
overloading it in infancy. If it make a foot of stout short-jointed 
extension growths as well as supporting fine fruits, few or many, 
and those growths are at least a foot asunder, a good habit will be 
formed—fruitfulness without exhaustion. A plantation of such 
trees will give little further trouble. The pruning will practically 
amount to thinning, the summer culture to hoeing, with an occa¬ 
sional surface dressing as the crop and growth suggest, pointing 
over the ground at the end of the season for sweetening the soil 
and neatness sake, but not mutilating the roots. 
It is in that easy way that this Chiswick plantation has been 
rendered so productive year after year. The trees grew for a 
time at about 6 feet apart, half of them being eventually removed 
for extending the plantation and affording needed room for the 
remainder. Each variety has been allowed to assume its natural 
form. There has been no pruning into ideal uniform shape, as 
that would have militated against productiveness. The trees have 
been pictures of beauty of late, and if a bountiful crop of fruit 
does not follow it will be the first failure. 
Another thought arises. Some reader may attach importance 
to the particular kind of stock on which the trees are established, 
and fancy that this is the secret of the success achieved. Mr. 
Barron does not think so, for a very good reason. Some rather 
extensive experiments are tending to show that there is not so 
much magic in stocks as is popularly supposed. The productive 
trees described are on the French Paradise, but several others on 
different kinds of stocks for showing their distinctive influence, 
might be said to be growing provokingly alike if they were not 
doing so uniformly well, which is not provoking. 
AMONG THE ALPINES. 
The “ merrie month of May ” has again rolled round, and with 
it in their simple beauty the alpine and rock flowers. As each 
season comes we have something fresh to study and admire, every 
bloom with a beauty peculiar to itself, and as they arrive we are 
apt to think that this or that reaches our ideal of a flower until it 
fades and something else bursts forth, perhaps in form and beauty 
entirely different to its forerunner, but still it has its own charm, 
which silently appeals to us in language so irresistible that we 
feel obliged to give up all thought of forming an ideal, and are 
content to welcome and admire them all as they come and go. 
The Hyacinths, Daffodils, and Tulips with their brilliant 
colours have barely passed away, when, to fill the gap thus formed, 
there come the alpine and rock flowers with their much more 
simple, but no less charming beauty. Unlike the former they seem 
