126 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
f lU’USt 15, 18S& 
charge. They took the dishes with them and allowed the fumes to 
escape through a closed house, and from that day the plants have 
made fresh leaves which have shown no trace of being diseased. 
The fruit formed previous to this operation continued to swell, 
and much of it has since been sold at Is. 6d. a lb. I can rely on 
the testimony of my informant, and the plan is so simple and 
effective that it may be tried wherever necessary. 
In June last we had a good crop of Tomatoes on the back shelf 
of a Pine house. The distance from the soil until they touched 
the glass was not more than 3 feet 6 inches, and being well in 
the light they naturally produced a thickly formed crop, but I 
could see we should not secure many more from them after they 
came in contact with the glass, and when the fruit had been 
secured up this length the plants were cut down to the ground or 
soil, but they soon emitted fresh growths. One of these was 
allowed to grow up from each root, and at the present time they 
are bearing as good a crop as in the first instance. They were not 
stimulated until the fruit had formed the second time, as to have 
done this at first might have induced the wood to be long-jointed 
and sterile, but since the fruit appeared they have been top-dressed, 
and this has given them additional strength. 
Not knowing what the summer of 1889 was likely to be, wet or 
dry, dull or sunny, and having a lively recollection of the complete 
failure of the open air Tomatoes in 1888, we prepared to avoid 
this again by having some robust plants in 10-inch pots by the end 
of May, and these were plunged at the bottom of the fruit walls, 
and the shoots tied up to the wall. These produced ripe fruit by 
the middle of July, and would have done so before the end of the 
season in spite of the weather, but others were planted out in the 
usual way, and although they have not produced ripe fruits they 
are bearing quantities of green ones, and indicate that they will 
soon prove remunerative, and from all I can see and hear this will 
soon be the case with open air Tomatoes generally. The warm 
weather during the hay harvest suited them admirably, and they 
will benefit by it to the end of the season. 
I am of opinion, however, that the failure of Tomatoes in the 
open air is very often neither the fault of the weather nor of the 
plants, but is directly produced by the neglect of the cultivator. 
I have known many cases where considerable attention was 
devoted to raising the plants, or a good deal of expense incurred 
in buying them, and they were planted out with an amount of care 
which suggested that they would have proper attention through¬ 
out, but before a ripe fruit had been gathered the plants had 
become crowded with superfluous growths. An instance of this 
kind came under my notice in two different gardens in Carmarthen¬ 
shire last week ; many of the shoots were carrying fruits, but 
they were small and deformed for want of air, and, in short, a 
capital crop had been ruined. Their owners were under the im¬ 
pression that once planted they had only to wait a little while and 
then begin gathering the fruit. They were sorry for their mistake, 
and would have done all possible to rectify it ; but although they 
might have thinned the shoots and trained those remaining so as to 
expose them fully to the sun and air, the plants would fail utterly 
to produce the satisfactory crops they most assuredly would have 
done had they been trained from the first. 
Those who complain that their open air Tomatoes are in 
danger of failing must see at once that they are not suffering from 
the same cause, and the evil should be rectified as far as possible 
without a day s delay. It is better to have one or two dozen good 
fruits from a plant than try to have scores which never become 
i eally fit for the table. Large size and fine form are not the only 
points necessary to constitute a perfect Tomato, as flavour is the 
most important point of all, and those who care to test a few varie- 
ties m this respect will be astonished at the excellency of some and 
the deficiency of others. As to very late Tomatoes they can only 
ie secured in fine condition under glass, and if cuttings are rooted 
now, grown in pots, and placed in warm corners in October in 
much the same way as the earliest plants are treated, there need 
be no scarcity of fruit of the best description until Christmas or 
much later. M e all know the trouble that many take to secure 
■ate or winter Cucumbers, but Tomatoes might be secured at the same 
time with much less expense and anxiety, and they would be more 
valuable in the market, and equally as much appreciated on private 
tables It certainly does not pay to keep old Tomato plants 
until the last fruit has been gathered, and if they were cleared 
out when nearing the end young vigorous plants would soon 
afford another supply.—J. Muir, Maryam Park, S. Wales. 
THE SHIRLEY POPPIES. 
A WISE man once said there was nothing new under the sun, a 
statement that often contains more truth than appears on the 
surface at first giance. Although the Shirley Poppy cannot, per¬ 
haps, be traced back to the reign of that distinguished monarch,. 
I can at least trace one back for a quarter of a century that is so 
much like it as to make no difference, unless it be that I consider 
it superior to the Shirley strain, inasmuch that they not only 
represent every shade of colour as the Shirley ones, but many 
of them are as full hearted as a Rose. I first saw it about 
five years ago in a garden in Scotland. The lady told me she 
had gathered the seed two years previously in a churchyard in 
Spain, and in consequence called them “ Spanish Poppies,” and 
was most particular that no one should get seed of them, so that 
she would have something in her garden that no one else had, 
something at once the delight and the envy of friends and visitors. 
I was very much surprised, on account of this conservatism, to 
find the same Poppy blooming in the garden of a farmhouse 
on the estate, on the opposite side of the river certainly, but 
within a mile of the lady’s garden ! Being interested in the 
matter I inquired of the farmer how he came by the Spanish 
Poppies. He said “ Spanish ? ” we call them Australian, having 
had the seed originally from a friend of ours out there some one 
and twenty years ago, and have always saved a pinch of seed 
annually ever since.” 
I sent a pinch of seed to a leading firm of London nurserymen 
last spring for comparison with the Shirley, and they write me 
that while the foliage differs slightly, and some of the petals are 
spotted black at the base, they cannot otherwise observe any 
difference between the two strains. At the same time I ought to 
state that the seed I sent them does scant justice to their true 
beauty-, as a hen with a brood of chickens had nearly deprived me 
of Poppies, seed and all. 
Of course the fact that there was one in existence does not 
detract one iota from the credit due to the Rev. W. Wilks for 
bringing his one before the public.—H. C. W. 
PRUNING OR NOT PRUNING FRUIT TREES 
THE FIRST YEAR. 
Mr. George Bunyard is a busy man, but if he was busier 
between March and July, the period elapsing before his reply to 
my remarks on the above subject, than I have been since that reply 
appeared on page 16, July 11th, I should be sorry for him if the- 
pressure were not to his advantage. I hope he may have sufficient 
leisure now to read my somewhat tardy' rejoinder. The remark to 
which I took exception in Mr. Bunyard’s generally excellent paper 
read at Chiswick last October was this, “No Apple should be 
pruned the first year of planting.” It was a precise dictum without 
any qualification, and as such I was unable to accept it. Nor am 
I now. I said in my article I could understand particularly 
well rooted standard Apples, such as Mr. Bunyard I thought had 
in view, growing well without the previous summer shoots being 
pruned, but I could not nor cannot see how it is possible for trees 
of a contrary character—that is, those with large tops and few roots, 
of which I have seen so many planted—to grow as well, or nearly 
as well, as if the shoots were shortened in somewhat the same 
proportion as the roots were in the process of removing them from 
the ground. Thus I made an exception, but Mr. Bunyard made 
none, though in his reply to my observations he now makes excep¬ 
tions, and the fact of his doing so proves, if not the necessity, the 
reasonableness of my original dissension. 
I have not the least doubt that when Mr. Buny'ard advises on 
trees of his own raising, or of others which he examines, his advice 
will be good ; but when he was speaking at Chiswick his remarks 
applied to all trees, ill or well rooted, that were to be planted 
during the then ensuing season ; and laid down the rule simple, 
forcible, and inflexible, that “ no Apple ” should be pruned the 
first year of planting. In the discussion in this Journal he had 
one adherent, a very good one I readily admit, in Mr. Arthur 
Young, but I am not prepared to admit that his experience is 
greater than that of the majority of others who took a different 
view of the case. With one exception the gardener having 
perhaps, as such, the greatest experience of all of us (Mr.G. Abbey). 
I have seen the trees on which their remarks were founded. I do 
not include Mr. Kruse in the category of gardeners, but judging 
by his writings he is a most careful and successful fruit grower, 
whose plantations I hope some day to see. There may be trees in 
Kent that equal at the same age some of those referred to which 
were pruned the first year, but I have not seen them, though I 
have seen thousands in the famed county. 
The thrifty orchard to which Mr. Young pointed as evidence of 
the soundness of non-pruning the first year he did not plant. I saw 
the trees before he did, and they were good at the top and no 
doubt at the roots, for I believe they were from Messrs. Smith’s of 
Worcester; and further, if my nenory is not wholly at fault, 
