14 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
f January 3, 1889. 
£1450 worth in one year. The working expenses were nearly £500, and 
the profit was over £950. Let him give them one other instance of 
Mushroom cultivation. From one-sixteenth of an acre near Leeds, 
upwards of 3000 lbs. weight of Mushiooms were produced at the rate 
of £1600 to the acre. 
It might be said it was all very well for him to quote these instances, 
because they were taken from France and from a warmer part of this 
country. But what did we require in order to rival such things as 
these ? Soil 1 Climate ? Well, those who knew practically what market 
gardening was, knew that soil was a thing that could be made, and that 
whatever was the primitive character of the soil, the skill and the art of 
man could make it grow to such an extent that from that very little 
plot in Paris that raised all that enormous weight of stuff, the owner 
was able to sell 250 cubic yards of loam per annum. Taking the case of 
climate, these market gardeners had made fools of climate. They built 
walls to reflect the heat and the light of the sun, planted hedges and 
trees, took care of the exposure, and did everything to concentrate the 
beat; and more than that, they had sent hot-air pipes through the soil 
itself, raising its temperature, and producing moisture by means of 
watering, and raising the productive power of the soil 100 times. They 
might say that that could not be done here, and certainly those who 
knew Aberdeen 200 years ago would have laughed at all those specula¬ 
tions. One graphic description given in 1685 would bring up the picture 
to their mind. Old Parson Gordon of Kothiemay had written—“ The 
fields next the gates of the city are fruitful of corns, such as Oats, here, 
and Wheat, and abound with pastures ; but anywhere after you pass a 
mile without the town the country is barren-like, the hills craigy, the 
plains full of marshes and mosses, the fields are covered with Heathes 
or peeble stones, the cornfields mixed with these but few.” If they 
walked a mile in a westerly direction from the Netherkirkgate they 
would find the ground covered with houses to begin with. If they told 
him that the soil and climate had to do with it, he did not see how that 
could be, or if it had, how was it that a man like his friend Mr. Cocker 
could grow such Eoses as he did 1 
This industry was capable of indefinite expansion ; and what pre¬ 
vents the success of it in such a place as this, in his opinion, lay much 
in the difficulty of getting a market, and especially in the difficulty of 
transport. So long as railway rates for such products were high, and so 
long as there were so many difficulties in getting the products of their 
garden sent to where the markets were, so long would this industry not 
be so profitable as it might be ; and it was one of the objects of that 
Society to try to get over these disadvantages, to encourage the cultiva¬ 
tion of market gardening, and so to mate this industry as profitable 
here as it was in so many other places, for he did not see why we should 
send six millions of money out of the country every year for things 
that we could grow ourselves if we had the industry, brains, and skill 
to grow them. 
Regarding arboriculture, he said this had not been such a profitable 
industry as market gardening, and consequently during the last twenty 
years the area in nurseries had scarcely increased at all, and at the 
present moment there were only about 12,000 acres in cultivation. The 
cultivation of trees was one of the most delightful occupations that they 
could possibly indulge in, and this was a question also that ought to 
occupy their attention as one of national importance. He had ventured to 
give a hint to Mr. Esslemont before he left that he would touch on this, 
because he looked to him and other influential legislators to help them 
in raising forestry to the rank in this country that it ought to have. In 
Germany they had 30 per cent, of the area of that great Empire in wood ; 
they had a Forestry Department of the State ; they had trees cultivated in 
rotation as if they were crops ; they had a vast army of scientific men 
trained in efficient colleges devoted to that purpose alone. If they went 
to France, they would find the same thing on a smaller scale. He should 
have mentioned Austria, where 30 per cent, was under wood. In this 
country we had not got 4 per cent, of the country under wood, and 
he was perfectly satisfied that if the Government were to take the ques¬ 
tion up—if instead of quarrying, as they always did, down to the foun¬ 
dations of the Constitution to see what they were like, if in place of 
constantly amending the legislative machine they were to take the ma¬ 
chine they had, and set to work to adorn and beautify the face of the 
earth, they would do a great deal more good than by constantly talking 
of more men and more votes. Scotland at one time was not so far 
back, and Parliament in former times did pay some attention to this 
question—to the forestry of the country. So long ago as 1457 the land¬ 
owners were ordered to plant trees and to sow Broom. Sixty years 
'later Parliament had to record, in 1503, that the wood of Scotland was 
entirely destroyed, and a fine of £5 was imposed on anyone who 
dared to cut a tree. Thirty years later apparently this deterrent or 
coercive measure—(laughter)—had not the desired effect, and a 
more specific order was issued to landowners who possessed a certain 
size of estate, to plant no less than three acres yearly, whfie the 
penalty for the third offence for cutting a tree was death. In 1661 the 
last legislation on the subject took place. A larger area was required to 
be planted by landowners, and, as an inducement for them to do so, 
the land so planted was free from taxation for nineteen years. From 
that day to this there was not another Act of Parliament on the sub¬ 
ject. Our own colonies had got before us in this matter. The destruc¬ 
tion of forests in Victoria and New Zealand had awakened the attention 
of the Colonial Legislatures, and Acts for the encouragement of planting 
were passed, bonuses being given ; schools of forestry were established, 
the further cutting of timber had been stopped ; and in place of cut¬ 
ting, planting went on. He did not see why our Legislature 
should not take up this subject again, and why they should not spend 
money in establishing schools of forestry, and in promoting the planting 
of waste lands. There were vast ranges of land that could be planted 
with the utmost benefit, and without injury to sport. The trees were 
always growing, and did not give any trouble, and the leases did not 
expire, and they did not require to make a new bargain with them, and 
they never asked for any abatement—(applause) — and fifty or sixty 
years after they were planted there was a rich harvest to be reaped 
by those who were fortunate enough to be then the owner. But therein 
lay the difficulty, because one man sowed and another man reaped. 
Another aspect of this question was this, that if they could create a pro¬ 
fitable industry they would provide healthy employment to an enormous 
number of working men going at that moment in the towns with their 
hands in their pockets. Our social system had come to this, that unless 
new outlets were found for the labour of the country there would be 
serious danger to the Commonwealth. 
CANKER IN FRUIT TREES. 
This seems again engaging the attention of your readers. Some 
years ago I wrote on this subject, stating that, in my experience, 
the best way of curing canker was to graft a strong-growing sort 
on to the tree affected with canker. A little notice was taken of 
my experience, but not much. A vast deal was written about com¬ 
position of soils, and doubtless some soils are more suited to Apple 
trees than others are. The old cankered tree I tried my experiment 
on was, and is, growing'in a poor top soil with watery clay as 
subsoil. The stem all round was cankered. One graft only grew. 
That side of tree became free from canker ; now, three years after 
I wrote, the whole tree is free from canker. Nothing has been 
done to the tree except this one scion of a strong growing variety 
being grafted on it. Nothing either has been done to the soil. 
Can you give an explanation why such an effect should he 
produced ?— Robert Warner. 
[We have seen many such examples, and the simple method 
described of curing cankered fruit trees, by changing the varieties 
on the stocks, is deserving of wider attention. An established 
graft of a free-growing variety does not restore a cankered stem, 
but covers it with new life. Quite new matter is deposited on the 
old stem, this growing and extending downwards till the soil is 
reached, roots then forming, and in the course of time the added 
■variety has a separate existence, growing freely, even if the original 
stock crumbles to decay.] 
DESIGNING ORNAMENTAL PLANTATIONS. 
Viewed merely as a means of adorning the face of Nature, trees 
placed singly or collectively in groups, larger or smaller, always convey 
a sense of ornament or beauty. A treeless district, even if fertile in its 
general aspect, suggests poverty of feature and interest to the mind. 
Homesteads and smiling meadows, with abundant stock and other 
evidences of thrifty life, may be there, but without trees the landscape 
gives an impression of weariness proportionate in degree to the extent of 
the prospect. In an abstract sense, therefore, trees, no matter how 
they are placed in relation to other features in the landscape, have a 
beautifying effect. In this light indiscriminate dotting of trees singly, 
or in groups, or in extended plantations, gives interest and beauty to 
the seene, even if owing to errors of taste or design they occupy positions 
in which their effect is only partially accomplished. 
SITUATION. 
While plantations for the mere purposes of utility—shelter or profit 
—must be placed where their particular object is most certain of being 
attained ; those intended for ornamental effect involve wider considera¬ 
tion. It is possible in many cases to combine the two objects, hut it is 
essential to consider in designing ornamental plantations the situation 
of the ground in relation to adjacent, and even in some instances also 
to remote features in the landscape. To plant any spot without carefully 
considering the surroundings and the effect that the plantation will in 
the future exert on them, is haphazard. The intended effect should 
first be determined. If it is to give variety and beauty of a general kind 
to the scenery, as in planting an extended estate or demain, every 
feature of interest in view, either within or beyond the boundary, should 
be studied with the object of enhancing the whole. But particular or 
independent effects should also be aimed at as in planting a hillside, so 
as to improve and beautify its outline and intensify the contrasts of light 
and shade. Nature is very generally accepted as the best teacher in 
this matter, but it is questionable whether her teachings may not in 
many respects be improved upon. For distant effect in the planting 
of hills, Nature’s plan is not always the best. She almost invariably 
clothes the valleys and sheltered places with trees, and leaves the pro¬ 
tuberances bare. In planting for profit her teaching here is unques¬ 
tionably right, but from our present point of view it is obviously wrong. 
By planting the valleys, proportion and form are more or less obliterated ; 
the valleys are raised and the eminences relatively depressed in effect, 
and comparative monotony of surface is introdueed; whereas if an 
opposite course were adopted, natural lines are rendered more sharp and 
distinct, and light and shade intensified. The same principle should 
be observed in planting flat or monotonous surfaces when the district 
