March 7, 1659. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
191 
better growth of the varieties established on the cankered stocks. 
Such proof I regard as being as good as “ reason.” 
The fruit garden in question was not old, but comparatively 
new, and the soil must have been thoroughly prepared, and also have 
contained the essentials requisite for the support of Pears and Apples, 
•or the trees as a whole could not have been so healthy, nor borne 
such heavy crops of fine fruit. But a few varieties failed. Why ? 
Mr. Tonks says because the soil was lacking in some particular 
■constituents those particular varieties needed which the others did 
not. I say the weakness or tenderness of those failing varieties 
was the cause of their collapse. Their growth was so far arrested 
that their roots were correlatively and necessarily checked or 
paralysed, and they could no longer extend and absorb a due supply 
of the nutriment that the soil contained. It was there, but not 
appropriated. The trees that did abstract the food by their greater 
vitality flourished ; those that could not do so, through their inherent 
incapacity, failed. 
Mr. Tonks suggests that I have arrived at the conclusion, 
which he questions, prematurely from a “ brief and superficial in¬ 
spection.” Let me assure him I did not found it on the examples 
binder notice, but I regarded them as affording evidence of what I 
believe to be a fact—namely, that some varieties of Apples and 
Pears are essentially weaker than others, and correspondingly more 
liable to be affected, injured, and ultimately ruined by canker, no 
matter what kind or what quantity of manure may be dredged on 
the soil over the roots. I believe the roots of many trees are in 
a position and condition that they cannot be materially benefited 
by anything sprinkled 2, 3, or 4 feet above them. I know that 
replanting trees, or raising their roots and placing them in fresh 
soil of a suitable nature, results in a multiplication of fibres, and 
when these are produced, not before, can the special nutriment 
•that may be given be freely appropriated. 
Mr. Tonks has found the efficacy of grafting. His Chiswick 
paper contains this sentence, “ My own garden formerly contained 
several trees rapidly succumbing to canker, which, when grafted 
with other varieties, at once put on healthy growth, made fine heads, 
and have since for many years been perfectly free from the disease.” 
From this fact he concludes that there was not the necessary con¬ 
stituents in the soil for the varieties that failed, but there was for 
those which he established on them. I believe the constituents 
were there, but the roots of the enfeebled trees lacked the power to 
abstract them, therefore the food was left unused for the invigorated 
trees to enjoy. The free growth resulting from grafting redoubled, 
and probably a great deal more than quadrupled, the action of the 
roots, and they could then take what the weak trees left because of 
their weakness. 
Mr. Tonks says, in his Chiswick paper, “ each variety of fruit 
requires its own appropriate food.” No doubt it does, but I am not 
able to accept the dictum which is conveyed, that every variety of 
Apple, Pear, or other fruit requires different food, any more than 
the sheep in a flock of the same breed turned into a pasture each 
require different food. Some may be able to take more than 
others, but the same pasture, if a good pasture, contains enough of 
"the right kind for all as long as it lasts ; and if a few of the animals 
fail to thrive, and get leaner instead of fatter, it will be usually 
found they have either faulty teeth or sore feet, mastication being 
impeded in the first case, and free movement to obtain a good 
“ bite ” in the other. So it is with w'eak, cankered, growthless 
trees, the roots of which cannot ramify and imbibe the virtues 
which the soil contains. 
IVe are reminded on page 169 that “ surely every gardener 
knows that some trees require different food from others.” They 
know this very well in respect to certain kinds of trees, such as 
in forests, Beech, Oaks, Willows, and others ; and in gardens, such 
as Pears, Gooseberries, Black Currants, &c. ; but they do not know 
that the different varieties of those kinds—Beech, Oaks, Willows, 
Pears, Gooseberries, Currants, and others—require, and must have, 
“ different food.” If that is so, then different varieties of Cab¬ 
bages, Onions, Potatoes, Fuchsias, Pelargoniums, and other plants 
require different food. I have been a gardener for I hardly dare 
say how many years, lest I should be considered in my dotage, and 
liave had a fair share of success, according to those who were satis¬ 
fied with such service as I could render, and I am not ashamed to 
•confess that I do not know what he thinks “ every gardener cught 
to know,” and which not one of my acquaintance does know ; and 
if I may be allowed to go a step further, I would say, with all 
respect, that until Mr. Tonks proves what he says we ought to 
know, he must excuse me saying I shall be unconvinced on the 
matter. 
I have had hundreds of cankered trees to deal with, several of 
which I have cured, and some with which I have failed. I have 
had various kinds of chemical manures at disposal, and have proved 
their value and the action of most of them ; and after my experi¬ 
ence of more than ten times the number of years Mr. Tonks tells 
us he has had, for he says his “attention was specially directed to 
plant food in 1886,” I am unable to claim for them the efficacy 
that he does in curing canker in fruit trees ; and, besides, if the 
different “ varieties ” require different food, how can his one 
formula for “ the Apple, ” answer for all ? Let me add that I 
know of nothing so promotive of canker in fruit trees as an 
excess of iron in soil, and I shall require something more than 
arguments or reasons founded on the teachings of Yille, or any 
other similar authority, to assure me that any combination of 
chemical manures can cure canker in fruit trees where iron largely 
abounds in the land.—W. 
LILICJM GIGANTEUM. 
The photograph reproduced in fig. 28 was forwarded to us 
some time since by Mr. T.- Tebby, gardener to E. D. Thomas, Esq., 
FIG. 28. —LILIUM GIGANTEUM. 
Wei field, Builth, and represents an exceedingly well grown plant. 
It had three flower stems, each about 9 feet high, w.th eight to 
ten blooms on a spike. Our correspondent writes that, “ The 
border where it has been planted about four years faces south¬ 
west, but the soil was renewed around it last spring. The blooms 
were about 8 inches long and 6 inches in diameter. The soil 
where it is planted is resting on the rock, and the soil is shallow 
generally, frequently not more than 6 inches deep.” 
A letter from an Indian correspondent is published in Dr. 
Wallace’s book on Lilies, in which it is said respecting Lilium 
giganteum that he “ first procured it in 1837, four marches beyond 
Simla. It was in a deep sheltered valley, or rather glen, well 
clothed with trees and brushwood, where the sun could have 
exercised but little influence ; the soil was a rich vegetable mould, 
