374 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ May 9, 1889. 
first place we have trees that cast a portion of their buds annually. 
This is, in my opinion, the most difficult to account for, and cases occur 
occasionally where trees are denuded entirely. It this case it is less 
difficult to understand provided the trees have been accustomed to carry 
a crop. Sometimes trees carry the greater portion of their buds and 
expand their flowers, and then cast every embryo fruit. Trees that 
behave in this manner have received a severe check at some time since 
the last crop was gathered. This may be due at least to two causes. 
Their buds may have been ripened prematurely, or the trees arfr suffer¬ 
ing from dryness at the roots. In some instances trees also shed their 
wood buds. No doubt their various forms may be ascribed to some 
defects in culture at different periods by enfeebling the constitution 
of the trees. 
In a few remarks I will point out as briefly as possible the behaviour 
of different trees, and the chief causes calculated to endanger their buds 
and flowers. The theory of dryness at the roots being the chief cause 
of trees casting their buds is without doubt true in many cases, but not 
in all. The annual amount of growth and the quantity and character 
of the foliage that it is natural for these trees to make, shows us that 
they require large supplies of moisture to repair the losses of evapora¬ 
tion. If well drained there is not much danger to be apprehended from 
overwatering inside borders, while the want of this indispensable 
element is sure to lead to disappointment if not to failure, for 
it is well known that in dry soil plant food if present cannot be 
assimilated by the roots. Therefore there must never be a scarcity at 
any season if a healthy root action is to be maintained. 
Checks from drought are not confined to the resting period as is 
generally supposed, or rather during the time trees are devoid of foliage, 
for their roots are scarcely ever at rest, especially under glass. These 
usually occur when growth is most vigorous. Trees with all their leaves 
and fruit exposed to the sun must have a continuous supply of food and 
moisture to make good the loss caused by the foliage. Water is not 
simply the drink of plants but their food, or at least the medium 
through which they obtain their supplies. 
Success or failure in one year depends materially on the attention 
which has been bestowed in that immediately preceding it. I have long 
been convinced that the mischief in many cases is done from the time 
the crop is on the point of finish to the fall of the leaf. The system 
often practised is to suddenly withhold moisture from the roots and 
atmosphere from the time the first fruit begins swelling, carrying out 
this rule until the last fruit is gathered, with the object of hastening 
maturity and to contribute to the hi^h quality of the fruit. This 
practice has much to answer for when buds and flowers fall from the 
trees. 
Yet it is true that the atmosphere may be kept drier with advantage 
during the ripening of the fruit, but the change from a humid to a 
more arid atmosphere should be gradual, and not carried to excess 
especially with midseason fruit. Be it remembered that fruits finished 
in an arid atmosphere are neither so luscious nor so sweet as those 
finished in a comparatively cool temperature with plenty of air. It is 
true that an excess of moisture at the roots or in the atmosphere might 
lessen the flavour of the fruit, but a parchingly dry a : r will tend in the 
same direction ; therefore a medium course is preferable. The leaves, 
which flavour the fruit of the present, and store the sap away in the 
buds for next year’s crop, must be preserved in health until they fall 
and any lack of moisture at the roots not only arrests their functions’ 
but renders them a ready prey to red spider and other evils. When a 
dry heated atmosphere is taking more from the foliage than the roots 
can supply, exhaustion immediately begins. 
Without doubt many cultivators overlook the importance of, and 
the necessity for, closer attention to the requirements of their trees after 
maturing a crop. Their energies are often much distressed in bearing 
and perfecting a heavy crop of fruit. If they do not recover much of 
the strength expended on the latter while yet the foliage is fresh and 
green, when are they to do it? Trees that receive copious supplies of 
water and liquid food in the case of old trees that have settled down 
into a bearing condition, bring up their buds round and plump. Large 
buds mean large flowers, with a stronger union between wood and 
buds, and who ever saw undersized flowers produce fine fruits? 
According to my experience the size and the shape of the future 
fruit is more determined by the treatment trees receive in autumn than 
by the treatment given when the fruit is swelling. An insufficient 
supply of water during the finishing process, or at any time after the 
crop is gathered, endangers the buds in several ways. For example, it 
prevents their being perfectly finished or filled up, and it is well known 
that unfinished buds are those that wither or fall in the early process 
of further development. This check to the root3 may cause the wood 
to contract, and both wood and buds to ripen prematurely, before all 
the delicate organs of fertilisation are properly formed, and if anthers 
and stigmas are not properly formed and developed no attention in the 
spring will make a crop. Trees may be induced by copious waterings 
later on to swell and carry their buds, and at the appointed time 
expand their delicate blossoms, but the flowers are of short duration, 
soft and pale, lacking both size and substance in the petals, and with 
imperfect organs, and pollen fertilisation cannot take place ; fall they 
will, and fall they must. This was clearly proved during the spring 
of last year. Imperfect flowers and a scarcity of pollen were not 
unfrequent, the result of the great heat and long drought of 1887, in 
many cases the water supply falling short, caused the trees to ripen 
prematurely. 
It is during the autumn that root action is most brisk, therefore the 
borders should be kept uniformly moist, and the trees will perfect 
abundance of fruit as well as wood buds. This moist root run favours 
the highest quality of fruit buds and wood. They also so firmly 
strengthen and cement the union between the buds and wood as to 
hold them attached until they are transformed into fruits. 
The behaviour of trees occupying positions directly opposite to each, 
other, with their roots in the same border, clearly proves that other, 
causes besides dryness at the roots produced this evil—viz., grossness, 
and immaturity. Whether this is the result of high living, or from an> 
unsatisfactory condition of the roots, should be best known to those in, 
charge. It is evident that unless the roots prosper the tops cannot, for 
their character and condition largely control top growth and produce. 
Deep rich borders and overfeeding will as surely drive out productive¬ 
ness as starvation will cripple it. The result of this high living is gross 
wood, which fails to ripen or produce flower buds. From such growth, 
wood buds invariably fall. This over-exuberant growth may arise from 
another cause—that is, when the surface roots have perished from 
neglect to supply them with food, consequently the main roots have 
struck downwards to the bottom of the border, and formed but few- 
rootlets. When such is the case growth is always stronger, and the trees- 
have a disposition to grow far into the autumn. Their roots, being out 
of the reach of solar warmth, continue to supply the trees with cold 
crude sap, producing watery shoots, which fail to ripen. From such- 
growth the buds either fall before they expand, or the young fruits do : 
so immediately after the flowers fade. Wood that is not thoroughly 
matured is worse than useless in a tree. It not only lacks the fertility', 
but induces weakness and invites the attacks of mildew and other evils 
most dangerous to the tree. Peach trees in late houses do not always 
ripen their wood and buds sufficiently without the aid of fire heat,, 
especially such varieties as Barrington and the Victoria Nectarine, 
that take a long season to complete their growth. 
Trees that start into growth on the first move of the sap, and 
continue growing late in the autumn, denote an unsatisfactory condition 
of their roots. When such is the case buds will fall, because neither 
wood nor buds are matured. It is here that root-pruning especially 
comes to the aid of the fruit grower, both under glass and in the open! 
air, by enabling him to cut short the period of growth and hasten and 
lengthen that of maturation. Root-pruning increases the number of 
feeders and brings them within the reach of life-giving influences. 
Trees that have been subjected to such treatment during their youth,, 
and have settled down into a bearing condition, scarcely if ever shed 
their buds unless overburdened with fruit or ruined by an excess of 
interference. They are easily maintained in a healthy, fruitful con¬ 
dition, by careful disbudding and summer pruning, producing medium¬ 
sized shoots that are well matured and usually well set with triple buds, 
consisting of a wood bud in the centre with a fruit bud on each side- 
By this system of root-lifting both fertility and the permanent health- 
of the trees are secured. When roots are allowed to work deeply into- 
the border the consequence is the growth is less healthy; red spider takes 
possession of the foliage, it punctures and almost destroys their functions. 
If the fruit does not fall prematurely it is seldom of first-rate quality. 
Therefore this pest by weakening the trees contributes its share to this, 
evil. The consequence of this premature loss of much of their foliage 
is that root-action is greatly checked, and the buds may also be only 
partially formed, for trees that lose their buds before they have fulfilled 
their office must have great difficulty in plumping their buds. 
While the water-pot and syringe are regularly used everything 
usually goes well, but after the houses are cleared of fruit and have the- 
ventilators set open with a drier atmosphere favours the spread of 
spider. In the southern parts of England, where very little difficulty 
| is experienced in ripening the wood, daily syringing is often practised ; 
