296 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
f April 10, 1890. "3 
perate zone in which the Apple producing districts of America are 
situated has a mean annual temperature of 50°. This mean annual 
temperature, so favourable to Britain, is highly misleading, as it is 
not the mean annual but the summer temperature that influences 
vegetation in the grovrth and perfection of crops, and it is in this 
respect that the American climate is so favourable to fruit trees. 
The severity of the American winter insures complete rest, which 
contributes in no small degree to the vital force and energy of the 
trees. Immunity from damage or destruction of the flowers and 
embryonic fruit is assured by the late spring (without frost) quickly 
passing into summer, and the close of the season or autumn is alike 
favourable to the perfecting of the crops and the maturing of the 
wood and buds as to the gathering and storing of the fruit. The 
winter also favours the keeping of American Apples, for, though the 
cold be 5'9° lower than the mean winter temperature of London, it 
is continuous and dry, not subject to the frequent changes which 
characterise our climate. 
Against those advantages of climate we have as a set-off to place 
our almost absolute immunity from drought and of escape from 
insect ravages, which so militate against American growers that it 
is difficult to make choice of which have least difficulties to contend 
against. The American would no doubt appreciate some of the 
English moisture, so as to secure more juice in the fruit, and we 
should value an insurance of bright late summer and autumn 
weather, with immunity from damage or destruction of crop by 
late spring or early summer frosts, and other uncertainties of 
climate which beset orchardists in insular locations. Everything, 
however, does not depend upon climate. Knowledge and experience 
must result in ascertaining the location and capability of production, 
for though Nature may limit the subject’s adaptability to soil and 
climate, much can be effected by cultivation, acclimatisation, and 
selection, considerably modifying Nature’s inherence, and England, 
from the diversity of its surface, presents advantages to the fruit 
cultivator which, as proved by the excellence of product attending 
skilled and intelligent culture, is alike the envy and admiration of 
all mankind. Indeed it rests upon the barest supposition that the 
progenitors of the race of Apples now grown were introduced at 
various times from the Continent, and were not obtained here as 
direct improvements on the Crab. It is known, however, that even 
the Crab in its wild state evolves by “ natural selection ” into Crab 
Apples, and that though the Crab is indigenous to Britain and all 
the temperate and warmer parts of Europe, it is quite as reasonable 
to suppose that our progenitors were as much awake to their own 
interests as their continental contemporaries. What indeed is the 
Lady Apple or Api but a highly coloured and perfumed Crab, which 
according to the footnote to Dr. Hogg’s description of this Apple, 
“ was first discovered as a wildling in the Forest of Api, in Brittany,” 
and that “ it has been asserted that this Apple was brought from 
Peloponnesus to Kome by Appius Claudius.” Our Golden Pippin 
and Old or Winter Pearmain are not claimed by our continental 
friends, and though claims may be laid to Ribston Pippin, it is 
certain that our present race of Apples are resultant of British 
effort on this or American soil, and that whatever may be due to 
introductions, much more results from improved cultural effort at 
home, alike on this as on the other side of the Atlantic. 
Although Britain is the home of the Apple it is quite clear its 
surface is not equally suitable for the production of the choicest 
and finest fruit. Our specimens as placed on the exhibition table, 
and the choicest of our productions placed in the markets, are 
exceptionally favoured by location (some of it grown under glass), 
soil, and skilled culture. They, in fact, afford no criterion of the 
general produce of gardens and orchards. Everybody knows that 
they are brought together to show what can be effected by 
high-class culture, but they are not representative of the varieties 
grown under conditions that must in the main obtain when grown 
for profit. Of the exhibitors at the Apple Congress in 1883 
how many were growers supplying the market ? Nine-tenths were 
either nurserymen or gentlemen’s gardeners ! Where were the 
growers that place the majority of British Apples in the markets 
to compete with importations ? Truly, they were unrepresented 
directly, though they were to a certain extent indirectly, as some 
of the exhibitors, much to their credit, pronounced some of the 
dishes to be selections from orchards in their respective localities. 
Surely if fruit such as that brought together at the Apple Congress 
and periodically at shows, can be grown by nurserymen and gentle¬ 
men’s gardeners in nursery quarters, and in gardens or adjoining 
orchards, equally fine can be grown by those having the requisite 
knowledge, intelligence, and capital throughout the length and 
breadth of the land. That is the question. Dividing hedges of 
evergreen or deciduous subjects may be of little use in breaking 
the force of gales to an orchard of standards, but they are singularly 
effective in sheltering a plantation of cordon, espalier, bush, or 
pyramid fruit trees. Even should no distinct screen or shelter be 
provided, the trees are grown in such quantities and at sirch dis¬ 
tance as practically to protect themselves from cold biting winds 
in spring and mitigate the severity of gales in autumn. Still, trees 
reared in warm sheltered nooks would not avail the grower for 
sale ; therefore, they are grown in open if not in exposed situa¬ 
tions, with no more shelter than they afford themselves, and as 
such are representative of the suitability of the dwarfing culture 
for general adoption. 
Private gardens afford no characteristic in the exhibits of the 
fitness of varieties for profitable cultivation. Cordon, espalier, 
bush, and pyramid fruit trees have advantage of site, shelter from 
wall, fence, &c., which are not available generally for fruit growing 
for profit. In not a few instances the fruit exhibited is taken from 
trees that are favoured by heat radiated from walls or some singu¬ 
larly warm, sheltering, or heat-retaining agency, veritable sun traps, 
and in not a few instances the fruits are taken from trees against 
walls, fences, or grown under glass. In what way fruits so grown 
afford a criterion of adaptability for general cultivation it is difficult 
to understand. 
Nor is the fruit produced by orchard trees as they are seen in 
gentlemen’s places any safer guide to the would-be planter for 
profit, for such orchards mostly are favoured by site, have special 
sheltering belts of trees on exposed and cold quarters, with the 
additional advantage of a richly wooded park and country asso¬ 
ciated with those establishments. Statesmen, statisticians, econo¬ 
mists of all grades beholding imported Apples flooding and 
commanding the markets, and comparing them with those at their 
and the exhibition table arrive at the conclusion that if such fruits 
as they use and see often can be produced by gardeners, they, or 
similar can be grown by the cottager and farmer. The money- 
expended in imported Apples would, were it, or some of it, to find 
its way to the hardly beset agriculturists materially befriend them. 
The artisan with a bit o’ garden scarcely big enough to “ swing 
a cat round ” plants a tree in defiance of the wind whistling round 
his house or the dividing wail corner, the suburbanist plants cordon 
and bush trees in the wrong place. Those plant for pleasure. 
One fruit of their own growing is valued more than a dozen from 
the market. 
It is different in the country. There the cottager and farmer 
plants with a view to an abundant supply of fruit for household 
purposes and to sell in the adjacent towns. What do we find ? 
The cottager’s garden cumbered with trees, the fruit small, useful 
at home, but not looked at in the markets. The farmer’s orchard 
is a forest of mossy stems, lichen-smothered branches, and thickets 
of twigs—as many dead as living. To complete the picture there 
are a few pollards, canker having eaten their heads off, the fence a 
thickset hedge of Thorn, Briar, Bramble, Sloe, and Plum-wildings, 
Crab, with a strong contingent of Nettles, struggling for the- 
mastery. Yet those trees bear fruits, small and sour, which do not 
pay for gathering. — G. Abbey. 
(To be continued.) 
FLOWER NOTES FROM KIRKCUDBRIGHTSHIRE. 
The Crocuses are nearly over, and their brilliant masses of 
colour are sorely missed in the garden. But the Daffodils are now 
to the fore, and with a moderately sized collection we hope to have 
some in flower until well into June. Among the many species 
and varieties now in flower it is difficult to select a few for mten- 
tion. We find N. scoticus, the Scotch Garland Lily, one of ’the 
earliest here. It was only a day or two later than N. minor, 'and 
opened simultaneously with N. pallidus prsecox var. Asturicus,. 
and has preceded established plants of N. obvallaris by a consider¬ 
able time. The gorgeous Telamonius plenus flowered within a 
day or two of scoticus, and is, despite its being so common, one- 
of our indispensable plants. N. Capax plenus. Queen Anne’s double 
Daffodil, has come well this year, but derives much of its attrac¬ 
tion from the curious formation of its flowers, which, as Parkinson 
so well said, are “ of a pale lemon colour, consisting of six rows- 
of leaves, every row growing smaller than the others- unto the 
middle, and so set and placed that every leafe of the- flbwer doth 
stand directly almost in all, one upon or before another into the- 
middle, where the leaves are smallest, the outermost being the- 
greatest.” 
The beautiful little white trumpet Daffodil, which is said to - 
be N. moschatus of Haworth (not mosehatus of the Dutch, which 
is albicans), is also fully in flower, having opened on March 30th. 
It is undoubtedly a gem in the garden, the purest white of all,, 
and one which should be largely grown on all light soil. Our only 
regret is that we have not more plants, but fortunately it is no-nr 
comparatively low in price. Several of the other trumpet Daffo¬ 
dils are in flower, but N. Burbidgei and some of the i^rri group 
will not be in flower for a day or two. Anemones. ha.ve- been 
