132 
THE FLORIST. 
i 
grown the fruit so large nor do I expect to get Peaches so rosy 
cheeked as those in a full exposure on a neighbouring trellis. 
To restrain what is robust, to stimulate what is weak ;—this is the 
peculiar province of the gardener’s art, and on its due exercise will 
depend much of the success attending fruit tree cultivation. To Mr. Rivers 
we are all much indebted for his labours in this direction; and for his 
continued advocacy of root pruning, a system which originated with the 
late Mr. Beattie, and was long successfully practised by him in Lord 
Mansfield’s garden at Scone, in Perthshire; and it is a system from 
which, if properly performed, the very best results will ever follow To 
Mr. Rivers we owe the system of allowing the roots of trees in pots to 
penetrate through into a properly prepared border underneath, and in 
my estimation this is the very key to the whole mystery which has so 
long been a puzzle to gardeners. The trees thus depend less on the 
continued drenching of the water-pot, nor do they require it, ranging as 
they do almost uninterruptedly in the free soil, consequently the fruit 
is infinitely better flavoured than it can possibly be under any system 
of mere pot management, however well conducted. In olden times 
there was an impression, which I believe was not altogether ill founded, 
that fruit from trees in pots, and more especially Peaches and Nec¬ 
tarines, “ were either sour and insipid,’’ or something “ like a ball of 
worsted ”—“ woolly”—“ and almost destitute of moisture.” 
I do not indulge in the use of dung so freely as many recommend; 
my panacea, alike for fruit-tree borders and fruit-trees in pots, is rotten 
surface loam with a certain admixture of half-inch bones, a plan from 
which I have ever obtained the most satisfactory results ; the roots 
seem to lay hold of this with avidity—the foliage, too, soon assumes, 
under such circumstances, a broad and shining character altogether 
different from trees grown under ordinary circumstances, or gorged 
with a superabundance of farm-yard manure; nor could I better 
illustrate this position than by referring to the practice in a certain 
nursery not quite twenty miles from where I am now writing. I used 
to go there a good many years since to purchase fruit trees, but I never 
could get them to grow satisfactorily ; the wood was gross and spongy 
when they were planted, and with all the coaxing imaginable I failed 
to do much with them. I called there again last autumn, and 
in looking round I carefully examined their stock of fruit trees, re¬ 
marking that their growth was altogether of a different character to what 
I had formerly been in the habit of seeing it. My worthy neighbour 
replied—“ You know the reason. In my poor father’s time a hole 
used to be dug and a large spit of manure put in, on which the stock 
was planted. Now,” he said, “ I find it to my interest to use only 
fresh soil from the common.” Certainly, I never saw a cleaner or 
more healthy stock of fruit trees, and nothing could contrast more 
favourably than they did with the stock grown on the same ground 
some years previously. To Mr. Rivers we are also indebted for 
pointing to the ill effects of plunging fruit-tree pots in the earth. 
Assuredly, they should never be placed there under any circumstances 
whatever, as neither wood nor fruit will attain perfection under such 
conditions. I think, however, that I derived some benefit in the last 
