182 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ August, 
growth is by far too vigorous; they may be planted as bushes, and nothing in 
fruit culture is more beautiful than a Pear tree the size of a Gooseberry bush full 
of large fruit; four feet apart for bushes, and six feet apart for pyramids, will be 
perfect culture. 
Plums. —Next to the apple, the Plum is the most valuable domestic fruit, 
for it may be preserved all the winter without sugar or any expense, till Plums 
are again ready. The trees may be planted six feet apart, and if, as is the case 
with some soils, they make a vigorous growth without bearing fruit, the trees 
should be taken up early in November and replanted in the same place. If large 
trees are required, pyramidal Plums may be thinned out so as to stand twelve feet 
apart; their produce here by this course is something to wonder at; my trees are 
twenty years old. Pruning in all these cases must be that recommended for Apples. 
In these short and rough notes, I have given, I trust, enough to guide those 
who wish to make their fruit gardens profitable. The taste for good fruit is 
every year increasing, and it seems as if there would always be a profitable sale 
for healthy fruit. I have only to note that, in the first week of August 1870, 
from 1,000 to 2,000 of my Early Prolific Plums could have been sold in Covent 
Garden at a remunerative price ; we had not a full crop, but a few hundreds of 
baskets sent up made me wish for more. 
A few words as to market-garden planting will, I think, do good, and I give 
them as axioms:—Do not plant many varieties, but find out by trial, f.e., 
planting several sorts, one tree of each sort, and closely observe them, and if you 
find one or two or three sorts more prolific than others, plant from fifty to five 
hundred of such a sort. About thirty years since, I found that one tree of Louis 
Bonne Pear bore a crop when some hundreds of sorts failed. Our plantation of 
this sort on Quince stocks, for fruit for market, is now 5,000 trees. And again, my 
Early Rivers or Early Prolific Plum is so popular, that our plantation of bearing 
pyramids is now nearly 5,000. Of new Pears for market, Madame Trevve is a 
great bearer, and most excellent Pear; Bearre de l’Assomption is large and good ; 
Beurre Bachelier, Beurre Clairgeau, Beurre d’Amanlis, and Doyenne du Comice 
are good market Pears. . Of Plums, Prince Engelbert, Belgian Purple, Reine 
Claude de Bavay, Angelina Burdett, Early Orleans, and Belle de Septembre may 
be planted as pyramids six feet apart with great advantage. I ought to mention 
here, that my plantation of Apple trees three feet apart is now ten years old and 
in full bearing, as are my Louise Bonne Pears, five years old, also three feet apart. 
SOILS FOR POT PLANTS.—No. I. 
fffp-EW things are of greater importance in the cultivation of plants, or more 
dllir conducive to success, than the proper selection, harvesting, and prepara- 
W tion of soils. We are therefore glad to be able to publish an abstract 
■ of some useful remarks on this subject, by Mr. W. P. Ayres, whose name 
has long been associated with the successful cultivation of plants :— 
