254 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ November, 
This plant alone is, I think, calculated, not only to beautify, but to change 
completely the aspect of our home lake scenery, as it imparts a colour and 
character that no other plant which we at present possess can give ; and which 
is so much needed to relieve the monotony too often observable on the banks of 
our lakes at the present day. There is, unfortunately, a general impression that 
it is somewhat tender, and some persons may imagine it would not thrive in the 
situations mentioned ; but allow me to assure them it will do so, and even in 
muddy deposits, elevated only a few inches above the water. 
Those of your readers who have witnessed a mass of it in blossom may in 
some measure realize what the effect is in such positions ; and to those who 
have not seen it, allow me to say, lose no time in introducing largely a plant so 
admirably suited for the purpose.— Thomas Challis, Wilton. 
FRUIT-TREE MANAGEMENT. 
Keeping the Roots near Home. 
« REMEMBER once reading an Irish tale of a child and a pig that used to 
breakfast together out of the same pot. The tale went that when the pig 
f encroached on the boy, he used to pat its snout with the back of his spoon, 
and tell piggy to keep its own side. It occurs to me that were the roots 
of trees endowed with speech, they might often be inclined to give some such 
advice to each other,—Keep your own side. This would suit most trees, perhaps, 
better than the indiscriminate commingling now so general. In many fruit-tree 
borders the race is to the swift and the victory to the strong. Those roots that 
grow fastest consume the lion’s share of the food supplies, and the weakest 
roots are left to be pinched smaller still, or starved outright. All this is inevit¬ 
able in a state of nature. The survival of the fittest is the inevitable law ; and 
the fittest in this sense are the strongest, or those that can best take care of them¬ 
selves. But within the domain of art all this ought to be modified. We have, 
however, heard so much and so often of its being the business of cultural art -to 
imitate, to help, to study nature, that we are apt to forget that a higher form of 
art than any of these may send us forth at times to curb the erratic tendencies 
or modify the force of natural laws. 
Were plant life a uniform constant quantity, each fruit tree, for instance, being 
placed under the same conditions, endowed with the same amount of vital force, 
our cultural mission would be one of the easiest possible. We should only have 
to treat all the same, and reap the same weight of produce from equal areas of 
space. But our business is the very reverse of all this. Each plant is, as it were, a 
separate kingdom, to be guided, governed, and treated separately and specially; 
and it is in these special minutiae of treatment to individual plants, that the great 
results of success or failure are mostly reaped. Little things, as Mr. Loudon 
used to put it, make the great gardeners. This ought to be written in letters 
of gold in sight of every cultivator, old and young. 
