1868. ] 
PINE-GROWING : QUICK RETURNS. 
128 
cultivators. I therefore maintain that to build walls for fruit trees, and 
to crop the borders with vegetables, is a great waste of money, and results 
in a continued disappointment to the cultivator. 
The following is what I consider essential in the cultivation of wall 
fruits. For a 10 or 12-feet wall, a border formed of good turfy loam 
0 feet wide and 2 feet deep, and, if the subsoil should be at all wet, with 
a rubble bottom. Brick rubble, with 2 or 8 inches of coal ashes on the top 
to prevent the compost mixing with it,§ forms the best drainage. The 
border should be left entirely to the trees. Top-dressings of decomposed 
leaves, old hotbed manure, and fresh turfy loam should be added whenever 
it is thought necessary; mulching and watering, if required, must be 
attended to during hot dry weather, and lastly, a good canvas screen 
should be used to ward off spring frosts. 
When forming a new garden in 1861, I had the border marked out 
15 feet wide. Of this, 6 feet next to the wall was formed entirely of new 
turf cut from the site of the new garden ; the remaining 9 feet was cropped 
with dwarf-growing vegetables. This was the best arrangement I ever 
adopted. Of course the roots were intended to be kept to the 6-feet border 
by pruning, but this I did not carry out, as I left them to other hands in 
1863. Should I ever have to form another garden, I think I should enclose 
the roots with a 4^-incli brick wall, or perhaps still better by moveable 
slates. In removing a tree at any time, it would be only necessary to take 
out a trench in the border immediately opposite to it, and remove the 
slates, when the tree could be taken out with the greatest facility, and 
without any injury to the roots. 
Oakley Park , Suffolk. W. Bobins. 
PINE-GROWING: QUICK RETURNS. 
)N a communication published in the Florist and Pomologist (p. 53), 
on the cutting-down of Pine plants which miss fruiting, reference 
was made to a system of ripening fruit in^sixteen months after the 
suckers were taken from the parent plants in the ordinary way. 
From another season’s practice I am now convinced that ripe fruit 
can be produced within the twelvemonth from the time the suckers are 
detached from the old stools. 
In the latter part of August, 1867, a quantity of Queen suckers were 
potted immediately the fruit on the parent plants was ripe, and in October 
were shifted into their fruiting pots, and pushed gently on in a bed of tan 
and leaves all winter. In March they were| subjected to increased top 
and bottom heat, and the result is that every one of them is now showing 
fruit. More than this, they are by far the finest “ shows ” on the place, 
coming up red and broad, with strong short stems, as if they would rend 
