132 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
tedious affair; too much so, I fancy, for any one to care to be their own 
propagator now healthy well-established plants can be obtained for a trifle. 
The cuttings are some considerable time over emitting roots, and are very apt 
to suffer from the necessary confinement, and damp off. Those, however, who 
desire to propagate for themselves will, with careful attention, patience, and 
the treatment required of greenhouse liardwooded plants, generally succeed ; 
and if cuttings of IT. tulipifera can be taken from a dead plant just before the 
points used begin to droop their leaves, these will be much less liable to damp 
off than sappy cuttings taken from a healthy plant. 
I will add that I have never lost a plant of H. tulipifera save by the decay 
of the bark at the collar ; and this has invariably occurred when I have been 
keeping the plant rather closer and moister than usual, and has been caused, in 
my opinion, by mildew. Hence I have recommended repotting during cool 
weather; and I intend to keep the collars of my plants of this coated with 
sulphur, mixed with a little cowdung and lime, to cause it to adhere, and hope, 
by this means, to prevent their going off in this way. 
It is generally said that there are too varieties of tulipifera in cultivation, 
one having narrower and more pointed leaves, and smaller and less distinctly 
marked flowers than the other. This may be, and, if so, cultivators should 
select their own plants. But I expect treatment has much to do with causing 
the difference in foliage, &c. At all events I have bought several plants, and 
have never had but one variety. 
Abney Hall. J. Smith. 
OUR FRUIT CROPS. 
In general it is only every alternate year that we have a good crop of fruit; 
it is very rarely indeed that we have good crops two consecutive seasons. This 
is owing, as all good gardeners know, to the excessive crops which the trees, 
the beamnej year, are allowed to produce, and by which they are exhausted of 
the organisable matter, so that a season of rest is necessary to recover and 
collect a sufficient supply again to form fruit-buds. One w r ould think the 
knowledge of this fact would lead people to give some attention to the 
management of their fruit trees, and the timely and proper thinning of their 
crops. When trees are properly pruued, and the young fruit well thinned 
when in a young state, so that only enough is left for a moderate crop, there is 
almost a certainty of getting every season, except, of course, extraordinary 
ones, crops of fine fruit—very different as regards size, flavour, and value from 
the fruit that come off trees that bear a heavy crop. A very erroneous 
notion prevails to some extent—namely, that a good fruit crop is dependant on 
fine weather in spring. That fine weather is very favourable for the setting of 
fruit there is not the least doubt of ; but if the trees have been allowed to bear 
an excessive crop the previous year, and pruning has been neglected, no matter 
how fine the weather may be, it is vain to expect a crop of fruit. If people 
would only pay the necessary attention to pruning, particularly spur-pruning, 
and to the thinning of the blossoms or the young fruit, they w'ould get 
moderate crops of fine fruit nine seasons out of ten. The bearing year of a 
single tree or a whole orchard may be changed by picking off the blossom or 
the whole of the fruit when young. I have repeatedly pinched off the 
blossom of trees, and invariably they have formed blossom-buds and borne 
fruit the following season. There are some old Apple trees in the gardens 
here which only bear fruit every alternate year—one year a heavy crop, the 
following year a total failure; and this has occurred regularly for the last six- 
