JUNE. 127 
satisfactory in this neighbourhood. With the single exception of Apples, 
all other hinds of fruit will afford full average crops. 
The cold weather of March kept the Apricots late in coming into flower, 
which was very fortunate, as the weather was favourable to their setting 
after they got fully expanded. In general there was not so much bloom as 
usual this season, and the crop in some places is below the average. The 
crop here is, however, a good average one, the young trees being very full. - 
Peaches and Nectarines are a very heavy crop. There was a great 
bloom, and the weather being mild, they set very thickly—equally well on 
trees fully exposed, as on those under protection. I would here offer a word 
of advice to young gardeners, and that is, not to be afraid to thin the 
fruit well, and rather to leave too few on the trees, than too many. Ten dozen 
fine Peaches are worth' more than twenty dozen small ones ; besides, the 
trees when not overcropped, make better wood for another season. 
Plums are an extraordinary crop. The show of bloom was very fine, 
and the weather was everything that could be wished. They will be very 
low in price this season. Cherries also are a good crop. 
The Apple crop will be much below an average, yet better than could be 
expected when we consider the heavy crop of last season, which so exhausted 
the trees of their organised matter, especially in orchards where no atten 
tion is paid either to pruning the wood or thinning the fruit, that a season 
of rest is indispensably necessary to enable them to store up matter for 
another crop. On young trees that were not overladen with fruit last year, 
there is a fair crop this season. Here we have a very fair crop, though 
taking the whole of the trees it is certainly below an average. Some of them 
have little or no fruit, others have a light crop, and some have a very heavy 
crop, especially the following sorts :— Cockpit, Improved Cockpit, Yorkshire 
Greening, Eibston Pippin, Margil, Ingestrie, Calville, Green Balsam, 
Dumelow’s Seedling, and others too numerous to mention. 
Pears are a good crop, fully an average one, both on standards and 
walls. Some sorts are very heavily cropped. 
Bush fruit is very plentiful, and the trees are looking very healthy and 
clean. Gooseberries and Currants of all kinds, and Baspberries are also 
plentiful. 
The Strawberry crop will be abundant. The plants are looking remark¬ 
ably well and healthy, and are full of blossom. All kinds promise well for 
fruit. I never had Keens’ Seedling fail until 1865, when the failure of the 
Strawberry crop was so general throughout the country. It also failed last 
year. I have a plantation of Keens’, now four years old, from which I ex¬ 
pected a good crop in 1865, but was disappointed, as I was in 1866, when 
the crop was again a failure. I was much inclined to dig them up, but the 
plants looked so strong and vigorous, that I was induced to leave them. 
Now they are one mass of bloom. The crop will be extraordinary. Sir 
Harry, about which so much has been said of late, I have grown nine or ten 
years. I always found it a free grower and great cropper. I never con¬ 
sidered it other than a very coarse fruit, and did not grow it extensively until 
last year. In 1865 it bore me a heavy crop of fruit, and as it stood the long- 
continued hot dry weather on our soil better than any other kind, I was 
induced to plant more of it. Last year the crop was also good, so that here 
it has proved itself a great bearer in seasons when other sorts have failed. 
The British Queen does well here ; I grow it largely. 
From the above remarks it will be seen that the prospect of good fruit 
crops this season is very cheering. Notwithstanding all that has been said 
