198 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ September, 
they may possess, and which previously lay recumbent on the ground, should be 
divested of all decayed portions or litter, and be neatly tied up to small thin 
stakes, arranging them according to their length and number. Place them forth¬ 
with in a cold frame, or under a tolerably air-tight hand-glass, and keep them 
periodically sprinkled with water overhead for a week or so, when it will be safe 
to again commence air-giving, which should be done by degrees, so that in a 
fortnight or so the lights may be removed altogether. They will need no more 
potting; "but if they are maintained in such a position as that described above, and 
receive winter treatment such as Cape Pelargoniums need, they will bloom most 
abundantly towards the month of March, when they will prove acceptable, as 
they are not only sweet, but showy.— William Earley, Valentines. 
TRANSPLANTING FRUIT-TREES. 
HERE are few individuals engaged in gardening or other rural pursuits who 
y) need to be told that the proper season for planting deciduous trees and 
shrubs, including our hardy fruits, is from the time of the leaf-fail until 
that in which the buds are about to swell in spring. Yet from what we 
frequently see in practice, it would appear that comparatively little account is 
taken of the very great difference resulting from early autumn versus spring 
planting, more especially as regards fruit-trees. How often do we find—even 
where a system more in accordance with intelligent observation might have been 
expected—-the planting or removal of fruit-trees deferred until long after the 
commencement of the new year, very frequently till the buds have begun to 
swell! And yet, even in the case of small trees of the size usually procurable 
from the nurseries, where their removal is thus delayed, they generally make so 
little growth the following summer that a season may be looked upon as lost, and 
frequently the effects of this late removal may be traced in the second year. If 
the trees to be transferred are large, and more especially if they have been long 
in the place from whence they are to be removed, and are transplanted without 
any preparation in the shape of cutting-back the strongest roots the year previous, 
the consequences of late planting are generally such that many die outright, or 
linger for years in a debilitated, sickly condition, making little growth, and each 
succeeding year are a prey to red-spider and other insect pests. 
Through experiments I made many years ago in root-pruning, at different 
periods of the dormant season, I saw fully the effects of cutting the roots of 
fruit-trees that were in a strong-growing state, and that had been undisturbed 
for some years, even to no greater extent than this operation is usually carried 
to. Strong-growing young trees of the Bedfordshire Foundling and Alfriston 
Apples, when moderately root-pruned the first day in March, did not make shoots 
an inch long during the following summer, and were so weak as not to set a 
single fruit-bud. The next year they were a little better, but it was not until 
the fourth season that they formed fruit-buds in sufficient quantities, and every 
summer would have been devoured with red-spider, had they not been well 
