DECEMBER. 
267 
pots will, at any rate, do well to commence with. October, November, and 
December are the best months for potting trees; they may indeed be potted 
till March, but then no fruit must be expected the first season. If fruit¬ 
bearing trees grown in pots have been procured, they cannot be potted too 
early in October. 
“If you examine an 11-inch pot, you will find it 8 inches across at the 
bottom, and the aperture from 1 inch to inch in diameter. Take a light 
hammer, and enlarge this aperture to 5 inches in diameter ; * then place four 
or five large pieces of broken pots or tiles across, so that they rest on the 
inside ledge left by the hammer, leaving interstices for the free emission of 
roots. On these place some of the most lumpy part of your compost; then 
your tree, not too deep, but so that the upper parts of its roots are a little 
below the rim of the pot: if it has a ball of earth, loosen it. Fill up with 
compost; ram the earth down firmly, as you fill, with a stout blunt-pointed 
stick. Place it on the border where it is to grow during the summer ; give it 
two or three gallons of water, with a top-dressing of some manure to lie loosely 
on the surface, and the operation is finished.” 
The compost which Mr. Ptivers recommends for the Apricot and all other 
fruit trees in pots, is the top spit of a tenacious loamy soil, exposed to the air 
for two or three months in summer, two-thirds, chopped and well mixed with 
one-third rotten manure. He states that the result of his latest experience is, 
that the addition of calcareous matter to the compost is necessary in the cul¬ 
tivation of stone fruits, and if not necessary, most beneficial to all kinds of 
fruit trees ; and to the circumstance of his soil containing a considerable per¬ 
centage of finely comminuted chalk, he attributes a portion of his great 
success. To Apricots, in particular, he believes calcareous matter to be indis¬ 
pensable, and recommends it to be mixed with the compost in the shape of 
finely powdered chalk or lime rubbish in the proportion of one-tenth. 
As regards pruning, the following are his revised directions:— 
“ We will suppose that our tree, a nice dwarf bush, with five, six, or seven 
branches,! is potted. It may rest till February, and then be pruned: a 
pleasant simple operation, the performance of which is more easily shown than 
described. I may as well now state, that the pruning recommended here for 
Apricots will serve for all bush fruit trees under orchard-house culture, except 
Peaches, Nectarines, and Figs. Each branch must be shortened with a sharp 
knife to 10 inches : these shortened branches will form the foundation of a 
nice regularly-shaped bush. In May each branch will put forth three or four 
shoots: all of these but the topmost one, as soon as they have made seven 
leaves must be pinched off to within five full-sized leaves of their bases: they 
will form fruit-bearing spurs. These will continue all through the summer to 
make fresh shoots, which must always be pinched off to five leaves. The lead¬ 
ing shoots, which will make vigorous growth, should have their tops pinched 
off* to seven leaves when they have made nine or ten leaves ; and when young 
shoots break forth from these pinched shoots, they should again and again be 
pinched to five full-sized leaves. In other words, if every young shoot has its 
top pinched off as soon as it has grown 5 inches, and this all through the 
summer, it will be safe practice. The summer is past; the month of October 
is with us. The tree has ceased to grow ; its shoots are ripe ; it must be put 
to rest for the winter by lifting up the pot, and cutting off closely every root 
that has made its way into the border : it is then ready for its top-dressing, the 
method of giving which I shall describe further on. 
* I now have ray pots made with five holes, each It inch in diameter. In remote places, where 
these cannot he procured, the enlarged holes may be used. 
+ If a tree with only three or four branches is potted, they must be cut in to 4 inches ; and the 
tree must have a season’s growth to form itself. 
