12(i 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[November 28. 
to see liis ears clipped, in order to expiate the mischief j 
of which he has been the origin. 
The Black Currant.— It may seem odd to particu- j 
larise this at the present moment, but there is a feature j 
connected with it in oiu - mind’s eye which deserves a 
passing notice. If any one who cultivates this valuable 
fruit by the top-dressing system, as heretofore recom¬ 
mended in these pages, will just examine its root 
action at this period, by merely scraping away a little 
of the “ mulch ” applied last April or May, he will 
find myriads of white fibres apparently in full action. 
These, it will be readily seen, have been called into 
action by the surface dressing, in the absence of that j 
meddling enemy of fruit-trees, the spade. Now, since 
they have been coaxed to the surface, they should not 
be permitted to be checked by the vicissitudes of a severe 
frost, without slight assistance. We suggest, therefore, ; 
what has been long our practice, and that is, that a j 
little old mulchy material be spread over their root sur¬ 
face the moment they are pruned, and this should be 
accomplished forthwith. 
These interesting white fibres are, indeed, a beautiful j 
illustration of the fact, that the sap of many of our deci¬ 
duous fruits, natives of northern climes, is, perhaps, 
never completely at rest, even during the period of the 
greatest dormancy. No sooner is the cellular system of : 
the plant emptied in part of its mere watery surplusage, I 
through the completion of the elaborating period, than ; 
nature at once commences a refilling process, which i 
proceeding, less or more according to circumstances, all , 
through the winter, so changes again the whole system ; 
of the plant, that the buds become impatient to burst I 
with the least excitement of a returning spring. 
Now, it is not worth while to suffer this revivifying 
current to expend itself, in renovating portions of the 
bush about to be pruned away; better by far to husband 
those valuable resources by early pruning; and for this 
reason the black currant, above most of our fruits, claims 
early attention in this respect. This done, and the 
primings cleared away, let a little well decayed mulchy I 
material be spread an inch or two over the surface of! 
the roots. 
Having now dipped into miscellaneous matters con¬ 
nected with out-door gardening, let us advise that all 
wall-trees be immediately examined, in order to draw all 
superfluous or rotten shreds and nails from the trees. 
And in order to effect this completely, any remaining 
leaves left on the trees may be plucked away, or whisked 
off, with a few small twigs. 
We do hope that this will not be thought inconsistent 
advice, seeing that this course has been strenuously 
| opposed in these pages. It is one thing to oppose the 
proceeding in the early part of October, and another to 
recommend it in the end of November. No harm will 
accrue now, and it becomes necessary for system and 
decency’s sake. This carried out, the borders may par¬ 
take of the general cleaning consequent on the fall of 
the leaf, and the removed shreds and nails, being imme¬ 
diately dried, will furnish one item of in-door work for 
the labourer during inclement weather. 
Robert Errixgton. 
THE FLOWER-GARDEN. 
Crataegus. — The Hawthorn. —People who have paid 
little attention to our best selections of flower-garden 
trees, may think that I spoke too favourably of this 
family at the end of my last letter. There could not be 
I a greater mistake. No writer, be his abilities what 
they may, could overrate them; that is, a selection 
of them—just what I am about doing. The late 
Mr. Loudon described, I think, eighty kinds of them, 
and figured more than half that number in his great 
work on the hardy trees and shrubs of Great Britain ; 
and then strained all his iron nerves to spread a know¬ 
ledge and taste for them ; and some dozen or fourteen 
years back much was done to the same effect by giving 
figures of many of them in the Botanical Register; since 
then we have heard very little about them. But if I 
had the poetic vein of Ossian, I could sing their praises 
to the farthest off corner of the three kingdoms. How¬ 
ever, as I am no poet—no, not so much as to whistle a 
tune properly—and as Mr. Loudon’s praises might ap¬ 
pear too highly coloured for sharp thorns, I shall give a 
short quotation from the Botanical Register', so that if 
I lay on the brush a little too much when describing 
any of my own more immediate favourites, I shall 
still be in respectable company. “Eew hardy plants 
are more deserving of general admiration for the neat¬ 
ness of their foliage, the diversity of their manner of 
growing, the beauty of their flowers in the spring, or 
the gay appearance of their numerous richly-coloured 
haws in the autumn, than the various species of the 
genus Crataegus; and yet the) are little known, except 
to the curious collector. They are not very frequently 
seen in gardens, if we except a few varieties of the com¬ 
mon hawthorn; and botanists themselves have paid 
them but little attention. I, therefore, propose to avail 
myself of the circulation of this work for the purpose of 
bringing the subject into more notice, and of showing 
how very well deserving the species of Crataegus are of 
general cultivation : but as they are very much alike in 
flower, and as their strongest claim to be considered 
ornamental plants arises from the beauty of their leaves 
and fruit, it is in the latter state that they will generally 
be represented.” 
I, too, have just proposed to avail myself of the circu¬ 
lation of The Cottage Gardener, which has the largest 
circulation of any work I know, for the self same thing. 
Of all the thorns, that which the greater number of 
persons admire the most while in blossom, is the Scarlet 
thorn. Every one knows a scavlet thorn when he sees it 
in bloom, but not one out of five thousand, even in this 
country, has ever yet seen the lest scarlet thorn, and, 
perhaps, not the second best. If, therefore, a second- 
rate variety of it has been so much admired and spoken 
of, how much more would a splendid first-rate sort be 
run after, if half the world should but know of its exist¬ 
ence—but not to stop here. Suppose we were to learn 
now, for the first time, that the Chinese, or the Chilians, 
were in possession of a dazzling scarlet thorn, and the 
flowers of it were perfectly double, why the one half of 
us would not believe the good news, and the other half 
would be for sending after Mr. Fortune to hunt out the 
prize for us, even if he had to battle with the pirates 
again before lie got possession of it. But, in truth, this 
very double and very Scarlet thorn is at the door of every 
one of us. Every nurseryman of note in the kingdom 
has plenty of it, and to spare, and would, no doubt, sell 
plants not at a guinea a-piece, but at the price of a 
second-rate verbena, and you might buy a dozen of them 
for less money than would be asked for a seedling fancy 
geranium, which may turn out to be not worth a groat 
after the first season or two. The best name to ask for 
it in the nurseries, is The New Double Scarlet Thorn ; 
for if you give it a Latin name, perhaps you may puzzle 
them, and get the double pink for your pains, because it 
has more than one Latin name. Puniuea Jlore pleno is 
the best of its Latin names, Rosea superbaplena, or mul¬ 
tiplex , is the next best; but the best way is not to mul¬ 
tiply or perplex with hard names ; and there is a single 
kind of it, with darker scarlet flowers, which they call 
Punicea , or Rosea superha; and if you buy the one be 
sure and have the other also. They are two of the finest 
flowering trees that will blossom in England next May, 
and yet they are seedlings of the common thorn in the 
hedges; and they prove conclusively that the English 
