December 12.] 
THE COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 
163 
Besides the Scarlet Horse-chestnut, there is another 
dwarf chestnut called the Bed-flowering Pavia, P. rubi- 
cunda, which is, perhaps, the next best of these dwarf 
sorts, but the flowers aro not nearly so showy as those 
of the above two. The stamens of rubicunda do not 
project beyond the blossom, and the colour is rather 
( dingy, but still it is a very nice little tree for a select 
collection, and there are tln-ee or more slight varieties of 
it, all very pretty, having glossy leaves growing in fives 
from one footstalk, like the five fingers of the hand from 
one wrist; and this style of growth they call palmate — 
another way of expressing the palm of the hand, al- 
i though the botanical hand or palm is not confined to 
' five fingers or leaves; the common Horse-chestnut 
having seven, and the middle one the biggest—as with 
j the fingers. 
Except it were for variety’s sake, I would be content 
with these, but there are several others of them distin¬ 
guished by their heights, leaves, and flowers; of the 
latter they cannot boast much, only milk-and-water 
or wine-and-water-looking things, unless there are newer 
ones which I do not know. As they are not bad things 
to graft or bud, one might try half a dozen sorts on 
one tree, and the scarlet would be the best to graft them 
on. Keeping them up near the top that they might 
have the advantage of sun and air, the Horse-chestnut 
itself would make the next best tree to work on. All 
kinds of chestnuts require the same way of pruning, as 
they flower the same way on the top of the shoots made 
the year before, or, as we gardeners say, “ on last year’s 
wood.” This is the way the peach-trees flower, there¬ 
fore one might reasonably suppose the same way of 
pruning would answer for the two sorts of trees, but that 
is far from being the case; two very different ways of 
pruning are necessary; but I am not aware of a single 
author or book in the English language which explains 
the pruning of chestnuts, except for timber trees. I 
have had so many questions about how such and such 
things ought to be pruned, that I am sure people do not 
understand our gardening terms or rules on pruning, 
unless they are explained in the simplest language one 
can use. To say briefly that such a tree or bush ought to 
be cut in this or that fashion, without giving the reason 
for the process, is almost as bad as advising one to cut 
bis neighbour’s ears in a particular way, without giving 
any reason for the attack. 
This tribe of Chestnuts and Pavias, to distinguish 
them from the Spanish Chestnuts, the Fagus of Virgil, 
bear their flowers on spikes at the end of the branches, 
as we have just seen; and we are supposed to be pruning 
them to increase tire number of their flowers only, 
without reference to the fruit. Every spike of flowers 
which will open next May, is now to be seen in the j 
shape of “ a fruit bud,” as the fruiterer says—as if fruit i 
sprang from buds instead of from flower-buds; and if 
you cut an inch this winter, or any winter, from a chest- ] 
nut shoot that is to flower next year, you shall have no 
flowers from that shoot to send to the exhibition of 1851, ' 
because with the top inch of the shoot you carry off the 
flower-bud. Now, here is a ticklish question, for from 
this simple rule of not cutting off just one inch we 
are prohibited from cutting at all, or else forego for one 
year the pleasure of seeing our plant in bloom ; so that if 
we are to prune one of these dwarf chestnuts and still 
expect a complement of flowers, we ought to have two 
plants of a sort, or else fall on a scheme by which to 
secure the requisite pruning, and still have as many 
spikes of flowers as the tree can bear to carry. There is 
not another fruit-tree or bush in the garden but you may 
prune from September to February, except the dwarf 
chestnuts. The proper time to prune it yearly, is just 
when the flowers begin to fade, and then the strongest 
branches all over the head ought to be pruned back to 
. two or three joints, and if you cut to the last joint of the 
yoiuxg wood of the previous season, you will have two 
shoots instead of one, as the buds are in opposite pairs 
in this family. There arc not many flower-garden trees 
or shrubs which come in under this rule of pruning, yet 
it is a distinct rule, founded on a natural law, and, 
therefore, can not be violated with impunity. The other 
rule I gave for cutting thorns, so as to keep them free 
from too many shoots, is, like this one, hardly ever men¬ 
tioned in books, and that is one reason why I began 
these papers with two families requiring rules not re¬ 
gularly applied in practice, if even well understood 
amongst ourselves. My next class will exhibit a third 
rule, a natural one, that is seldom seen in books, though 
practised every year by most gardeners. 
There is one plant, or rather a small genus of plants, 
which, more than any other, shows the necessity of this 
third style of peculiar pruning, and that plant is Deutzia; 
and when managed properly is a very desirable plant, 
with immense quantities of white flowers in May, and 
is one of the easiest to force into early bloom. It 
belongs to a very small Natural order called Syringas 
(Philadelphiaceae). It flowers on long slender shoots 
made last year, not at the very end of the shoot as with 
the cliesnuts, but all the way up from near the bottom 
of each shoot. The Spiraas are the next nearest in 
their way of flowering. The Syringas should be pruned 
in summer only, and just as they are going out of 
bloom; and all of them, that I know, flower early in 
summer, except Philadelphus Gordonianus, which blooms 
in July. But first of all let us refer to Deutzia scabra, a 
Japan shrub now common in most gardens. The young 
shoots of this plant never flower well after the first crop, 
but throw up a fresh lot of young shoots from the bottom 
of the flowering ones to bloom the following season; 
therefore, it stands to reason, that leaving the shoots after 
they once flower can do no good to the plant, but may 
do harm by crowding the others, and thus depriving 
them from more sun and air. Prune them back, then, 
to the nearest young shoot which is now—say the end 
of May—coming up strong from below the flowering 
part, and this must throw more strength into the young 
ones, besides giving them more room; and so manage 
all the Syringas , and so also with Philadelphus Gordo¬ 
nianus, even in July. Do not wait till next winter, but 
relieve the plant of its then-going-out-of-flower shoots. 
Scabra is the only Deutsia that I can recommend for a 
select collection, and of the Phtladelphiads, coronarius, 
or the old Syringa, or Mock Orange, and Gordonianus 
are the best two, and should be in every collection. 
verrucosa, or warted, and latifolius, or broad-leaved, are 
the next best couple; but all of them are sadly mis¬ 
managed by leaving them unpruned till winter in most 
gardens. The bushes get so crowded with little twiggy 
shoots, smothering each other so, that one out of ten of 
them are never seen to flower half so fine as they are 
capable of doing if pruned and kept thin of sprawling 
shoots in summer. There is another section of Philadel¬ 
phus with quite a small style of growth, and witli flowers 
sparingly produced in proportion. One from Mexico, 
called Mexicanus, gives a good example of this section; 
and here there is one reared from seeds sent to Sir W. 
Middleton by Viscount Hardinge from the north of 
India, which has not flowered yet, but looks much like 
the Mexican plant. The largest flowering of this small 
growing section is a North American one called hir- 
sutus, or hairv,—the leaves being clothed with small 
hairs. This flowers about the same time as P. Gordo¬ 
nianus-, and if the two were crossed carefully, they 
would probably furnish an improved race that would 
bloom in July, after all the others were over. Mexi¬ 
canus and our old Syringa would also furnish a most 
useful cross, which would come in famously for forcing, 
and be fair rivals to Deutzia in that respect. Indeed, if 
all had been as it should have been, this cross might 
