20 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
October IB. 
| the part of this Society as may lead to the enlargement 
j of the Geese and Turkey classes, both of which should 
include old and young birds separately, the task of 
I criticism is now complete. 
j Mr. Fox’s young Shangliaes and Spanish Eowls at this 
sale, on the 5 th instant, by Mr. Stafford, at the Baker- 
street Bazaar, were not of that high character generally 
that we expected from our previous knowledge of his 
stock birds. There were 124 lots of Shangliaes, and 30 
of Spanish; but only 79 lots of the former were sold, 
and 32 lots of the Spanish. 
The best Shanghae cock (Lot 17) was bought in. 
One of his sons (Lot 11) sold for £5 5s. A buff pullet 
(Lot 12), commended at Yarmouth and Bury St. Ed¬ 
mund’s, £4 15s. A buff hen (Stainton’s breed—Lot 
20), £5 10s. Buff hen (Lot 31), bred by Mr. Andrews, 
£5 10s. Silver cinnamon hen, sister to Mrs. George’s 
“Annie” (Lot 34), £6 15s. Black hen, first prize at 
Bury St. Edmund’s (Lot 39), £6. 
Of the Spanish (Lot 125), a prize cock, £4; (Lot 
120), prize hen, £3 15s; (Lot 130), prize cock, £5 5s. 
Altogether, the 79 lots of Shangliaes fetched about 
£122; and the 32 lots of Spanish about £38. 
PEACHES AND NECTARINES OUT-OF-DOORS. 
If we may judge by the complaints so frequently 
recurring about failures in these fruits, we may at once 
infer that their culture is very imperfectly understood 
or much neglected. That much ill-success attends their j 
culture, not only north but south, is sufficiently attested 
by the fact, that the question of the necessity for pro¬ 
viding glazed .structures and heated walls is a growing 
question. 
Now, it really does seem to me extraordinary to find 
men eminent in other branches of their profession, yet 
incapable of carrying out good Peach-culture. When 
first I set foot in the gardens here, I was gravely told 
by the steward, that “ it was little use trying to grow 
Peaches, for they never lasted above three or four years; 
they decayed prematurely, and nobody could tell why.” 
This seemed to me very odd; but I by no means placed 
implicit reliance in the inference, although an opinion 
not held by the steward alone, but by most of those who 
j had known the gardens for a long period. I found most ! 
j of the walls hollow within, full of fiues, which had 
not received fire heat for some years—probably given 
up in despair. These fiues exist to this day, and form 
admirable runs for the rats ; ferrets have no chance up 
their almost interminable avenues. 
On destroying or removing some of these trees, I 
found that borders of six or eight feet had been formed 
! for them, and immense quantities of slate, marl, and 
manure lie buried beneath them ; soil, in fact, too gross 
for Cabbages or Celery. On borders thus constituted, 
, I found, indeed, that the old steward was nearly right; 
the trees used to canker and blotch, and die at the 
points, as though they were poisoned. Those which 
had attained a little age were crowned at some of the 
extremities with a tuft of leaves and some poor fruit, 
whilst the main stems were bare as walking-sticks. Up 
; to this period, my ideas of Peach-culture were much like 
those of everybody else, excepting that 1 had long been 
! possessed with the notion that there was something 
I radically wrong in the culture of most of our fruits, 
especially those from hotter climates. About this period, 
appeared some very searching and substantial papers in 
“ Loudon’s Magazine,” drawing pointed attention to the 
subject, and showing forth glaring errors. Amongst 
these, a Mr. Robert flivers stood pre-eminent; he broke 
through all trammels, and went immediately to the root 
of the question. Who this man of sound and fresh 
views was I never could learn; but I remember regret¬ 
ting much that he never took pen in hand again. How¬ 
ever, this paper led to afresh train of ideas; it broke 
the manacles which had so long bound us to deep and 
rich borders, to close spurring, and other matters, which, 
instead of assisting nature, attempt to thwart her; and, 
I have no doubt, that scores besides myself, if they will 
be candid, will confess that they took their cue from 
that bold and simple paper. Henceforward, with me, 
a deep and rich border was an abomination; and 
although, in my first attempts to apply opposite prin¬ 
ciples, I very naturally went to an extreme, in a few 
cases, yet these served further still to illustrate the 
principles on which fruit-bearing habits depended, as 
opposed in some degree to grossness and luxuriance. 
It was found, however, in the Peach and Nectarine, 
that in order to command a sound and enduring tree, it 
was necessary to have a certain depth of sound loamy 
soil, from eighteen to about twenty-four inches; but 
there immediately arose the question of what relation 
should this bear to the ground level? Although pre¬ 
viously a neglected subject, I was persuaded that much 
importance attached to this point. It appeared plain to 
me, that a degree of drought, or, rather, a somewhat 
dry and mellow condition of root was necessary at 
certain periods during the summer; but that even if 
this should not prove tenable ground, an immunity 
from stagnation must at least be secured, and that this, 
in certain localities, could scarcely be effected by placing 
the volume of prepared compost on a common level 
w r ith the adjacent soil. 
In following out such practices, I soon found that a 
much more moderate amount of soil would suffice than 
our old wholesale border-maker had been accustomed 
to ; and that, by consequence, the production of Peaches 
and Nectarines had been long rendered a much more 
costly affair than was by any means convenient; and 
not only costly, but precarious. This led to the idea of 
preparing “stations” for them; that is to say, a defi¬ 
nite and given plot of ground, which they could call 
their own ; and which, from their definiteness and duly 
apportioned extent as to the need of the tree, would at 
all times throw open the surrounding portion of the 
border for any cultural operations necessary; and not 
only this, but as a guide and limit to the operations of 
the root-pruner, should his services become requisite. 
Here then, as far as I could discover, lay every re¬ 
quisite lor successful root-culture, with the exception of 
surface-dressing, which may be considered an extra¬ 
neous affair. And surely, when our friends consider 
this question fairly, they will very naturally conclude, 
that if such common crops as Cabbages and Cauli¬ 
flowers require some degree of root-culture, it is not 
fair to deny it to a Peach or a Nectarine. As for the 
mode in which such arrangements act on the well-being 
of the tree, it would take too much space to tell the 
tale; as by a very long article in the Horticultural So¬ 
ciety's Journal, by Monsieur Alexis Lepere, which article 
has occupied many pages in two or three Nos. This 
French method, to me, appears overwrought in every 
respect: not one gardener in a hundred, take England 
through, can fathom out such tedious processes in con¬ 
nection with the demand on labour which at present 
exists; and, indeed, neither is there occasion for such 
niceties. The article alluded to, however, handles, in 
the most elaborate way, the modes of pruning, stopping, 
thinning, &c.; including, of course, all branch-manage- 
