THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
! December 8. 
young Potatoes are large as marbles; then one thorough 
! watering may be given—the water tepid, and of a 
manurial character. Two tilings are especially to be 
avoided—“ drawing,” and frost; for the former, ventilate 
i freely; against the latter, provide a good covering. 
R. Errington. 
_ 
RENOVATION OF OLD TREES. 
After all that has been said or done in comparing 
the beautiful tints in the flowers of certain Lily-like 
plants to the female complexion, what does it amount 
to ? Only to the mere fancies of some great authors, 
who have thus evinced their respect for “the jeu cl'esprit 
of a distinguished man,” as Dr. Herbert asserted, long 
since, in reference to Linnseus having fixed on the 
i Bella Donna Lily of the Italian gardens for the type 
plant to represent the Amaryllis of Virgil. Not so, 
1 however, are the labours of those who have written on 
the analogy between a man and a tree. There is, in- 
! deed, a very marked resemblance between men and 
trees, take them how you will. Trees are living beings, 
like ourselves, and they are as susceptible of good or 
bad usage as any of us. They require food, air, light, 
j and warmth, as we do; the earth is their larder, and 
they derive their nourishment from it by the mouths of 
their tubular roots, otherwise called spongioles, as we 
do by other tubes, called lacteals, which convey the 
essence of our food to the lungs, where it is prepared 
for blood and muscle, and for flesh and bone. The 
leaves of trees act the part of lungs, and thence spread 
out the elements of wood and fibre, and all the essen¬ 
tials which complete the system. We say trees are 
“ proud,” and we use certain means to take the pride 
out of them, or to heighten their pride, according as we 
want their lofty-bearing to suit our own purposes. We 
affirm that trees are sulky, and we humour them as 
nurses do a spoilt child. We say they are healthy, or 
they are strong, and we know they carry loads, we also 
say they are not healthy, and we doctor them, and there 
is not a doctor in London who can furnish a case of 
disease in his own practice for which we could not 
produce a similar or analagous case from among trees. 
A tree is as capable of being poisoned as a man; and if 
it takes too much, or gets too little, of the necessaries 
of life, it will tell of the injury by symptoms, just as 
plainly as we can by words. If a big boy knocks his 
thumb against the door-knocker, he may put it into his 
mouth, it is true, but he will have “ a gathering,” and 
he may lose his nail before it is all over. An acci¬ 
dental knock with a hammer kills so much of the bark 
| of a sapling tree, but new bark comes under the bruised 
J part, just as the new nail comes under the old one, and 
the dead bark is cast-off without an effort, but the boy, 
after a while, for want of more patience, pulls off the 
old nail, “ like a man.” A poultice would have brought 
the thumb sooner “ to a head,” and a plaster would 
have the same effect on the injured bark. A young 
man sprains his ankle in a polka, but the doctor, by 
! bandaging and “ keeping him quiet,” puts him on his 
legs again, and his wedding comes off in less than a 
■ month; a sudden twist nearly severs a branch from a 
“ main leader,” and the gardener, by the same means, 
insures a reunion in one growth, that is, by the growth 
of one season. A Russian officer of full age receives a 
“ flesh wound,” deep and dangerous, from an infidel 
Turk, but “ his blood is up,” and his flesh and blood 
come again fresher than before. A clumsy rustic, while 
thinking about his Molly, allows the wheel of his more 
clumsy waggon to “ bark” the tree by the side of the 
gate, but the wound heals up again, though he is none 
the wiser. Here analogy must cease for the present, as 
it is far different from the case of the good old man, for 
when “ the silver cord is loosed, the mourners go about 
the streets.” The pith, or silver cord of the aged tree, j 
yea, the very heart-wood itself, may rot and crumble 
into dust, or go to feed the branches, and still, and yet, j 
dissolution may be afar off. But when the old Yew or | 
Holly, by the side of the church, ceases to put forth 
young wood; when the berries “ are in proportion to 
the leaves as two hundred to one;” when the leaves 
come smaller and much less in number, year by year; 
when they come later, and fall off earlier, than was their 
wont; and when holes, or “ apertures in the upper part 
of the trunk,” denoting a hollow centre, are as manifest 
as the mid-day sun, is it possible to repair the vigour of 
the tree, or to weather off its threatened dissolution ? 
This question has, doubtless, been asked of every 
gardener, of any standing, in the country, but not more 
explicitly, and to the point, than in the subjoined letter 
to The Cottage Gardener :— 
“I am the custos of a large Holly-tree, which I imagine to 
be nearly as old as the church beside which it stands, thus 
carrying back the date of its planting some five or six 
hundred years. No branches have been allowed to grow 
from it nearer the ground than ten feet. Its head is very 
large, but has latterly made so little wood, and become so 
denuded of leaves, as to betoken great weakness, if not 
decay. The berries which it produces this year, in pro¬ 
portion to the leaves, are as two hundred to one. 
“ The extremities of the branches undergo a considerable 
clipping every Christmas. Would you recommend, in pre¬ 
ference, that some of the larger limbs be taken out? 
“ There are one or two small apertures in the upper part 
of the trunk, which, perhaps, admit some quantity of rain, 
and so cause decay. With what material might they best 
be closed ? 
“ The circumference of the tree, at four feet from the 
ground, is four feet nine inches. 
“ As I am very anxious to infuse fresh vigour into this 
much-admired piece of antiquity, I shall look for your 
advice with much interest.—C lericus." 
That trees have the power to heal over large wounds 
made in them, by accident or by design, is a fact that 
has been known, and that has never been disputed, for 
ages. Grafting and ringing fruit-trees are familiar pro- j 
cesses founded on such knowledge, but the way in which 
new wood is formed to cover old wounds, has been a 
point in dispute ever since the formation of wood has 
been admitted as a branch of science, or rather, as part of 
that branch of science called vegetable pliisiology. The 
oldest and best known case in this country, relative to 
that dispute, is Mr. Knight’s explanation of a theory or 
hypothesis set forth by Mr. Forsyth, gardener to George 
the Third, about a discovery he made, or believed he 
made, for renewing old and worn-out fruit-trees,, by so 
operating upon them, as to cause new wood to be made 
to cover old parts, and, as a consequence, the growth of 
young, healthy branches from the new wood so pro¬ 
duced. Mr. Forsyth was on the right scent; his old 
trees did certainly make new wood, and deep wounds or 
cankered parts were cased over by it, as he said, and as 
a parliamentary committee affirmed, but his explanation 
of the way in which the new wood was made was 
entirely wrong, or was, at least, voted as such, and the 
error, the “ disputed point,” as explained by Mr. 
Knight, cost the King’s gardener just 111,500. Par¬ 
liament had voted .£3,000 for the discovery, and this i 
brought a hornet’s uest about their ears, as the story 
goes, and the upshot was, that only one-half of the 
grant was paid to the discoverer. Mr. Forsyth invented 
a kind of plaster—the ingredients I forget, except the 
cow-dung and the dust from old dry mortar, or ground, 
or burnt bones—and he believed that this plaster would ( 
cause new wood to grow over any part of a tree, as it : 
were, of itself, just as some country people believe, to 
this day, that certain plasters are the sole cause of 
healing bad wounds; thus putting cause for effect. 
