December 29, 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
most freedom; I, therefore, do think that it is well to 
allow them a good deal of liberty before putting them 
under a course of training. However, about the begin¬ 
ning of August their fibres near the surface will be¬ 
come occasionally exposed to too much drought; and 
now it is that an earthing may be given : this will coax 
the surface-roots, retain moisture, and kill a crop of 
weeds; besides (though a collateral consideration) con¬ 
stituting a first stage in the blanching process. About 
three inches of the excavated soil may be thus applied, 
using much caution in its introduction. 
Things may thus proceed until the end of the month, 
when they will have attained nearly their full size; and 
now it is that I would have them blanched in earnest. 
Two boards should be used, as in Celery-bed-culture; and 
with one on each side, the leaves of the Leeks first 
well-gathered up, the workman may proceed steadily 
and carefully to introduce some six inches in depth of 
soil. After this there will be little requisite; by the 
early part of October they will be a splendid produce, fit 
for the exhibition table, and equally fit for the cook, who 
will chop them into her broths or soups with little hesita¬ 
tion, tempted by their bold and succulent stems, white 
as the hoar-frost. R. Errington. 
A LESSON ABOUT OLD HOLLIES. 
The last paragraph of the left-hand column, at page 
200, begins thus,—“ The different kinds of pruning are 
intended to produce particular effects on the root of the 
plant.” A very wrong conclusion; the effects of pruning 
are to be looked for rather in the produce, whether it be 
flowers, fruit, or timber. If you want a fine specimen 
Geranium, you “begin by pruning the old plant; the 
crop of flowers which follow will depend more on the 
system of pruning and stopping than on the training of 
the plant, or even the strength of the roots. The 
principal effect of good pruning on a fruit-tree is an 
abundant crop ; the contrary may be the effect produced 
by the unskilful primer, and yet both of them may have 
affected the roots in an equal degree; that is, supposing 
that such primings affected the roots at all. 
That settled, and before I resume the subject of 
“ stopping.” I must refer to the old Holly-tree of Glericus, 
(see page 177), in order to give some practical advice, or 
how he is to deal with it for the next few years, for I 
have more superstition in me about Holly-trees than 
about all other trees put together. I was once well nigh 
shot by the greatest scamp in that part of the country, 
a poacher, for watching a fine grove of young Holly- 
trees, in full berry, from his class and kindred, who 
always paid me some nightly visits before Christmas 
Eve. Since that night, any one having Hollies near a 
church, or round a churchyard, might ask my advice 
respecting their management, and he would have it 
gratis and with good will. 
The Holly-tree by the church of Glericus has a clean 
trunk ten feet high, which girts above four feet half-way 
up; the head of it is of large, heavy limbs, spreading 
wide, but now they are getting bare of young wood, and 
showing other symptoms of old age. The heart-wood 
has been rotting slowly for many years towards the top ; 
but how low dowu decay has advanced, is not easy to 
i say; all we know of it is, that from the time the bark 
gave way, and holes began to appear in the upper part 
of the trunk, the effects of wet and damp air have caused 
more decay in one year than could have been the case 
during ten years from the mere natural decay going on 
under the bark, as a dry covering, in the absence of 
atmospheric influences, and that every year the process 
of decay will now go on with increased effect until the 
holes are stopped in some way or other. Then, with 
respect to the larger boughs in the bead of the tree, if 
237 I 
there is yet sound timber in them to the core, or centre, 
they need not all be removed. Like those of the 
Pollard Oak, it will be sufficient to cut them back as far 
as black wood is found. A very old tree always gives 
way at the extremities first, and decay follows down¬ 
wards by slow degrees; and if it is arrested before it 
has reached the main trunk, or the body of the larger 
branches, so much the better. No more of the large 
branches need be cut than is really necessary to get rid 
of decaying heart-wood ; but every branch and twig 
which grows out of these boughs ought to be cut ofi 
quite close, and with a smooth cut, and the smooth cut 
ought to be painted to keep the wet and air from the 
wood as much as possible. Suppose that one of the 
large boughs is as thick as a man’s thigh, and after 
cutting off' several lengths from the top it was found to 
be in a sound state about the middle of its length, let it 
be cut there with a slanting cut downwards with a saw; 
after that, the slant must be made quite smooth with a 
pruning chisel, and then paint it as securely as a painter 
would do a front door. 
Any oil paint that would secure a door from the 
weather will do for the wound of any tree just as well 
as the best plaster that ever was made. I have used 
plasters of all sorts, and different kinds of paint, and 
even hot tar, to such wounds, with exactly the same 
results; some people say that oil paint is apt to kill a 
tree, but that is far from the truth. I have seen young 
Apple trees, not bigger than a walking-stick, scraped 
and scratched in all directions, and the bark much torn 
off to get rid of the mealy bugs, and after that the 
whole smeared with oil, without the least hurt. I am 
quite certain, on the contrary, that rank train oil is a \ 
good manure, rather than a poison, for plants and 
trees. I have often followed the tract of a rolling ; 
machine on the lawn, where the oil from the axle J 
dripped all along, and made the grass so much greener \ 
than the other parts that you could tell the tracks for a 
whole season after the trickling. White lead or red j 
lead, mixed in oil, will not hurt the stem of a Geranium, | 
much less the stem of a tree; and I know of no appli- j 
cation to a wound made by pruning more simple or I 
effectual than two or three coats of good paint, and I J 
could always so manage that the paint could hardly be i 
seen by adding a little soot or lamp-black to it, and by | 
dusting some dry crumbs of the old bark over the paint 
before it was dry. 
Let Glericus do so to his Holly tree, all over the head, 
about the end of next April, which is the best time to 
cut in the head of that tree; but if it was an Oak or an 
Elm, or almost any of our deciduous trees, the opera¬ 
tion should be early in February, before the rise of 
the sap, otherwise the tree might be half killed by 
bleeding. In no case would I spare any portion of a 
large bough if I found the centre wood to be giving 
way, or even of a very dark colour, this dark colour 
being, in the Holly, the first symptoms of decay; the 
best heart wood of the Portugal Laurel, Alaternus, 
Phillyrea, and others, is always of a dark colour, but 
not that of the Holly. 
After the head of the tree was thus docked, and the 
wounds made by cutting either painted or covered with 
some plaster or another—the kind of paste or plaster is 
immaterial, providing it keeps off the wet weather—I 
would strive hard to clean out us much as possible of 
the rotteu wood from the inside, without cutting away 
any of the live bark, if at all possible; and I would fill 
in the cavity, as much as I could, with some kind of , 
composition that would not be likely to perish soon—a 
concrete of cement, or lime, or chalk, with rough gravel 
or pebbles, would be as good as cement and bricks, 
except the last coat by way of plaster covering, and that 
oimht to be of the best cement, and so finished off' as 
to be quite effectual against all weathers. As to plasters 
