102 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
June 15. 
the second-class shoots as may he, pinching, under the 
above circumstances, may he resorted to. Thus—a strong 
growth in the chief leader being pinched before Mid¬ 
summer, and after considerable growth, may be made to 
develop several side-shoots, and these may he secured 
as second-class branches, liy* leading them -out on the 
north and south lines of the table. It is not necessary 
that they spring from a given point by measurement, an 
inch or two is quite immaterial here ; we cannot afford 
to he so extremely nice, such nicety warring against 
quick return, which really must not he lost*sight of. If 
a second-class shoot springs a few inches short of the 
point, or beyond it, where we wish to carry it perma¬ 
nently, we simply tie it down on the primary east or 
west main leader, until it reaches the desired point, 
when, of course, it is at once conducted north and south. 
It certainly is not easy to convey an off-hand and 
correct idea of the procedure to one not well versed in 
gardening practices; but I advise those desirous of 
carrying out such a system, to well distinguish, before 
setting out, between primary and secondary branches. 
This done, all the subsequent operations arc confined to 
the mere spray, which is tied down on the branches, 
and which, as before observed, require a severe cross- 
examination once in two or three years. 
I find, now, that 1 cannot do full justice to the head¬ 
ings I selected, in order to illustrate the training matter, 
and I must, therefore, waive Nos. 4, 5, and (>, until my 
next paper; in the mean time, I will offer a few general 
remarks, which will tend to simplify and to generalise 
the subject to thoso who prefer such to the minutuo of 
detail. 
It will be remembered, doubtless, that I have gene¬ 
rally been an advocate for a soil of very moderate 
richness for the Pear; but our readers must learn to 
distinguish carefully here. A tree planted on a 
“ station,” may be so situated, as that although the 
chief volume of the soil is what some people call poor, 
or, in other words, a simple loam or compost totally 
devoid of manure—yet, that in the act of planting, the 
operator may have so managed matters as to use a 
highly enriching or stimulating medium; in the imme¬ 
diate vicinity of the early-formed fibres. This is the 
course I recommend in all cases, where, by pursuipg a 
highly systematic, course of training, more time is of 
necessity lost thanrin leaving a tree to Nature. Under 
such circumstances, a tree may, by pinching, be made to 
furnish double the amount of trellis that it would under 
ordinary circumstances; and the object oucc attained 
of getting a good deal of trellis covered in as little time 
as possible, the tree will have exhausted this temporary 
stimulus, and the slight check thereby induced will 
assuredly tend to a fructifying habit. To this end, 
liquid-manure may be put in requisition, and, as ob¬ 
served in former papers, top-dressings, or mulching. 
Had Pear-culture been as good a commercial spec as 
handling cottons, all these things would have been, long 
before this, as luminous as the sun at noontido; but 
how a question “ drags its slow length along ” wdieu 
divested of the pounds-sliillings-and-pence-considera- 
tion; or of the impulse given to such things by the 
mania fashion. Hence it is, that with the utmost 
amount of simplification that a practical man may in¬ 
troduce into a subject with which he is perfectly familiar 
(a question which is a mere hobby, here and there), 
although simple enough in its nature, appears abstruse, 
so few caring to study principles unless well paid for 
their labours. It will, however, be no fault of The 
Cottage Gardener if any mist still hangs about any 
gardening question. This much-favoured periodical is a 
bad keeper of secrets. R. Errington. 
(To be continual.) . 
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY’S SHOW. — June 3. 
As near as I can recollect, the first bed of “ bedding- 
plants” was planted at the end of May, 1825, by 
Alexander Temple, under the immediate directions of 
Lady Cumming Gordon, of Attyre, near Torres, beyond 1 
the Grampians, and from that day, or year, to this, I do 1 
not think we had a better May for planting out bedding- j 
plants than this last May; neither do I recollect a j 
better May show-day for the Horticultural Society, as | 
far as the weather went, than the fourteenth of that 
pleasant May; a regular Queen’s day, in fact. Her | 
Majesty, however, spoiled the show for company, by ! 
taking away the great people to seo the launch. But i 
the worst cut of all was in Her Majesty “ having been 
graciously pleased to name Saturday, June 10, as the 
day on which Her Majesty will open the Crystal Palace,” 
although this day was pre occupied by the Horticultural 
i Society six or eight months before. Why this happened, 
I could not learn from the gardeners and nurserymen 
who supplied the tables; but each and all of them 
j complained loudly against this seeming opposition, 
although I did not hear of any intentions of mustering 
out the clans, or of calling up the Campbells or Mae i 
Grigors to settle the disputes between the florists, the | 
j botanists, aud the mere practical gardeners; and the ; 
upshot of it was, that the Horticultural shifted their day I 
from the 1 0th to the 3rd inst. The weather changed, i 
too:—May went out like a “May morn;” and June | 
: opened with a north-east wind from over the Baltic ! 
fleet, driving so much of the Tiuland fogs before it as 
made a regular Scotch mist all over England on the 
2nd, or day before the show. The morning of the 
show itself was “ lowcry,” but the Norland fogs passed 
1 over, and the north-east wind freshened up as the day 
advanced, and cleared away all clouds and doubts 
about the weather, so, that with warm under garments, 
no one might fear to venture down to Chiswick in a 
summer dress; aud once there, what with the flowers, 
the running after the different bands, and the bustle 
inseparable from the large masses of people going to 
and fro, there was little chance of catching a cold, or 
feeling chilly in the least. 1 left the Garden at five 
o’clock, and, from a rough guess, I should think there 
were between five and six thousand visitors then, and I 
met some going in. 1 never yet wrote a word for any j 
of the magazines of fashion; but 1 have enjoyed the 
dresses for years, just as much, if not more so, than the i 
flowers, and 1 look at them as critically as if I were a 
“ cutter" from a west-end house of business in that line. | 
The greatest peculiarity on this occasion was in the ' 
extreme simplicity and numerical strength of silk 
checks, or silk tartans, as they would say in Scotland. 
A thousand of them without a single stitch in the skirts, J 
except what were necessary to keep them together; while j 
fancy dresses were never seen more elaborately finished, I 
or more deeply flounced at the bottom ; but to follow or i 
describe one of them, through'every stitch, tuck, aud i 
turn, would fill a page, and be out of place, after all was | 
done; still, 1 have no sympathy, or anything in common, \ 
with the man who affects not to admire a beautiful j 
dress, for he must be very dull and stupid if he can 
help admiring them ; and his saying anything to the i 
contrary only serves to make the greatest fool of him. J 
The first question that was put to me, on entering the 
tents, was, “Did you see that Verbena?” 1 did not ! 
see it then;—(and here I must tell, that reporters are 
instructed by their admission tickets not to speak to the I 
judges, not for fear of influencing their awards, but not 1 
to take up their valuable time with idle gossip; a very 
proper rule). Well, I did see this Verbena, and I knew 
it at the first glance; I saw a bed of it last autumn, 
and was so pleased that a real purple Verbena was got 
at last, that I wrote to Lady Middleton to say that our 1 
