February 5. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
287 
away, ten or twenty miles from home ? The “ masses ” are 
too mischievously inclined in England, to he trusted with 
bees, or any other such tangible property. Indeed, hives 
are not even safe at the doors of the poor cottager in this 
part of the world. There is no doubt, moving hives to dis¬ 
tant pastures is done in some parts of the continent, and 
on a very small scale in Scotland, but it is fast wearing out. 
Hives should never be moved from place to place in the 
bee-garden, as this is the cause of the loss of many of the 
bees, nor should they be turned in the winter to the north, 
as is now the custom with some bee-keepers. I do not 
approve of their being put into cellars in the winter, although, 
in a few instances, I have known no injury done. 
M. Jonas de Gelieu recommends bees being put in the 
shade, but then it must be remembered that he lived in 
France, where the heat is more regular and intense. Bees 
in Great Britain seldom want the shade, as our very hot 
summers are, indeed, few and far between. 
Virgil, who lived in Italy, also recommends shade:— 
Palmaque vestibulum aut ingens Oleaster obumbret. 
(A Palm or large Oleaster should overshadow the entrance.) 
We have not much of the “ Italian sky ” in England. I 
have found, from long experience, that the shaded hives, or 
those in a north aspect, never prosper; who would think of 
shading his bees in the North of Scotland ? Even in the 
West of England shade is not required above once in a 
dozen years, and then only for a few days. 
(To be continued.) 
ROOT CULTURE. 
We promised last week to say something about root- 
pruning, and as this is a most appropriate period for 
handling the subject of root culture in all its bearings, 
we proceed. In the first place, it does seem matter for 
astonishment, in casting a retrospective glance at the 
gardening operations of by-gone days, to find so many 
able gardeners of those times going through the annual 
routine of fruit culture, and keenly observing nature 
from year to year, without discovering the chief cause 
of unproductiveness in their fruits. Not hut superior 
fruits were then produced, but it was a here-and-there, 
or a now-and-then, sort of affair, as compared with 
modern culture. We still have occasional complaints, 
to be sure, of trees proving too gross for their situations, 
hut by whom are they made? Not by men recognised 
as sound practitioners, and who, casting away the film 
from their eyes, have advanced with the times. Every 
one of this class knows full well, that if trees are limited 
by a severe course of training in the branches, it will 
by no means answer to encourage a violent and un¬ 
controlled root action. He knows, also, that if, 
through adventitious circumstances, he is placed in 
charge of trees that have been thus maltreated, a remedy 
remains in his own hands, and that root-pruning must 
instantly he resorted to. 
We well remember, sometime about the year 1829, 
having suggested the practice of root-pruning very 
strongly in Loudon's Magazine, quoting a strong ex¬ 
ample in corroboration of the utility of the practice from 
an extensive peach wall, the trees on which, planted by 
a predecessor, made stronger and longer shoots than we 
ever saw before or since. On the heels of that paper 
followed some very grave cautions to tree men, not to 
be misled by Mr. E.’s root-pruning affair, and such, too, 
from men who would not hesitate to transplant a gross 
tree, forgetting that the latter process as surely involved 
root-pruning, or root-breaking, if a more agreeable term. 
Now that the prejudice of that day is for ever swept 
away, people begin to see their path clearly ; deep and 
rich borders, made wholesale at an enormous expense, 
are generally repudiated, and we hear of platforms, 
station making, artificial substratums, the use of more 
simple soils, combined with a top-dressing system, and 
the application of liquid-manure in the moment of need; 
the effects from which, good or evil, are speedily removed. 
To proceed with root culture, then, we may direct 
attention to five points. 
1. Top-dressing .—This process is hut too often con¬ 
founded with middling, from which it differs both in 
design and tendency. Top-dressing, in its proper sense, 
is the application of a compost, supposed to be the most 
perfect in texture and quality, to induce a surface tier 
of new fibres, to compose henceforth a permanent por¬ 
tion of the volume of roots. Mulching is but a screen, 
a regulator, guarding the roots against vicissitudes, 
which the tree is little able to endure, against heat, 
drought, and cold. Top-dressings are of immense bene¬ 
fit when combined with comparatively shallow planting, 
as the roots may be progressively increased according to 
the exact needs of the tree. To wearing-out trees, they 
are of great service, and indeed are as important to fruit 
trees in general, if on a dry bottom, as surface dressings 
to mowing laud, producing similar effects. As a general 
compost for this purpose, we find some loam, half-rotten 
manure, and half-decayed leaves, an excellent mixture 
in equal proportions. If any one who possesses an old 
and worn orchard apple-tree, which bears too freely for 
its powers, will try our practice, he will soon perceive 
the benefits of a little attention in this way. Let him 
first remove all the surface soil he can loosen, without 
destroying fibres, and then saturate the soil all round, 
for many feet each way, with dunghill drainage, finally 
applying six inches of our compost. Let him also apply 
the pruning knife, according to last week’s advices; and, 
in addition, if the tree he moss-grown, brush it over with 
brine. We will venture to say, that if he take a journey 
to the antipodes and hack, he will not then know his 
own tree again. 
It is not only to old trees and hard hearers that top- 
dressings are beneficial; young trees, planted on shallow 
soils, the staple of which proves too light, or, in other 
words, suffers from drought, are much assisted by such 
applications. Trees on the Paradise or Quince stocks 
especially, such having a tendency to root up the stem ; 
and Mr. Rivers, a high authority, lays it down as a rule, 
we believe, that the Quince stock should he soiled up to 
the point of junction between it and its scion. Bush 
fruits, too, are much improved by top-dressings in alter¬ 
nate years. But to go through the merits of top-dress¬ 
ings in detail, would be to write a hook. 
Mulching. — Its character and mode of action was 
adverted to previously. Most good planters use a little 
over the roots of newly planted fruit-trees. Many have 
been the disputes between the theorist and the practical 
as to its tendencies ; hut however philosophical a few 
niceties may appear as drawbacks, we are assured that, 
rightly applied, other conditions being proper, mulching 
is of much service. Be it understood, nevertheless, that 
we have constantly used it in connection with our plat¬ 
form planting, and a stagnation is unknown to our prac¬ 
tice; we fear not the imputed arrest of the evaporations. 
The abuse of the practice lies here—putting too thick a 
coating, using too rotten a material, treading and pud¬ 
dling it when placed, and the laying on a thick coating 
over trees in deep soils water-logged. 
As to mulch being a non-conductor of heat, that is the 
very argument we seize on as an advantage. We plant 
in early autumn, and are anxious to arrest the departure 
of the accumulated ground heat; and besides, it is not 
the obtaining the greatest accumulation of solar heat 
that so much benefits fruit-trees, as the preserving them 
from severe depressions, accompanied with retained 
moisture; in fact, the maintaining what gardeners term 
a mild but certain bottom warmth. Mulchings are par¬ 
ticularly beneficial on shallow and dry soils; on some 
of which it is almost impossible to excel without their 
annual renewal. Ours is a sandy loam, and wc could 
