112 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[May 22. 
therefore, being totally disbudded, the trees may be left 
alone for a fortnight or so, when a few more overstrong 
shoots may be detected, and these we think it is not 
advisable to disbud; they may successively be pinched 
as they become about six inches in length, at the same 
time reserving every shoot most carefully, which, al¬ 
though somewhat stout, looks short-jointed. Such like 
manipulations should be performed almost weekly until 
about Midsummer, when it will be time to think of train¬ 
ing in, or of tying down the young shoots to be re¬ 
served. 
Thinning the fruit is a most important and absolutely 
necessary procedure, if flavour and keeping qualities are 
desired. Those who think that such ordinary fruits as 
the apple and pear do not need thinning, or that similar 
results are not produced as with other fruits, are egre- 
giously mistaken. Indeed, it matters not what the fruit 
is; a tree, be what it may, can only mature a given 
quantity ; and any amount beyond, tends to deteriorate 
both flavour and size. However, the quantity any tree 
can maintain , depends on various conditions; and some¬ 
thing more than a mere cut-and-dry formula is requisite 
in order to determine, first of all, the amount of well- 
developed and uninjured foliage duly exposed to the 
light; secondly, the root resources; thirdly, the cer¬ 
tainty of an immunity from droughts; and, fourthly, 
the age and condition of the tree constitutionally; and 
whether its energies are in the ascending or descending 
scale. Any one of these, or any combination of them, 
must determine this question. We would not have 
them thinned away at once by any means, we must pay 
heed to the old proverb in this matter, “ Many a slip, &c.” 
Thin out then, we say, a little when they get as large as 
a show gooseberry; and again, and finally, soon after 
they have completed their first swelling. 
In the midst of all these necessary procedures, which, 
although they may look so terrific on paper, may at least 
be carried out by the amateur readers of the far-famed 
little Cottage Gardener, let us point to root as well as 
top management; and here we dread being suspected of 
blowing hot and cold, for we have to recommend a due 
attention to root moisture. Most pears, as they are 
ordinarily planted in our gardens, are in a condition to 
take care of themselves in this respect; but there are 
extreme cases, here and there, to be met with, in which 
wateriug would have been beneficial in dry periods, and 
especially a coating of mulch. We have known trees 
of such as the Gassel’s Bergamot, the Crassanne, the 
brown Beurree, &c., crack three summers out of four, in 
our younger days; whilst the flesh between the rifts 
would become completely indurated, and little superior 
to the very wood of the tree in texture; and all this 
owing to then being planted in a burning, hungry, and 
gravelly soil. This state of things used frequently to 
occur in the gardens around Wimbledon Common, the 
suburbs of which, although studded with gardens of the 
nobility and gentry, are of a very hungry and gravelly 
texture: famous in former days for small and stringy 
celery, for blue cabbages, well-clubbed brocoli, and 
for mildewed peas in autumn. It is very probable that 
those gardens are, in these days, improved in staple, 
for they require little more than an addition of the 
clayey principle, with an increased depth, to render them 
fertile. There can be little doubt, therefore, that the 
cracking of pears is owing to injurious droughts; and 
that in all such soils as we have been describing, the 
application of water during droughts is absolutely neces¬ 
sary, and of mulchings extremely beneficial. Water, 
for such purposes, should be always tepid, and soapsuds 
and house-slops may be liberally added. 
In concluding, for the present, our remarks on pears, 
it may be advised, that all shoots of a doubtful character 
which may burst forth from any part of the stems, may 
be pinched at any period : this can do no harm. 
Towards the end of August we shall have to recom¬ 
mend a rather general stopping; but of this more in due 
course. Let all insects be kept in subjection, or rather 
extirpated. Soft soap for the oyster scale, and sulphur 
for the red spiders, with careful hand-picking for all 
caterpillars. R. Errington. 
THE ELOWER-G ARDEN. 
Most Bedding Plants are now in their summer 
quarters, in most places, all over the kingdom ; some are 
not quite ready yet to stand out, having been lately 
brought in, or propagated; or, some new dodge has been 
heard of, that must be tried this season in some of the 
beds, so that the stock intended for such beds is now a 
drug on hand; but take care of them, they will come in 
useful by and by. Here I keep the shoji open to the 
very last day, in order to embrace any new plant or 
practice that may cast up; and this season, it was only 
on the last Monday in April, that the final ai’rangement 
for planting some parts of the garden was signed and 
sealed for execution. Then it was that I got in a little, 
rather new, yellow bedder for the first time, and if it 
answers as well as is said of it, we shall be satisfied. 
It is a small-leaved aud a small-flowered Evening Prim¬ 
rose, or Gdnotliera, called prostrata, or trailing. It was 
proved, last year, to be an excellent bedder of the lowest 
class. My worthy employers saw it, last June, beautifully 
in bloom at Bedford Lodge, the celebrated flower-garden 
belonging to the Dowager Duchess of Bedford. As I 
did not see the plant myself, and wishing to introduce it 
into a very particular and new arrangement, I wrote to 
Mr. Caie, her Grace’s gardener, to ask him the particulars. 
Fortunately, he is the first authority I know in flower- 
garden plants, and anything that way is a b c to him. 
He said, “I could have answered your questions at once 
from my own experience, but I thought it better to have 
another person’s opinion of the CEnothera, who had, 
also, grown it last year; more especially as the informa 
tion is for a person like you, &c., &c. Like all the 
GEnotheras, prostrata delights in a seclusion where the 
air is steady, and loaded with moisture to a certain ex¬ 
tent. May will be time enough to plant it out, and, if 
the plants are large, they will begin flowering at once, 
aud will continue to do so for the summer and autumn 
months.” I waited patiently a week for this welcome 
answer; and it is worth while to wait a whole month for 
an answer to a particular question iu gardening. There, 
too, is a glimpse of how our columns, in answer to cor¬ 
respondents, are filled up, week after week, at great ex¬ 
pense and trouble to each and all of us; but we keep to 
the collar, and are determined to get the best and 
soundest answers for each and all of them, by passing 
private letters amongst ourselves and our friends, and 
if some of our readers get fidgety at times, because the 
answer is not given over the counter at once, why, we 
must put the best foot forward and learn patience. Now 
this CEnothera is permanently adopted into the flower- 
garden on the above authority—my own light weight 
into the scales likewise—for I have got in four hundred 
plants of it already. Whenever you get a new thing, 
be it a summer dress or a new plant, try and make a 
sensation with it the first season or two ; after that all j 
the world has it, and you only come in as an unit. That 
is the way to cut diamond with diamond. 
Last summer I saw one of the poorest looking white 
beds one could imagine, and so weedy, that I put it 
down as good for nothing ; since then, one of our readers 
was answered that this plant was but so aud so for a 
bed ; but we ought to have as many eyes as old Argus 
himself to see and know every thing; at any rate, I 
ought to have known, long before this, that there is a 
most excellent variety of this same white plant I am ! 
writing about, for I see it put up in comparison to the | 
