September 4. COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 407 
end of the season; and instead of coming such trees 
next spring to save flower-buds and young wood, they 
ought rather to be covered from the end of October to 
the beginning of the new year, in order to keep them 
from the cold, and to have them well-ripened before the 
hard winter sets in; but if the plants and trees were so 
managed that the sun could reach every inch of them 
from this day forth, very little covering would be needed 
against winter or spring frosts. 
I do not know a single kind of bush, or tree, which is 
hardy enough for the open air in this country, or which 
we grow out-of-doors, that would take any hurt if one- 
half of every leaf on it were cut off any day after the 
1st of September, and that would be the same as if 
every other leaf were picked off entirely, all over the 
plant. I have done that, and also cut the leaves in 
halves, many a time, at this season, with the best possible 
results ; but for the last five-and-twenty-years, you might 
do as you would with pruning, so you did not hurt a 
leaf; but if you happened by chance to cut a leaf in 
two, philosophy was down upon you, tooth and nail. 
So it was not fashionable to write about thinning the 
leaves off a plant at all. The consequence is, at the 
present day, that one-half of those who employ men-of- 
all-work for gardeners, and almost all the men-of-all¬ 
work themselves, who learned what snatches of gar¬ 
dening they practice from the books of that period, 
are both of them all but in the dark in respect to the 
use and abuse of leaves; and their trees, at least their 
pruning, show, as clearly as the evidence of the senses, 
that they do not understand the value of this or that 
system of managing trees under different circumstances; 
that all that they know of pruning is, that so much 
should be cut off from every tree according to its size, 
and that a difference in seasons, soils, and situations, 
cannot alter the rule without altering their whole 
system, and that would be equivalent to a dead stop; 
so that the bad practice of having four times more 
wood and more leaves on a plant than it ought to have, 
is now become a national idea amongst all but the best 
gardeners, and even they, when they get into nursery 
business on their own account, are obliged to humour 
the public taste, and give four times more for their 
money to the public than is good for the said public, if 
they could but know it; and to make up for one’s 
qualming of conscience for such doings, they have the 
certainty that their customers must call four times 
oftener than they need have done, and buy four times 
as many plants as there would be any occasion for, 
under a common-sense way of managing Roses and all 
other plants. 
Just go and look at Mr. Rivers’s Orchard-house pots 
and plants, and see if they are as crowded and as full 
of plants, and shoots, and leaves, as he must needs 
have his out-door stock, in order to please his customers, 
who, if they took a right thought, would soon perceive 
that a tree out-of-doors, in England, ought to be only 
half as crowded with leaves and shoots as another tree 
of the same kind under glass, because the latter has 
the advantage of a much better climate; whereas, the 
case is just the contrary;—thin trees under glass, and 
crowded trees in the open quarters, not only with Mr. 
Rivers, but all over the three kingdoms; you might 
say universally in this country, for the few amateurs 
who know the difference, and those gardeners whose 
time will allow of good tree-culture, are as drops in the 
bucket, compared to the great mass; but that is not the 
worst of it, for common-sense views have to be hammered 
into the ears of the nation for half a life-time before 
an impression is made against any one practice, how¬ 
ever absurd, which had obtained universal consent. 
To begin at the beginning. I would advise that all 
Roses which had been budded in the former part of this 
season should have the shoots now shortened down to 
within eighteen inches of the new buds, and that the 
tying over the buds should be loosened, but to be 
tied over again, only not so tight as at first; this will 
allow of the proper swelling of the parts, and the 
cutting off of the top part of the shoots will throw the 
force of the sap more into the lower buds, and into 
the new bud more particularly; after that, the whole may 
stand over till the turn of the new year, or till the end 
of February, when the ties may be taken off altogether, 
and the shoots shortened to within six inches of the 
new buds; and if there are eyes between the new bud 
and the top of the stump, to have them picked out with 
the knife. I never like to have the shoot cut down 
close to the new bud at the spring pruning, not till just 
after Midsummer; meantime, the piece above the bud 
is the readiest support to the young shoot from the 
bud, which is so very liable to be broken off by the 
wind if it is not tied to something for support. Be¬ 
sides, we may suppose that a certain quantity of the 
rising sap will go up above the new bud before the bud 
starts, but finding no vent that way, from the eyes 
being taken out, it accumulates there till the starting 
of the bud, and then helps it materially just at the 
proper time. About the end of May, or when the new 
shoot was just six inches long, I would stop, by pinching 
off the very point; and I hold this to be the true way 
of dealing with all buds which are intended for dwarfs 
or for training, whether they are Rose-buds, or Apple 
or Peach-buds ; and those who neglect to do the same 
are only laying the foundation of a very bad practice; 
although it is all but universal. 
If all the Rose-buds and Peach-buds were stopped at 
from six to ten inches from the start, and a sufficient 
number of the shoots which would spring immediately 
into line were trained in according to the design of the 
manager, we should get rid of the most absurd practice 
of the present day, and of this and the last century;—I 
mean the cutting down of maiden plants the first winter 
after they are worked. I care not what the kind of 
plant may be, I hold the practice to be the very opposite 
of good management. A man who struck a cutting of 
a Geranium, or a Salvia, or a Fuchsia, in the spring, and 
let his plant from it to run up with one shoot only all 
that season, in order to have the opportunity of cutting 
it down to within so many inches of the pot, so as to 
have a bushy plant made of it next season, would be 
talked of as a fool, and nothing else, by all who know 
that his plant ought to have been stopped over and 
over again the first season, and be brought up bushy at 
once, and no severe cutting at all should be practised 
with it from first to last. Now, if you just take a 
thought on the matter—is there any real difference be¬ 
tween a shoot rising from a cutting, or from a bud, or 
even from a seed? None whatever, in the eye of rea¬ 
son ; and of the law itself, the three are all as one ; then 
why should the second—that from the bud—be treated 
exactly on a contrary system, and that the worst 
system to the bargain? Why, because “it used to be 
done so.” Well, you may have your own way, but you 
will never be a good pruner till you learn what did not 
use to be as well as what did. Again, here are all these 
Roses against that wall; what do you mean to do with 
them this autumn? They “used” to be nailed in here 
and there as often as they needed tying; but that is 
not the right way; my word for it, they will be full of 
insects and all manner of blights next year if you will 
let them go on so. 
Just order the ladder up against them, and let us 
see if we cannot put them better on their legs ; 
their case is serious, and we must act accordingly. 
First of all, the law lays it down that every trained 
shoot in Great Britain ought to have its top stopped 
before the 10th of September. Since that Act passed, 
however, we had Noisettes and Perpetual Roses, and to 
