300 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[August 15. 
gradually enlarge from the lowest lateral shoots to the ex¬ 
tremity of those highest, and it should be devoid of a strag¬ 
gling or rambling habit. Secondly, the plant should be dis¬ 
posed to bloom freely and numerously. Thirdly, its blossoms 
should stand out clearly from the foliage, on short strong 
flower-stalks, so as to be presented boldly and advantageously. 
THE FRUIT-GARDEN. 
Ripening the Wood of Fruit-trees. —According to 
the maxims of some of our gardeners of former days, 
it was time enough to think of this when the leaves first 
commenced decay, and consequently we find urgent re¬ 
commendations by those of the old school to use the 
besom pretty freely in October. “ Brush oil'the leaves 
to assist in ripening the wood,” is an old maxim, now 
tolerably obsolete; hut, with the repudiation of this 
silly idea, the fact in question should be seriously 
grappled with ; for, perhaps, a broken crutch is better 
than no crutch at all. 
We will not go so far as to assert, that sweeping off a 
few decaying leaves in early autumn may not have the 
effect of rendering the buds of those leaves still re¬ 
maining more perfect, by carrying more fully out the 
principle of accretion; but all this only proves a 
previous neglect. Neglect, we repeat, for if light and 
heat, acting on the fully exposed surface of the leaf of 
tender trees, he so essential to the proper organization 
of the hud, (and who shall disprove it ?) why should an 
improper amount of the annual spray be reserved 
during the thinning or disbudding season ; only in the 
first place to create mutual injury, and in the second, to 
cause a more troublesome course of winter pruning 
than there is a real necessity for? It is well known 
what a controversy has been earned on for many months, 
in the pages of contemporary horticultural periodicals, 
about the covering or non-covering of fruit-trees, in order 
to protect the blossom, and to facilitate the “setting” 
or impregnation of the fruit. They say that covering 
does not always insure a crop. We wonder how many 
yards of canvass or bunting it would take to ensure a 
crop of fruit on a Marie Louisa Pear-tree ; or, indeed, 
on any other tree, the embryo buds ol which had been 
smothered in the previous summer with watery spray. 
Trees are suffered to hang in a wild state from the 
walls until the approach of September—for the first 
time perhaps the future blossom-buds behold daylight 
for about three weeks, and are allowed to bathe them¬ 
selves in that degree of light which a darkening 
autumn affords; and which, after all, as to their habits, 
is only a kind of twilight. Well, then, in the spring, a 
great fuss is made about covering; it is done; the 
blossoms perish, and the unhappy cultivator comes forth 
like a lion with a fresh argument against the utility of 
covering or protection. What would be thought ol a 
writer who should recommend strawberry forcers not to 
get their runners too soon for forcing purposes, to delay 
it until the end of August, and then to select them from 
gross and over-crowded plants with petioles or leaf¬ 
stalks dangling a foot in length? We wonder whether 
the best of winter protection, or the most complete and 
expensive pit ever invented by man, could ensure a crop 
of strawberries on such plants? 
This is sufficiently illustrative to all who will grapple 
with the real bearing of the question; those who will 
persist in adhering with pertinacity to a set of notions 
which have no real foundation either in science or 
practice, must still be content to endure baffled efforts. 
If, then, protection coverings are not to be shorn of 
their great utility, let the extra labour or attention re- 
