5G 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 
n 
On a careful examination of the two, which are, 
we think, tolerably faithful, it will be seen that a 
whole twelvemonth will he gained by the timely 
stopping of gross young trees. Nor is this all: the 
unstopped one will have acquired such a power of 
root, that, after pruning close, another set of these 
" basket rods” may be expected in the succeeding 
year, to meet with a similar fate in their turn, unless 
severe root pruning he had recourse to. 
We will now advert to the second case, viz., the 
production of occasional gross shoots, or “ robbers,” 
by established bearing trees. These, as before ob¬ 
served, if left unpruned, would continually form out 
fresh channels for the principal supply of sap from 
the roots, to the detriment—indeed, premature decay 
—of the true hearing wood: they would, Moreover, 
in their turn, be cheated out of their supplies by 
other gluttonous shoots, and so on until the tree 
would become worn out, partly by exhaustion, and 
partly by the severe amputations which would, in 
the course of time, become necessary. 
.Let us, then, impress on the minds of all those 
who are taking their first steps in peach and necta¬ 
rine culture, not only the propriety, but the necessity, 
of pinching ott' betimes the points—called “ stopping” 
—of all tJiose gross shoots, which show a disposi¬ 
tion to shoot into lateral branches. Where such 
a disposition exists, it will generally manifest itself 
by the time they are about six inches in length, 
which will occur, in the main, from the beginning of 
May until the beginning of June ; after which, stop¬ 
ping of another kind, and for other reasons, will 
commence; of which we will treat in due course. 
Aphicot Thinning out, for tarts, will shortly com¬ 
mence : let it he done with, caution, and progres¬ 
sively. In no case thin away the forward and more 
bold-looking fruit, but merely cripples, or those which 
are lodged in the interior of clusters. They cannot, 
of course, be situated equally all over the tree; but 
could they he so placed, we consider that every six 
inches square ought to carry a fine fruit, and we 
speak within bounds: nevertheless, do not thin thus 
far for some time. If the tree is likely to be op¬ 
pressed with its load, apply some guano-water, or 
other clarified liquid manure, according to former 
directions: this, poured on a coating of mulch, will 
do much good, and will save the energies of the tree 
until the final thinning. 
Beware or the Caterpillar in the leaf of wall- 
trees, but especially of the apricot. As soon as any 
of the leaves appear rolled up, let them bo examined 
and uncoiled. A little green maggot will be found, 
and the only way is to carefully open the clustered 
leaves, without worm ding them, and find the rogues, 
which may then be readily destroyed. The eggs 
hatch successively for several weeks; the trees, there¬ 
fore, should be run over once a week, if possible.* 
Strawberries. —Once more let them be weeded 
through, for no weeds may be allowed to smother the 
fruit, which requires all our sunlight and a free cir¬ 
culation of an. The first runners may be cut away 
betimes, and litter or straw introduced among the 
plants on the heels of this ojteration, in order to keep 
! the fruit clean. Above all, use abundance of water 
! in dry weather to those in blossom: no good crop 
i can be guaranteed without a very liberal supply. 
Black Currants. —If the weather should prove 
dry, a good watering will prove of immense benefit 
: as soon as the bushes are out of blossom: this would 
save many a crop which is otherwise lost; and we 
would particularly advise the cottager to let his chil¬ 
dren attend to them. It is of no use giving the 
water grudgingly; it is almost impossible to give 
them too much, on free and open soils, at this period. 
Raspberries. —The suckers will be soon shooting 
up rapidly, and it is a good practice to thin them out 
betimes, leaving about five or six to each stool. If 
the stools are excessively strong, some of the very 
strongest and all the weak ones may be removed. 
If the stools are weakly, take away the very weakest, 
and only leave three or four. 
As miscellaneous work , we would point to the ne¬ 
cessity of watchfulness over orchard affairs in gene¬ 
ral, especially as to the depredations of insects. 
Hand-picking must he resorted to; and hero again 
the cottager’s children will he found as useful as 
grown-up labourers. We much fear that, after so 
ungenial a spring, our prospects for the summer will 
not prove very flattering. R. Errington. 
THE FLOWER-GARDEN. 
Roses for Bedbing in Groups ( continued ).—In 
the two preceding Numbers we described the most 
proper and best kinds of China, Tea-scented, Noisette, 
and Bourbon roses for bedding out in groups, one 
kind in each bed. This is a way that displays the 
beauty of each kind of rose to the greatest advan¬ 
tage. We have seen dark China roses planted in 
a bed, and then a wire trellis placed over it, raised 
about six inches from the ground in the centre, 
and brought gradually down to the grass at the 
edge of tbe bed. To this trellis the branches of 
the roses as they grew were tied down; in the course 
of a short time the ends of each shoot turned up¬ 
wards, and produced abundance of roses. The bed 
then presented the appearance of a large bouquet of 
those splendid richly-coloured flowers, forming a 
truly magnificent spectacle. We strongly recom¬ 
mend this method to our readers, and assure them, 
if they give it a trial, having the soil right, tbe 
plants strong, and a moderately fine season, with 
the requisite attention to tying down, weeding and 
watering, the display of beautiful flowers will be 
agreeably surprising. We shall this week proceed to 
give a list of a class or two more of these beautiful ' 
flowers, commencing with the 
PERPETUAL ROSES SUITABLE FOR BEDBING. 
White. —Perpetual white moss. It is a somewhat singular fact 
that this beautiful autumnal rose is the only clear white one in this 
class, the darker colours seeming greatly to preponderate. Yellow .— 
It is equally extraordinary that there arc no yellow perpetual roses. 
Rose colour. —Ccelcstina, Comte d’Egmont. Scarlet. —None strictly 
* These caterpillars arc the progeny of the narrow-winged Red Bar 
moth ( Puiclisca angustiorunu of some, and Tortrix angustiorana of 
others). 
