September 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
319 
think science useless—as there once existed a devo¬ 
tee of fashion who wondered why it was not always 
candle-light; but the greater majority of gardeners 
are now men of science, endeavouring thoroughly 
to understand the reason of every practice, and the 
supposed cause of each effect. To those differing 
from them, we might name, if it would not he invi¬ 
dious, nearly all the most successful of our modern 
gardeners. To a man, these are well acquainted 
with gardening’s relative sciences. We forbear from 
mentioning names, but we may remind our readers, 
without fearing to offend, of two departed scientific 
cultivators, M. Lavoisiei’, and our fellow-countryman, 
Mr. Knight. Lavoisier cultivated his grounds in 
La Vendee on scientific principles, and in a few 
years the annual produce of those grounds doubled 
that from equal spaces of his neighbours’ soil. Mr. 
Knight has scarcely left a department of our horti¬ 
culture unimproved by that combination of scientific 
with practical knowledge which he, perhaps, more 
than any man, had united in his own mind. 
It behoves every gardener to follow in their steps, 
for though those great men who have gone before 
have done much for gardening, yet still more re¬ 
mains to be accomplished. We yet, on most points, 
do, and must ever, see through a glass darkly; but 
that is no reason why any one should withhold from 
the effort to elicit some light towards diminishing 
the .obscurity—and we may all, without fear of mis¬ 
spending our labour, continue to act as if botany 
could still furnish something new, and as if chemis¬ 
try and physiology had still some secret to reveal to 
the inquirer. 
THE ERUIT-GARDEK 
Root Pruning. —Amongst the various means taken 
to promote early or abundant fruitfulness in our 
various fruit-bearing trees and shrubs, root pruning 
holds a most prominent position. It may seem some¬ 
what early to many-of our readers to discuss this 
subject, but it is not so in reality; for, as a general 
maxim, to those who ai’e not thoroughly versed in 
fruit culture, we advise that this operation be per¬ 
formed towards the middle of October. More than 
one reason induces us to recommend this course. In 
the first place, it is frequently of necessity an opera¬ 
tion of a very severe character; the most experienced 
root pruner cannot calculate to a nicety how many 
roots to remove; and, in the act of cutting or rather 
in excavating the soil prior to the operation, the spade 
is apt to take extra liberties with the roots, for could 
we skeletonize the fibres by water or other means, 
without using a spade, the operation would be of a 
much more certain character. However, since this 
cannot be accomplished, we must make the best of 
adverse circumstances, or, rather, we must use extra 
precaution to insure success. Well, then, at the best 
it is a severe measure, and if performed in spring is 
very likely, provided extreme drought or long-con¬ 
tinued bright sunshine should occur, to give rise to 
a necessity for extra appliances in the shape of mulch¬ 
ing, watering, or shading; for, like bleeding in the 
animal system, it is possible to reduce the habit so 
low as that things may begin to assume a serious as¬ 
pect, and excite a dread that the remedy may prove 
worse than the disease. Root pruning performed in 
October will be the cause of a host of small fibres 
being thrown out between that period and the spring, 
which will of themselves prove an immunity from 
the danger of sudden and great extremes. 
Another and, with us, a strong reason oxists in ad¬ 
dition for October root pruning. October, we con¬ 
ceive, is the most leisure month we have, that is to 
say, the most leisure month in which operations in¬ 
volving extra labour can be carried out without hin¬ 
drance, for there is little danger of frost setting in so 
severely as to stay the operation, and there is still 
some length of day for a tolerable amount of labour 
to be performed. Another and somewhat important 
consideration may be added:—cutting the roots of 
trees of succulent growth whilst the leaf still remains 
on has a tendency to reduce that succulence, or, in 
other woods, to promote the ripening or solidification 
of the wood. We are aware that some persons of 
tender nerves will take fright at the idea of so check¬ 
ing a tree by root cuttting as that the leaves shall 
flag, and even the young points shrivel slightly. 
These events need cause no alarm, however; we have 
often performed the operation, and it has been fol¬ 
lowed by these dreaded circumstances, but no harm 
has occurred. It is one tiling for the points to shrivel 
through a sudden check, and another for them to 
decay through positive disease. We remember see¬ 
ing, about sixteen years since, some extraordinary 
young peach-trees at the Earl of Wilton’s seat, 
Heaton Park, near Manchester. Poor Taylor, an old 
friend of ours, was the gardener, and he had made 
what was then termed a first-rate border, that is to 
say, a border some four feet in depth, composed of 
powerful adhesive loams, combined with no small 
amount of manure. The surface of the border was 
but little, if at all, above the ordinary ground level; 
and the climate of Manchester is so notorious for 
producing umbrellas, that it forcibly reminds us of a 
joke we have seen in some Joe Miller, to the effect 
that a southron who had all of a sudden set his foot on 
“ hieland grun,” somewhere not far from Johnny 
Groat’s, when, finding Scotch mists more prevalent 
than convenient, he accosted a native in these words : 
“ My good fellow, does it always rain here ?” The an¬ 
swer was prompt and to the point: “ Na! it doesna’ 
aye rain, it sometimes snaws.” Such, with a slight 
diminution, then, is the climate of old Mancunium, 
now called Manchester. Well, these peaches had in 
the month of June (flattering themselves they had a 
Persian summer in prospect) shot forth into twigs 
huge as basket rods—shoots of some two yards in 
length and proportionately stout; these in their turn 
also subdivided into a host of long-jointed laterals. 
Such had been their progress when we saw them in 
the end of October; nearly all their points were then 
turning black and shrivelling, being gorged with un¬ 
elaborated sap, tending, of course, to gangrenous 
disease. The gardener said that they were every 
season the same (and no wonder!), and blamed the 
climate of Manchester, which he termed “the worst 
in Britain.” 
Now, if the ripening process in fruit-trees consists 
in the removal by a perspiratory process, through the 
agency of heat and light, of the superfluous moisture, 
which, having yielded up its small amount of organ- 
izable material, is no longer of any service to the 
system, and if such removal is retarded or arrested 
by a bad climate or season, why place trees of such 
susceptible character in the midst of an unlimited 
supply of food ? 
Last year a reverend gentleman applied to us to 
examine a lot of peach and nectarine-trees, which 
were growing most luxuriantly, but not flowering. 
Happening to be out at the moment we called, we 
found he had left us full powers to do what we liked 
with them. A trench was opened within three feet 
of their stems, parallel with the wall, and every root 
