254. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 2. 1859. 
pains should be taken when the ground is clear of crops 
to eradicate every vestige. 
As to weeds being allowed to seed, this is, indeed, 
a pernicious practice; the old saying of “ one seeding, 
seven years’ weeding,” is not only quite true, but much 
below the durability, or, rather, vitality, attached to many 
kinds of weeds. Only behold the Charlock of our fields, 
there is little doubt in my mind that this seed will endure 
for centuries in the soil. I once heard an old and re¬ 
spectable gentleman affirm that, in his younger days, he 
knew a case in which an old church in some part of 
Yorkshire had to be pulled down, and rebuilt on a fresh 
site. The church had been standing more than a century, 
and the old site underwent a ploughing, and instantly 
produced a full crop of Charlock. There are those who 
believe in what has been termed spontaneous generation, 
but I am not one ; and I am well satisfied that wherever 
there came up a Charlock, there had been a seed, the 
produce of a distant generation. I have a plot of ground 
in the gardens here (Oulton Park), from which every 
year I obtain a full crop of the American or broad Cress 
by simply digging it over in divisions. I never sow a 
grain of seed. Now about twenty-four years since a crop 
of American Cress was suffered to run to seed on this 
spot: hence the constant recurrence of it. One thing, 
however, I observed—the crop comes up thinner every 
year. 
Salt has been applied by some in kitchen gardens in 
order to extirpate weeds; but, although highly eligible 
for walks, I never could find much advantage as to the 
soil; the fact being, that if we apply salt enough to de- 
stroy all weeds, it will by the same rule injure the suc¬ 
ceeding crop. The practice of first-rate market-gardeners 
furnishes a lesson as to weeds ; we shall not find many 
seed-weeds under their high culture. 
I spoke before about the use of the rake, and I again 
refer to it, in order to urge its use whenever practicable 
after the hoe. It is great folly to set a labourer to hoe 
a crop of weeds in suspicious weather, and to leave them 
in a state of transplantation, with the almost certainty 
that the ground will be as weedy as ever in another fort¬ 
night. The injury done to rising vegetable crops in 
spring by small weeds is frequently of a serious character. 
Indeed, it is amongst rising crops that their injury is the 
greatest. They not only rob them of their food, but so 
overlay and choke them, that if a timely rescue is not at 
hand, the crop becomes injured beyond the bounds of 
reparation. Another point connected with this, is the 
suffering of the young crop from intense sunshine when 
they are delivered from their overgrown enemies. I 
have known such delicate things as young Carrots com¬ 
pletely spoiled by such proceedings. K. Errington. 
HINTS ON EIG CULTURE. 
“ This place (Kilmarnock) is about seven miles, as the crow 
flies, from the shore of the coast of Ayrshire, one of the 
western counties of Scotland. The land is of n stiffish nature 
in the fields, producing excellent crops of Oats and Wheat. My 
house is placed with the back wall facing the south, to which it 
is fully exposed; and I have a Fig tree trained upon the back 
wall. It has been planted six years, and, hitherto, has produced 
nothing but leaves, which it does in great luxuriance. This 
season I adopted the course mentioned in The Cottage Gar- 
tiener, and scooped out all the points of the shoots in the 
month of March. By-and-by there was a beautiful appearance 
of fruit, and the Figs swelled on till about the size of pigeons’ 
eggs, when they have all dropped off, and the foliage has again 
got the mastery. The tree gets no manure, and the ground is 
well drained. Please give a hint how it should be treated. It 
is given to an over-luxuriance, and that notwithstanding about 
two years ago I cut two or three great slices out of the bark, 
thinking to check it. The Fig is little grown here, and the gar¬ 
deners do not seem to know much about its treatment.’’—A. B. 
This letter from Kilmarnock I consider a fair opportunity 
for a little ventilation on the above subject. If the contra¬ 
dictory advices given in this and other works on gardening are 
to be taken as criterions of sound practical knowledge, then I 
fear the ignorance implied in the last sentence is not at all con¬ 
fined to any one part of Her Majesty’s dominions. I by no 
means pretend to know much myself. I have just a fair idea 
under what treatment the Fig does best with me, both in-doors 
and out of doors. The latter I have not lately paid quite as 
much attention to as I used to do, as from plants under glass I 
generally have Figs until the season is too advanced to give 
them a good flavour. I by no means consider that I have hit 
on the right method, and that other methods are wrong, because 
there are many modes by which the same result may be ob¬ 
tained, if each mode is carried out fairly from its commence¬ 
ment to its close. Failures often proceed from attempting to 
combine two separate and distinct modes of practice. 
One of the most common advices you will meet with now-a- 
days, is—“ Stop your Fig shoots again and again when they 
make from three to six joints of fresh wood." Not long ago, in 
the presence of one of the ablest writer for this work, 1 noticed 
some Fig plants as bushes in a house so stopped, and took the 
opportunity of saying, that this stopping theory, if gene¬ 
rally practised, would lead to plenty of leaves and shoots, and 
but little fruit. There are some stubby kinds that stand the 
stopping process pretty well in houses, if done with judgment. 
I lately saw an example of this advice being carried out on 
trees out of doors, and my opinion is, not only would no ad¬ 
vantage be gained this season, but the crop next year would be 
rendered very problematical. 
Let us look at this stopping process as respects in-door treat¬ 
ment. The more the roots are confined, in pots or boxes, the 
better they will stand this stopping process; but, on the other 
hand, the stubby, short-jointed growth, to a great extent, renders 
the stopping at so many joints unnecessary. I do not know if 
it were our advice “A. B.” adopted when he scooped out the 
terminal buds in March; but, so far, I approve of the process. 
Now, for instance: here are nice little bushes in pots or boxes, 
or flat plants trained to a trellis, and we start them into growth 
in February or March. The first signs of growth on the shoot of 
last season—well ripened before its close, and leafless during the 
winter—will be seen in the extension of the terminal bud. Ere 
long the small fruit begin to show at the joints where the leaves 
stood. By the time the terminal bud is an inch long I gene¬ 
rally cut it across with a knife, or nip it across nearer the base 
than the middle with the finger and thumb. The object of this 
stoppiug of the first growth is to throw strength into the young 
fruit for the first crop, making the fruit, in fact, the chief thing, 
instead of mere wood-growth. For want of this stopping I 
have seen a great part of the fruit drop, and shrivel up when 
not much larger than Peas. The rapidly growing shoot at the 
point monopolised all the vigour. So much, then, for securing 
the first crop where heat is used under glass. Note here in 
passing, that so far as my practice extends, it is of little use, so 
far as making the fruit show on last autumn’s shoots, or keeping 
them when they do show, to stop the young shoots as mentioned 
above when they get several inches in length. 
Now for the second crop, for that is a great object where 
Figs are forced; and unless forcing is commenced very early, 
it is seldom that more than two crops are ripened, and by 
commencing at Christmas, and getting three crops, the plants 
seldom do much as a first crop early the following season. Two 
crops only under glass are what are generally taken. The 
stopping the points of the shoots above referred to not only- 
gives a stimulus to the young fruit, but it often causes a shoot 
to burst from their base, where otherwise it would not have 
been likely to come; and from the stopped part at the point, 
instead of the one shoot, some four or five, or more, will fre¬ 
quently present themselves. These should be thinned out, so 
as to leave only as many as can obtain a sufficiency of sunlight: 
the strongest for a second crop; the very weak ones to grow on 
for the first crop the following year. Now, as regards these 
strongest young shoots left, follow the more popular advice of 
stopping them when they have made three or four joints ; and 
if the roots are very much cramped for room in pots and, con¬ 
sequently, the joints are close upon each other, no harm will j 
ensue, because the young fruit will be formed in the nxil of ; 
each leaf almost as soon as the leaf is developed to half its full '' 
size; and this stopping not only assists the small incipient 
fruit, but gives a stimulus to the first crop now swelling freely-. 
But stop luxuriant, free-growing shoots in the same way, and ; 
before you can discern the incipient fruit, and most likely you 
will, ere long, see young shoots coming from the axils of the 
