THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, December ifl, 1850. 187 
i female, which are of a rich crimson colour, and much 
i smaller than the male flowers. The latter begin to 
show themselves in January, or even in December if 
I the weather be mild ; but the female buds rarely show 
any colouring until February, when they gradually open 
1 and expand into a sort of lengthened globular tuft of a 
beautiful deep rose or crimson colour, which afterwards 
becomes the bunch of nuts. The male blossoms, by the 
time the female are fully expanded, are much faded, and, 
in fact, many of them fallen; but they hove performed 
their office. The weather during the time the female 
ones are out has much influence on the future crop; 
for though, as I have said, the female buds begin to 
open in February, they proceed slowly until the weather 
gets milder; still the Filbert, like the Plum, is an early- 
blooming tree. Now, the lesson to be learned from this 
is to prune early, so as not to rub off the buds; and 
also to get all digging and other work done in the 
Filbert ground by the middle of February at the latest, 
for it is impossible afterwards to work amongst this class 
of trees without rubbing off more or less of the blossoms. 
After-Pruning of the Tree. —Under this head may 
be included the general pruning that full-grown trees re¬ 
ceive, and this may be best described by referring to the 
tree, which usually presents a number of strong, straight 
rods in the centre, from three to six feet long, and 
tapering like a fishing-rod. These are all pulled out by 
a twitch, and they generally part from the main shoot at 
the bottom very well. These shoots are very useful to 
the gardener in many ways, and are furnished in great 
abundance in Filbert plantations, so that many of the 
fruit market-baskets (sieves) are made of them. Some 
of the smaller shoots are, however, retained, but are all 
shortened and spurred in, though differently from the 
ordinary wall-fruit system of spurring, very little of two- 
year-old wood being retained, and, in fact, very little 
young wood at all compared with anything else in the 
fruit-tree line, unless it be the hothouse-spurred Vine. 
The kind of shoot to leave can only be learned by 
practice. Small, but not soft, half-grown shoots are 
selected, with short joints, and these showing buds of a 
promising kind, which cannot well be described without 
the plant be examined; and the quantity of such that 
are left will seldom exceed more than two on a full-sized 
shoot, while all the gross leaders, if there be any such, 
are roughly sawn off within about one inch or so of 
their base ; and the appearance of the tree is stunted in 
the extreme, the central part being often old woody i 
sterns of three or four inches in diameter, and these i 
bearing scarcely more than a few small shoots of young I 
wood, which, taken collectively, would not amount to 
more than one foot in length. This is a full-grown tree, j 
which, it must he borne in mind, expands itself into a | 
sort of basin-shaped form often feet or more in diameter, 
the main shoots, starting from a very short stem aud 
thin lips, being only about five feet high ; and so 
uniformly is this rule carried out, that very often in a ! 
whole garden they look as if all cut or clipped to a 
certain mould, the main limbs having more or less j 
branchlets, so that the extreme tip may present one to j 
about every eighteen inches or two feet of the cir¬ 
cumference ; and though these are not always at one 
and the same height or line, nor are they ever 
straight, still they are as near to that shape as possible, 
and, in the main, present a greater resemblance to each 
other than even Currants or Gooseberries do under 
similar circumstances, the gnarled character of the 
old wood tending to this; and it is surprising the 
quantity of fruit such stunted objects will bear, as well 
as the mass of healthy foliage they each year furnish. 
Reasons for such Severe Pruning. —It may,perhaps, 
be asked, Do not such severe cuttings shorten the life¬ 
time of the tree ? This I verily believe it does, although it 
rarely kills them; neither do they often become diseased ; 
' but they become unfruitful at times. Still the advantages 
of the system are such as far to counterbalance the evils 
attending it. Fruit of a better description is obtained 
than by the unpruned mode of allowing the tree to arrive 
at a great size, and the whole tree is within reach of the 
ground. Another question will, perhaps, he asked: Do 
not such close-pruned trees produce forests of suckers? 
This we all know would probably be the case with most 
garden fruit-trees, as it is with standard Roses and such¬ 
like ; but the shrewd Kentish orchard-manager has a 
way to prevent this, more useful and effectual than that 
generally adopted, which, though simple enough, I must 
leave to another week to describe, as its due performance 
exerts no small influence on the general welfare of the 
plant; besides which there are some other points to 
which it is necessary to call the attention of those un¬ 
acquainted with the habit of the plant, though not of a 
kind to deter the enterprising amateur from attempting 
its culture, as, in situations where it does well, no fruit 
whatever pays so well. Upwards of thirty hundred-weight 
per acre has been produced on some favoured spots; 
aud, when an orchard consists of mixed fruits, the Fil¬ 
bert is looked upon as the most likely to pay the land¬ 
lord, and other fruits are generally cut down to make 
way for it. I might also add, that one of the reasons 
for the wholesale cutting away of the centre of the tree 
in pruning is to allow the suu full liberty to play on the 
north side of the tree, and all other points of its culture 
seem equally founded on reasons well calculated to pro¬ 
mote a successful issue. J. Robson. 
j THE POTATO, ITS CULTURE AND DISEASE 
IN THE PRESENT YEAR. 
I I flattered myself many times during the month of 
1 July that we should once more steer clear of the disease 
I among our Potato crops. I so thought because of the 
long-continued fine, dry, hot weather we had during the past 
J summer, and I do still believe that very many of us might 
i have saved our Potatoes from the disease, if we had had the 
good sense to have taken up the whole of our crops before 
the rainy weather arrived during the month of August. I 
cannot say on what day of the month the rain either com¬ 
menced or discontinued, as I do not keep any account of the 
weather, although I am daily ruled by it, ever watching it, 
and performing my daily work accordingly. 
Every kind and crop was well ripe with us and extremely 
fine before the rains came on in August; and what hap¬ 
pened afterwards ? Why, all the Potatoes that were left in 
the ground commenced a second growth, and became very 
much diseased. 
I never have seen any diseased Potatoes taken up from 
the early-frame or other gentle hotbed crops from first to 
last, though, it is true, I have heard of such being tlie case. 
We always begin with the frame, next with a gentle hotbed, 
for hoop and mat or other protection, and so on, from the 
warm border to the open quarter. Of course, it is natural 
enough that one should plant the earliest kind first; not that 
this would be of any consequence, for, if all were planted on 
the same day, both the latest and earliest, it would make no 
difference at the taking-up time ; the earliest kind would bo 
certain to be ready for the table first. 
Feb. 18tb, 1856, I planted about three perches with 
Htiii/hs’s Seedling, a kidney kind, which resembles the 
Walnut-leaved Kidney, but is much more productive, and 
nearly or equally as early. The plot was situated in a 
nice, open, and warm quarter, and the soil being very light 
and rich, no manure was used at the time of planting. The 
whole beiDg neatly dug, the rows were all measured out 
about twenty inches apart, and marked at each end; then a 
line was stretched from north to south ; and, having the sets 
ready in a basket, they were planted with a common dibble, 
and covered with the same implement. 
In this way all our Potato planting is performed, by- 
digging up the whole plot first, and then all the rows being 
