THE COTTAGE GAKDENEE AND COTJNTEY GENTLEMAN, August 10, 1858. 
attempt at giving artificial lieat, beyond putting one 
fold of mat over the glass. Not one single plant 
failed, and a more healthy or better-bloomed lot is not 
in the county of Surrey. The conservatory is quite 
gay with them now. Some are indoors, in the front 
hall and passages. One huge plant Las been out in 
the open air for the last month, standing on a Chinese 
stand in an open verandah, away from the sun till five 
or six in the evening; and there is not a healthier 
Gloxinia in England, nor yet in Ireland, as we might 
learn from the Lord Bishop of Armagh, who can 
testify, in Ireland, to the pride of our Gloxinias, and 
the arrangement of the flowers, together with the high 
style of keeping the grounds. 
Therefore, there is no reason why Gloxinias should 
not be grown by anyone who can have a Cucumber 
bed in the spring, and a cold pit which can be kept 
close in summer. The very best of them are not dear, 
i nor yet at all difficult as to ■watering and giving air ; 
but the hot sun must be kept from them, in the middle 
of the day, till the leaves are full grown. This is a 
capital time to buy a new stock of them, as they can 
be had from the nurseries in bloom. As their blossoms 
■will travel to the land’s end, and to the furthest parts 
of Ireland, without injury, a good way would be to 
order, first twelve blooms, more or less,'—one of a sort 
of the very best which could be sold, from a guinea to 
fifty shillings a dozen,—on the understanding, that 
unless there was a purchase there should be some 
allo-wance made for the tin box and postage. Lord 
M‘Donald can have a fresh set of these Gloxinia 
flowers, from London, on his breakfast-table in the 
Isle of Sky, any morning before grouse-shooting day ; 
after that, no more about flo-wers in Sky till snipe 
shooting is over in November. 
At the same time that the Gloxinias were bagged, last 
November, about a score of kinds of Achimenes were 
tried, just in the same way ; but, what with propaga¬ 
tion in the spring and heavy experiments on hand, 
there was no room to place the Achimenes in heat, or 
even to stand free of frost; and they remained in 
the bags from November to May, and seemed fresh 
enough then. But we, or some of us, were too am¬ 
bitious, and would have vast quantities of them all 
over the place ; so their scaly roots were rubbed out 
into single scales, and the whole were sown in drills, 
across another division of a cold pit, in sand and leaf 
mould. If that had been done at the time the 
Gloxinias were potted in March, and the scales were 
on a genial hotbed, we might have had some thousands 
of plants ; but, as it is, we have not more than we had 
before, and the first of them will not be in bloom 
before the middle of August. After that, there will 
not be sufficient time to grow strong roots of them, or 
to ripen properly those that will be, or are already 
made. Therefore, this experiment is just as good to 
tell as the other, only not so good to us and ours ; and 
Achimenes will keep as easily and as long as Gloxinias ; 
but, unless they are set to grow before the middle of 
March, it is not safe to divide the roots for propaga¬ 
tion—that is, for increasing one’s stock of them at that 
particular time. D. Beaton. 
CUTTING BACK TKAINED EKUIT TEEES 
AT PLANTING TIME. 
“I bought, two years ago, at the end of February, from 
! a highly respectable nurseryman, a quantity of fruit trees. 
My instructions were to cut back the Peaches, Plums, Cherries, 
and Apricots, when planted ; the Apples and Pears to stand 
over till the following spring. This I obeyed reluctantly enough. 
I may also remark, that I had instructions where to cut. Well, 
you may judge my disappointment, when, at the present mo¬ 
ment, instead of having my wall covered with finely-trained | 
289 
trees, beginning to bear, as I might have had but for this con¬ 
founded cutting-back business, I have nothing but poor 
sickly things, with weak shoots, which I am afraid I shall 
have to throw out. 
“ Now, can you inform me what is the use of this whole¬ 
sale mutilation ? I can see very well the benefit of nursery¬ 
men cutting back annually, to keep their c old ewes in lamb 
fashionbut is it of any service to the purchaser of well- 
trained trees, having as many branches as is necessary to cover 
his wall where they are to stand, to cut back at all ? Or, 
should there not be the requisite number of branches ? would 
it not do to train in the lower ones at full length, and cut 
back as many of the upper ones as would be necessary to 
make up the supply ? Can you inform me what is the philo¬ 
sophy of the practice—what beneficial change is supposed to be 
wrought on the trees—is it absolutely required P and is the 
benefit equivalent to the loss of the fruit for two years longer 
than might be, and the risk, as in my case, of ruining the trees P 
“ I intend getting a fresh supply in the fall, and would, 
therefore, like to have your opinion how I should act.”—A 
New Subscriber. 
Had you not been a “ New Subscriber,” you 
would have found, from the articles of Mr. Kidd and 
other coadjutors, that the cutting-back system, at 
least to any great extent, has found no advocacy in 
this work. If the moving was effected at a proper 
time, and in the right manner, we would hold with no 
more cutting back than was required by the unripe¬ 
ness of the points of the shoots, and the necessity for 
getting more shoots to fill the wall. It would be, 
perhaps, too much to say, that you were counselled 
wrong, in cutting back shoots on trees, that were lifted 
in the usual way, sent in the usual way, and treated 
in the usual way, and planted at the end of February. 
Most likely,—if you had left your shoots of the young 
Peach, Apricot, Plum trees, &c., of their whole length 
in March, or the end of February planting, and had 
taken no particular methods to induce root action by 
warmth and moisture, nor to check evaporation from 
the stems and shoots, when as yet there was an im¬ 
perfect root action to supply that perspiration,—you 
would have found that these shoots would have had 
enough to do to remain just much as they were, with¬ 
out making much new growth for the first year, and 
thus get into a stunted habit. A knowledge of this 
fact might be the basis on which the nurseryman re¬ 
commended you to cut your shoots well back ; and, if 
the roots are in capital working order, this roundabout, 
undoing mode of doing a thing, or gaining a purpose, 
sometimes answers better than might be expected. 
After giving what force we could to such a circum¬ 
stance, we frankly own, that we can see no use in such 
mutilation, that the shortening should only be resorted 
to when the shoots are not mature, or more are 
wanted to fill the wall; that otherwise we fail to per¬ 
ceive any philosophy in the practice, and can perceive 
no benefit that will form an equivalent for the loss 
sustained in branches and time. 
Training trees in a nursery to be lopped back when 
transferred to a garden will probably go on, until two 
practices are altered, and planters as well as nurserymen 
get freed from carelessness in this matter. For instance, 
if our present correspondent bad planted these trees 
carefully at the end of October, the ground would still 
have been warm enough to encourage fresh rootlets. If 
the trees were taken up carefully, and carefully sent, 
they would suffer but little. If a few green leaves re¬ 
mained they would keep up the circulation, and a 
dash from the syringe, and a slight shade in the 
hottest part of the day, would prevent flagging and 
shrivelling. The very lifting would induce a more 
perfect maturation of wood, and before the winter 
set in severely the plant would be able to hold its 
own. Such a plant, with the soft points merely re- j 
moved, would lengthen and throw out healthy lateral ! 
