JANUARY. 
7 
Dryad .—Beautiful rosy pink; fine shape and truss. 
Naiad .—Flowers purple, scarlet top. 
Waltham Gem .—Flowers light red, white eye, peculiar and beautiful 
colour ; leaves yellow ; habit dwarf and compact. 
Waltham Lilac .—Flowers true lilac. 
Zephyr. —Light purple, rose top ; very dwarf and free; stands the rain and 
sun well. 
These varieties once in circulation, and thanks to the intelligence and in¬ 
dustry of the late Mr. Beaton, a complete and splendid flower garden may be 
formed of Pelargoniums alone. 
Waltham Cross , London , N. William Paul. 
REMARKS ON FRUIT-TREE CULTURE. —No. 5. 
In my former papers on this very interesting subject I have endeavoured 
to point out in plain and practical language, divested alike of technicalities or 
scientific theories, a few of the more prominent points which have occurred to 
my mind during the course of my manipulations and practice; and as I trust 
they may serve as reminders to those young beginners in the profession, who 
will, most probably, consult their own interest by keeping up an acquaintance 
with the gardening literature of the day, I will resume the subject by commencing 
with the management of the trees the season after planting, which is the point 
to which we have now arrived. And here we must set before our mind’s eye the 
objects which we propose to strive after in our future operations, the principal 
of which I conceive to be the production of fruit, and, therefore, our attention 
will naturally be directed to the formation of fruitful wood. This part of the 
subject is altogether so important that it ought most particularly to engage the 
attention of the young'practitioner. Fruitful wood is never the result of chance, 
but may, in most cases, be traced to a primary moving cause; and the one great 
moving cause into which all other minor causes converge, or from which they 
radiate, is that law of nature by which plants in common with animals are 
impelled to reproduce their kind, which as a general rule will take place when 
a certain point of maturity is attained, or, perhaps I might say, certain condi¬ 
tions of growth arrived at in which the tree is strong enough to bear fruit. In 
practice we are accustomed to follow out certain methods, by which we can 
almost to a certainty act upon the known tendencies of trees under certain con¬ 
ditions and circumstances, so as to produce, as it were, artificially those con¬ 
ditions by which plants are influenced to obey the above law when growing in 
a state of nature ; or, in other words, left to ramble unchecked. In writing on 
these subjects w r e are very apt to allude to plants as if they were animated 
beings; and I do not see the unfitness of this, because plants do really possess 
a principle of vitality which is very near akin to the vitality of animal life, 
and the principles on which we work are alike in both cases. Many of them 
also possess a -wonderful power of accommodating themselves to various circum¬ 
stances, and it is only by acting on this analogy between them that we are able 
to produce corresponding results. In the case immediately before us, under 
ordinary circumstances plants do not proceed to the formation of fruitful wood 
to any extent until a partial exhaustion takes place, or, in other words, a certain 
degree of maturity is arrived at. The time at which such maturity is attained 
varies very much in different plants, but when attained the functions of the 
tree are at once diverted to the development of the organs of reproduction, and 
the result is the formation of fruitful w r ood. 
