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THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
In preparing a border for Apricots, thorough drainage is indispensable, for 
although during the growing season, and more particularly about the time the 
fruit is stoning, they will require a constant and liberal supply of water, yet it 
is necessary that it should gradually percolate away through the drainage ; for 
anything like sourness in the soil, arising from the stagnation of water therein, 
will very soon tell upon the well-doing of the trees, and is, in fact, often the 
sole reason why they refuse to flourish in some localities otherwise favourable, 
but more particularly in such as have a subsoil of strong clay. 
A favourable condition of soil in a natural state for the growth of Apricots 
would be a deep friable loam, resting upon a porous gravelly subsoil, and about 
the least favourable would be a shallow strong loam on a clay subsoil. Wherever, 
therefore, the latter, or any assimilation thereto, prevails, a corresponding amount 
of care must be bestowed upon the preparation of the borders. In such a case, 
to secure a minimum depth of 2 feet of compost, the earth should be excavated 
to the depth of 30 inches close to the wall, the bottom gradually sloping to the 
front of the border, which should have a minimum depth of 40 inches. The 
width of the border should not be less than 15 feet; more would be better, be¬ 
cause the temptation to crop such borders is too great to resist, and as there 
should always be a space of 5 feet from the wall kept free of crops, the wider 
the border is made the less necessity will there be for encroaching on that five- 
feet space. Along the front of the excavated border sink a small trench, in 
which place draining pipes of 4 or 6 inches in diameter, and from one end of 
these carry a substantial drain to some convenient outfall. What I should call 
a substantial drain in this case would be draining pipes of the above size covered 
with a foot or 18 inches of broken bricks or stones, and except in case of 
accidents such a drain would last for generations ; for should the drain become 
choked by silt or other debris, or be penetrated by roots, the water would pass 
freely away through the broken stones. The drainage for the border, consisting 
of broken bricks and stones, should now be wheeled in, and laid to the depth 
of 6 inches near the wall and a foot or more near the front; cover the stones 
with fresh turves cut thin and laid with the grassy side downwards, and then 
fill up the border with the prepared compost, which, for Apricots, may consist 
of two-thirds of good friable loam and one-third of vegetable matter, not 
manurial, to which may be added a portion of old mortar rubbish, and, during 
the process of mixing, a few handfuls of salt thrown in occasionally. 
In a border so prepared it would be a great waste of time to plant small 
trees, because trees of from four to six years of age, and just ready to commence 
bearing fruit, may be planted with great success. Suitable trees of the kind 
may generally be found in those nurseries where the proper cultivation of fruit 
trees is made a speciality; but as no tree more requires a special preparation 
in the early stages than the Apricot, it is better for the operator to select young- 
maiden trees, and bring them to the fruit-bearing state himself, either planting 
them in any little vacant spaces against the walls, or, if not, in a sheltered place in 
an open quarter, and train them to stakes espalier fashion. In selecting the 
maiden trees see that the stock is clean and free-growing, and especially that it 
Is sound and healthy at the point of junction between the stock and the maiden 
shoot, as premature decay, or an unnatural enlargement at that point, very often 
results from inattention to this apparently very trivial question. 
Reclleaf. John Cox. 
TAGETES SIGNATA PUMILA. 
I have on more than one occasion recommended this dwarf Marigold to 
the notice of my friends as a bedder. This season, although so wet and windy, 
