156 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
November 8, 1890. 
In the event of a dry summer following the planting, 
it will be well to see that none of the newly planted 
trees suffer for lack of moisture at the roots, but with 
a careful mulching as suggested in the planting, 
this will be very considerably minimised ; hut where it 
is considered necessary, let it be amply supplied, as 
nothing is so irritating as to see growth suddenly cease, 
insects take possession, and thus have hopes of a good 
tree blasted, and all previous efforts thrown to the wind. 
Writing of insects, reminds me of still another impor¬ 
tant matter— i.e., the prevention of any gaining a 
footing, not ODly in the case of young trees, but mature 
trees as well. The various cleansing applications 
referred to from time to time, form good preventives, 
and should be applied at different periods through a 
syringe or garden engine, never waiting until insects 
are discernable, as then they are not so easily ejected — 
in fact it may happen that a stronger solution than is 
absolutely safe may be applied, and thus prove the cure 
worse than the disease. I find a weak solution of 
tobacco liquor and Gishurst’s Compound, applied at 
intervals, mixed in clean water to about the colour of 
slightly silted water, mil keep all aphides, &c., quite in 
check ; and should caterpillars appear, recourse should 
be had to hand-picking. These small details executed 
as advised will, under ordinary circumstances, prove 
pro born. — J. Proctor, Glenfinart. 
- »>I< «- 
THE KENT COB IN CAPE 
COLONY. 
The editor of the TJitenhage Times, a Cape Colony 
paper, has in his garden a Kent Cob, which each year 
hears many clusters of nuts, but without kernels, and 
in his trouble, he wrote to the Agricultural Department 
of the Cape, and received the following reply from 
Professor MacOwan, curator of the Cape Town Botanical 
Gardens : “To every plant there must be an optimum 
degree of temperature and atmospheric moisture, a 
minimum and a maximum likewise. Then each plant 
will submit to small variations above and below its 
best, that is, most suitable conditions of growth, but if 
the absolute limits, or one of them, is trangressed, the 
plant either dies out or fails to complete some 
important functions. The labours of the gardener 
engaged in acclimatising foreign fruits, trees, or flowers, 
depend entirely on this simple fact in the life history 
of the objects of his care. If the open-air conditions of 
his country do not sufficiently approach the optimum re¬ 
quired for any plant he wishes to grow, then he creates 
artificial conditions, by making greenhouses or hot¬ 
houses. Now, in bringing the Hazel Nut from the 
cool climate of Britain, with a mean annual temperature 
of 50‘3, and an atmosphere hovering very near to 
saturation point half the year,-“to the Cape with a rise 
to 61 '5, and a crisp dry air, the conditions of success 
have not been fulfilled. The shrub grows and does its 
best, vegetatively, but your correspondent’s experience 
shows that it cannot get through with the reproductive 
process. The only thing that can be said about it is, 
it is naturally unsuited to the climate to which it has 
been subjected. I should expect success if anywhere 
in the high, cold, upland plateaus at about 4,000 ft. to 
4,500 ft. Here, on the coast level, we have the South 
European fruits, the, Orange, Lemon, Fig, Peach, 
Apricot, Vine, and even, here and there, the Banana in 
tolerable perfection. It is too much to ask that the 
same climate should also produce the Nuts, the 
Currants, and other berry fruits of North Europe. In 
the neighbourhood of Adelaide (S. Australia), Goose¬ 
berries, Raspberries, Currants (red and black), and 
Cherries will not thrive at sea level. They are, how¬ 
ever, fairly well grown on Mount Lofty, some distance 
inland at 4,500 ft.” 
-—- 
THE APRICOT, 
At a meeting of the Ealing Gardeners’ Society, held a 
few days ago, Mr. George Gordon, of the Gardeners' 
Magazine, read a paper on wall fruits, dealing with the 
subject in a thoroughly practical manner, and dwelling 
on the importance of sufficient drainage, position, soil, 
&c. The aspect on which a wall fruit tree should be 
grown depended upon the nature of the fruit. For 
Peaches and Nectarines, a south wall was preferable ; 
for Pears, east and west, ; for Apricots, west; for 
Plums and Cherries, a north wall. As to dressing, 
he advocated a liberal treatment until the trees began 
to fruit. In reference to training, he recommended for 
Pears, the Cordon system, and for others the fan-shape. 
In the course of the discussion, the difficulty of grow¬ 
ing Apricots in Ealing cropped up. One gardener said 
he had tried them, and found they did very well for a 
year or two, and then died back. It may be stated 
that the surface soil of Ealing is a good yellow loam, 
resting on clay for a considerable part, and then it is 
somewhat heavy, and on gravel for another part, and 
then it is somewhat light ; but Apricots do not do 
well on either. And the gardener in question asked if 
the soil was unsuited to the Apricot. Mr. George 
Cannon, the manager at Messrs. Charles Lee & Sons 
fruit tree nursery at Ealing, said that he had some 
experience of growing Apricots in Ealing, but speaking 
generally, the attempt had not been successful, and 
he considered that possibly the seasons had something 
to do with it. Another Ealing gardener went the 
length of advising his horticultural brethren not to 
attempt to grow Apricots in Ealing, though he did not, 
it would appear, assign any reasons for such advice. 
Really, one would almost regard the Apricot as a 
doomed fruit, for it is not uncommon to hear gardeners 
on every hand confessing to failures with this particular 
fruit. There is no doubt that Apricots, for some 
reason, are affected by our unfavourable climate more 
than any other fruit ; and perhaps the best thing 
gardeners can do is to follow the advice of Mr. Geo. 
Bunyard, and keep a reserve of young trees coming on, 
though it is somewhat melancholy to think they are 
being grown on only to die prematurely. For Apricots, 
it is better to mix chalk and brick-rubbish with the soil, 
than to place the trees in a richly manured border; and 
should it be thought this may bring about suffering 
from drought, the gardener can mulch and water 
during hot weather, especially if there should be a 
heavy set of fruit. The best outdoor Apricots seen are 
in the chalky districts of England, and fine old trees can 
be seen growing against cottage residences. The 
autumnal rains will frequently cause a late growth on 
Apricots, and this disposes the trees to a sudden check 
when early autumn frosts come, but in order to guard 
against this calamity as much as possible, it is recom¬ 
mended that the borders be covered to throw off the wet, 
and thus assist in the early ripening of the wood. 
Some years ago, the late Duke of Wellington caused 
the Apricot walls at Strathfieldsaye, in the county of 
Hants, to be covered with glass, it being done for two 
reasons : one to assist in the production of fruit, as the 
crop invariably proved a precarious one, the other to 
prevent, if possible, the branches of the trees from 
dying year after year. But Mr. Bell, the gardener at 
Strathfieldsaye, told me some time since that very 
little change for the better in either respect was observ¬ 
able. 
And yet the beautiful yellow fruit of the Apricot is 
always most enticing and enjoyable to the taste; it was 
its rich golden complexion which moved Mr. John 
Ruskin to describe it as “Shining in sweet brightness 
of golden velvet.” So few fruits raised in England are 
literally of golden hue, that the tree is little less precious 
as an ornamental one. The stature attained by a 
healthy tree when growing in the open is 20 ft. or 30 ft., 
but excepting in the southernmost counties in England 
it does not ripen its fruit successfully unless the tree be 
trained against a wall facing the south. After infancy it 
never loses time, soon reaching maturity, but the lease 
of existence is short. 
Some of the finest Apricots I have ever seen exhibited 
are grown in the counties of Wiltshire and Somerset¬ 
shire—large and handsome, clear-skinned fruits, rich in 
colour. In Scott’s Orcliardist it is stated that “the 
stock upon which some of the sorts are budded has a 
great influence upon the longevity of the trees, some 
varieties doing well upon one kind of stock, while others 
will hardly grow upon the same, but require to be 
worked upon an entirely different one ; and some 
varieties will do well for awhile upon several sorts 
of Stocks, but will ultimately exude gum and die off.” 
But unfortunately Scott did not go further, and say 
what stocks were best suited for the several varieties, 
though he afterwards states that, as a cultivator of 
fruit trees, “his greatest care has ever been to attend to 
this very necessary point of culture, and the trees may 
be relied on as being worked upon the stock best suited 
to the nature of each.” 
The Apricot, the Prunus armeniaca of Linnse.us, and 
supposed by some to constitute a distinct genus, and 
therefore named Armeniaca vulgaris, is believed to be a 
native of Armenia, as expressed in the Latin generic 
name, though it is said that Koch, who spent so long a 
time in exploring that country and the regions adjacent, 
says that he never met with it thereabouts truly wild. 
Upon the Caucasus it ascends the mountain sides 
almost to the summit ; it occurs also in Thibet, 
Afghanistan, China and Japan. The movement west¬ 
wards would seem to have been slow and rather late. 
In England it appears to have been first seen about 
a.d. 1524, temp. Henry TUI., whose chief gardener, 
one Wolfe, a Catholic priest, is said to have procured 
or brought it from Italy. 
The derivation of the common name Apricot is 
somewhat remarkable. According to Professor Skeat 
it begins with the old Roman epithet applied to this 
fruit, prcecox, “early,” meaning the fruit which 
precedes others of its class, and their form of the word 
was •prcecoguus, having for its old neuter plural 
proscoqua. Travelling into Greece it underwent further 
change, and the Greek name having been adopted by 
the Arabs, by whom the tree was now beginning to be 
planted extensively in northern Africa, it got into 
the Portuguese language, and the spelling changed 
again. From the Portuguese it moved into French, 
and so at last into our own, taking the shape at first of 
“apricock ” as found! in Shakespeare, and eventually, 
though not till 1782, of “ Apricot.”— R. P>. 
- ►>$<» - 
HERBACEOUS PLANTS. 
With reference to Mr. W. Napper’s remarks at p. 140 of 
The Gardening World, and the several recent 
queries which have appeared as to what really con¬ 
stitutes herbaceous plants—as far as the word 
“ herbaceous ” goes, the correct definition is simple 
enough. Withering, in his Botanical Arrangement 
of British Plants, explains it under the heading of 
“ Dictionary of English Botanical Terms,” and says, 
“ Herbaceous stem : one that is succulent and tender, 
in opposition to one that is woody ; it perishes annually 
down to the root. The Pea (perennial), and the Nettle 
are instances.” Being an old exhibitor of herbaceous 
plants, I have frequently heard the question raised 
when stands of cut flowers have been set up for com¬ 
petition containing Canterbury Bells and other 
biennial varieties, and I have known such stands 
disqualified in consequence. 
The best way of keeping everybody right in future 
would be for such classes to be specified in schedules as 
herbaceous or soft-wooded border perennials, and then 
all kinds of the two descriptions could be included 
with impunity. If soft-wooded only were scheduled, as 
“W. P. R.” suggests (p. 122), or plants which have 
annual stalks, with biennial or with perennial roots, 
which Mr. Napper considers an excellent definition, the 
difficulties would not be removed, and the judges 
would in consequence become more perplexed than 
ever.— James Thurstan, Finsbury House, Bichmond 
Road, Cardiff. 
--»3H>- 
CHRYSANTHEMUM SHOW- 
Kent County. 
The Kent County Society may be said to have opened 
the Chrysanthemum show season on Tuesday, when it 
held its third annual display in the Rink, Blackheath, 
where an attractive display was got together. The 
groups were not so numerous as usual in the miscel¬ 
laneous class, although those for competition were 
quite as plentiful, and rather better than on previous 
occasions. As regards quality, many of the Japanese 
varieties were notable for their great size, in fact, they 
were far too big for the stands. 
The first prize for a group of Chrysanthemums was 
awarded to T. Williams, Esq. (gardener, Mr. J. Payne), 
Oaklands, Lewisham Park. The blooms were mostly 
of large size, and the plants were sloped up to a steep 
gradient at the back. F. W. Prior, Esq. (gardener, 
Mr. J. Hudd), Gordon House, Blackheath Park, was a 
good second, with a group more graduated to the front. 
F. P. Preston, Esq., South Bank, Blackheath, was 
third ; and J. Hemmonde, Esq., Eliot Place, Black¬ 
heath, came in fourth. There was good competition 
for the Centenary Cup offered for twenty-four Japanese 
and twenty-four incurved. John Scott, Jun., Esq. 
(gardener, Mr. J. Blackburne), Elmstead Grange, 
Chislehurst, was placed first. He had some splendid 
blooms of Lord Alcester, Empress of India, Golden 
Empress of India, Queen of England, Golden Queen of 
England, Empress Eugenie, Princess of Wales, 
Stanstead White, Mons. Bernard, Etoile de Lyon, 
Sunflower, Madame C. Audiguier, Boule d’Or, 
Baronne de Prailly, Avalanche, Yal d’Andorre, 
Mons. H. Elliott, Madame J. Laing, Sarah Owen, 
Stanstead Surprise, Gloriosum, and many others. D. 
B. Chapman, Esq. (gardener, Mr. M. Sullivan), Down- 
shire House, Roehampton, came in second, with smaller 
but very neat blooms. C. H. Goschen, Esq. (gardener, 
Mr. E. Whittle), Addington, Croydon, was third ; and 
W. Furze, Esq. (gardener, Mr. Coombes), Roselands, 
TeddingtoD, took the fourth place with smaller but 
even flowers. Martin R. Smith, Esq. (gardener, Mr. 
