February 20, 1892. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
380 
one of which was panicled bearing a large number 
of flowers. The other scape terminated in a young 
plant or leafy bud, consisting of leaves in. to 
3 in. long, but a side bud had elongatad into a 
raceme bearing four good sized flowers. 
The other houses devoted to Phalasnopsis had 
their usual complement of plants in good condition, 
but fewer of them were in bloom. Amongst them 
were P. grandiflora which will produce a greater 
display presently, and P. intermedia was flowering. 
--I--- 
LYCASTE SKINNERI 
ALBA. 
Numerous and beautiful as are the varieties of 
Lycaste Skinned, the white variety is admitted on 
all hands to be the most valuable and ornamental. 
Many white varieties of other species have a flimsy 
they are very numerous before a reduction in the 
size of the blooms becomes visible. Its value is fur¬ 
ther enhanced by its flowering at this early period of 
the year. Wherever we have seen it in bloom the 
owners have been quite enthusiastic in pointing it out 
as one of the choicest gems of their collection. 
APPLE TREE CULTURE. 
In taking up the thread of Mr. W. Crump's paper on 
Apple tree culture at the Manchester Fruit Confer¬ 
ence, which was dropped on p. 359, I may state that 
Mr. Crump does not apparently regard with much 
favour the propagation of Apple trees from own roots 
cuttings, or layers, as advocated by your contempo¬ 
rary, The Garden. He holds that so long as such 
good results as those previously set forth can with 
certainty be obtained from prepared free stocks, it is 
little better than a waste of time to trouble with cut- 
i8in. of the stock to be afterwards utilized as a stake 
for the purpose of tying the young buds' growth to, 
and to prevent the wind blowing it out. 
After the work of rubbing off the growths from the 
stock is entered upon, it is frequently done. If anv 
buds fail, the stocks are cut off qjite close to th * 
ground in the spring and grafted. By the end of 
the season the growths of the budded and also of the 
grafted trees are about equal — the reasons are 
obvious why Mr. Crump gives the preference to 
budding. 
There is one passage in Mr. Crump’s paper bearing 
upon the operations of nature and the influences of 
stocks versus scions — which appears to be both subtle 
and uncertain—I should like to reproduce in full. 
"Our experiments," he says, “have been aimed to 
improve the flavour, size, colour, habit, good bearing, 
or long keeping qualities — all or some of them com- 
Lvcaste Skinneri Alba, (Natural size.) 
appearance and lack of substance compared with the 
highly-coloured forms of the same types. This can¬ 
not be said of L. Skinneri alba, for it attains as large 
a size as the type, and presents a massive appear¬ 
ance. The segments are of great substance, and the 
sepals in well-grown specimens measure fully 5J in. 
across, as may be seen by reference to our illustra¬ 
tion, which was prepared from a plant exhibited by 
Mr. R. Johnson, gardener to T. Statter, Esq., Stand 
Hall, Whitefield, near Manchester, at the meeting of 
the Royal Horticultural Society, on the 9th inst. 
The petals are as pure white as the sepals, but they 
are of smaller size and stand erect in the centre of 
the flower. The lip is spreading and is also pure 
white, with exception of the tongue or crest on the 
centre, and which is of a pale lemon-yellow, showing 
Qff by contrast the purity of the rest of the flower. 
Very few have been disappointed in this plant who 
have been fortunate to add it to their collection. One 
pseudo-bulb gives rise- to 3 . number 1 of flo'wers, and 
tings, or even to resort to paradise or other " alien ” 
stocks, as Mr. Crump terms them. If only short¬ 
lived toy trees are required, then such stocks may 
be resorted to, but seeing the indigenous Crab is 
preferable, and the results in every way justify its 
use, its use is commended. Still Mr. Crump does not 
ignore the fact that no rule will apply to all soils and 
situations. 
Budding these prepared free stocks is done at 
Madresfield in August, as it is desirable the buds 
should remain dormant until spring. The sap is 
found to be most active, and the bark will rise freely 
and best after rain. But some caution has to be 
exercised, as sometimes, when rain comes after 
drought, the sap rises too freely, as only bark suffi¬ 
cient to receive the inserted shield-shaped bud should 
be disturbed, otherwise failures will follow. We 
prefer to bud close to the ground, leaving the 
stocks untrimmed until the following spring. We 
then, trim them up closely, retaining sortie 16 in. or 
bined. Prepared stocks have been worked at the 
ground, with Blenheim Pippin as the medium, and 
re-grafted at various heights with such kinds as 
Ribston Pippin, Cox’s Orange Pippin, King of 
Pippins, Cornish Gillyflower, Cellini Pippin, 
Glassega, Barnack’s Beauty, May Queen, Lane's 
Prince Albert, Rymer, Margil, Bismarck, Grenadier. 
Lord Burghley, Sandringham, Ashmead's Kernel 
Duke of Devonshire, Worcester Pearmain, Gas¬ 
coyne's Seedling, and others. Results so far are 
various, but more time is required to test them 
thoroughly ; till then it would be premature to state 
their peculiarities. Our trial ground contains upwards 
of two hundred named varieties.” These experiments 
are so full of interest that it is to be hoped Mr. 
Crump, when he has carefully studied and systema¬ 
tised his experience, will publish the results in 
some form. We are yet in the infancy of systematic 
Apple culture in this country, though we profess to 
baye learned so much, 
