400 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
February 22, 1896. 
HINTS FOR AMATEURS. 
Pruning. 
The Cherry.— Although not so extensively grown 
as those hardy fruits with which we have previously 
dealt, the Cherry is yet of sufficient importance to 
claim our attention for a while. As an adjunct to 
the dessert table it is always in request whenever it 
can be had, nor is it by any means despised by those 
in charge of the kitchen department. The members 
of the Morello section have also appropriated to them¬ 
selves no small measure of popular favour, and it 
would be hard to find a garden of any pretensions in 
which a few trees are not grown. The most im¬ 
portant point that can be claimed in favour of the 
Cherry undoubtedly is that it is among the first of 
the hardy fruits to ripen. As the habit of growth 
and method of fruiting is rather different in the 
Sweet or Dessert Cherries and the Morellos we 
shall have to speak of them separately. 
Standards. —These are held in a great deal of 
favour in many gardens, and although they do not 
perhaps produce quite such fine fruit as the wall 
trees they usually crop pretty freely. In dealing 
with other fruit trees trained as standards, and 
planted in the garden or orchard, we have spoken 
of the limited nature of the pruning required by 
established trees. This is quite as true in regard to 
the Cherry, which, indeed, is perhaps the most 
easily managed of all in this respect. The most 
critical time in the history of standards, and the one 
when the pruning knife has to be most carefully em¬ 
ployed, is in the earlier stages of their growth. If 
young trees are carefully attended to, however, for 
the first three or four years of their growth, and well- 
balanced heads of sound material obtained, they will 
need but very little looking after subsequently. For a 
year or two after planting it may be necessary to pay 
a little attention to the regulation of the principal 
branches with regard to length, for if one or more of 
them are allowed to grow away at their own sweet 
will the equal distribution of the sap will be dis¬ 
turbed, and one or two gross, rank boughs will 
take their own share, and the better part of their 
neighbours as well. The cutting out of cross 
branches must, in all cases, be closely looked afier. 
Any smaller ones that have been broken or injured 
must also be cut clean away. It will likewise 
be necessary to watch very carefully the production 
of twiggy growths in the centre of the tree, for these 
are neither of use nor ornament, whether it be in a 
Cherry or an Apple tree, so out they must ccme. 
Wall trees.— For walls of a fair size, say over 
7 ft. in height, the fan-shaped trees are the best to 
plant. If properly looked after they soon cover the 
space allotted to them, and old or worn-out branches 
can be easily replaced with young and fertile ones. 
Morellos, as a rule, do splendidly when treated in 
this way. They bear their fruit upon wood formed 
the previous year, the shoots often bearing flower 
buds along their entire length, the terminal one only 
being a wood bud. During the summer, therefore, 
the necessary thinning out of branches, and the 
nailiog in of those that are to remain for fruit bear¬ 
ing, must be carefully looked after. At the winter 
pruning a further thinning out of these branches 
must take place. The aim should be to get a number 
of sound well-ripened young shoots to take the place 
of the old and useless ones, or of those that have 
already fruited. Of course, a certain quantity of 
old wood will still remain, just sufficient to carry the 
young shoots. Many amateurs fall into the error of 
laying in too much wood during the summer. The 
inevitable result of this ill-advised proceeding is 
that none of the branches are so well ripened as they 
ought to be. The winter pruning also has to be of 
a much severer character, as the superfluous shoots 
have to be taken out in order to allow room for the 
others. Overcrowding ''must in all cases be studiously 
avoided or large fine fruit cannot be looked for. 
Low Walls, that is to say those that are under 
7 ft. in height, may be utilised for dwarf horizontal- 
trained trees. There the space allowed between the 
main branches will depend in a great measure upon 
the particular variety that is being grown. For the 
Bigarreau and other strong growers at least a foot 
of space between each of the branches must be 
allowed. For those sorts which are not quite so 
rampant in their growth, and hence do not require 
so much room to accommodate them—as, for 
instance, the May Duke—about 9 in. between the 
branches will suffice. As with other horizontal- 
trained trees with which we have dealt the main 
object is to get the spurs borne by the main branches 
furnished with a liberal complement of blossom 
buds. This can only be done by judicious pinching 
in the summer months, followed up by careful 
shortening back at the winter pruning. It may be 
necessary to mention also that young trees require 
to be somewhat differently treated to older ones. 
The shoots on young trees must be allowed to 
grow for a little longer space of time before 
they are subjected to pinching than those on 
the older oues, in order to assist in the making of 
roots. In the winter time these spurs and stopped 
shoots must be neatly cut over with a sharp knife. 
We would lay particular stress here upon the 
necessity of using a keen-edged knife for jagged 
and twisted cuts and abrasions of the bark are sure 
to cause gumming, which, although not particularly 
injurious when only a little of it is going on, can 
scarcely fail to be harmful when it is excessive. 
The growths may be cut fairly hard back close to 
their bases, where the fruit buds will be observed to 
be clustering. This will keep the spurs within 
reasonable limits, for if they are suffered to retain 
each year an inch or two of growth it will not be 
long before they become unwieldy in size, and some 
distance removed from the sheltering wall. It 
becomes somewhat difficult to afford protection from 
birds to the fruit upon trees in this condition, as 
may readily be imagined. All dead snags or 
stubs must also be removed as they are of no 
possible use excepting, perhaps, to various insect 
pests which take up their abode in them. Now and 
again one sees a tree that has been neglected in this 
way, and it is an infallible sign of carelessness or 
incompetency upon the part of its owner, or those 
who are intrusted with the task of looking after it. 
Espaliers may be treated in very much the same 
way as horizontal trees trained against walls. Such 
hard pruning back, however, as was recommended for 
the latter is not so necessary at the winter dressing. 
The shoots which were pinched back to about 3 in. 
in length during the summer may be pruned now to 
within about a couple of inches of their bases, taking 
care to cut back to a wood bud of which several 
will be observed opon the shoot.— Rex. 
- -*» - 
Correspondence. 
Questions asked by amateurs on any subject pertaining 
to gardens or gardening will be answered on this page. 
A hyone may give additional or more explanatory answers 
to questions Oiat have already appeared. Those who desire 
their communications to appear on this page should write 
“ Amateurs' Page ” on the top of their letters. 
Replies.—The present season, X., to say the least 
of it, appears to be a collection of samples, as far as 
weather is concerned, and io° of variation in the 
temperature from one day to another seems to be the 
rule rather than the exception. Under suph circum¬ 
stances we should advise you to cover up your cold 
frames every night for at least another month, no 
matter what the weather looks like at nightfall. 
The little extra trouble caused is only like the pay¬ 
ment of a very small insurance upon your plants. 
R. B., too, is grumbling about the weather ! That is 
nothing fresh, for is it not the Englishman’s 
prerogative to grumble ? He says that it is no use 
trying to keep his greenhouse at a uniform tempera¬ 
ture, and asks if we can help him by advice. We 
may give him advice, certainly, but we question 
very much if R. B. will not think we are laughing at 
him when we tell him to persevere, and keep his 
greenhouse as near to the mark as he can. It is true 
gardening books say that a certain class of glass¬ 
house should have a certain temperature at various 
times of the year, but this is not meant to be like 
the laws of the Medes and Persians, fixed, and 
unalterable. A variation of say 5 0 will do no harm 
whatever. Thus, during very cold nights your house 
may be kept up to 40°, whilst during mild ones it 
may possibly stand at 45 0 without a smell of fire- 
heat. 
Yet one more grumbler calls for attention this 
week. He rejoices under the pseudonym oiZ., 
whatever that may mean. Some Hyacinths which 
he bought late in the season, potted up and covered 
with ashes, were taken out of the latter a little more 
than a month ago and stood in a cold frame. But Z 
says they look very unhappy. The leaves appear as 
if they were scorched. Is it because, being rather 
late in ordering, I have been palmed off with a lot of 
rubbish ? Not necessarily, friend Z. ; for it is more 
than likely that the markings on the leaves of your 
plants are due to the action of the ashes. Perhaps 
they were left covered for too long, or, yet another 
suggestion, these ashes have been obtained from gas 
fires. Either of these conditions would account for 
the mischief. The next time you cover Hyacinths 
with ashes, cover the crown of the bulbs with an 
empty inverted pot, and don’t under any considera¬ 
tion use gas ashes. 
We fully agree with you, R. W. T., as to the 
beauty and value of Campanula isopbylla as a green¬ 
house plant. We are happy to tell you also that it 
will grow in the window of an ordinary dwelling 
room, as well as it will in a greenhouse. You would 
do well to invest in a few small wire baskets, which 
might be suspended at various heights from the 
window sill, thus allowing the natural pendant habit 
of the plants to develop themselves to the best 
advantage. Do not forget, moreover, to get the 
white-flowered form—C. i. alba. It is every bit as 
pretty as the type, and quite as easy to grow. We 
have seen some really splendid results when the two 
have been associated. Yes ! Fogey (by the way, why 
did you not choose a prettier nom de plume ?), you are 
quite right in keeping your Hoya carnosa rather dry 
at the root during the winter. You may continue to 
do so until it shows signs of starting into growth. 
Of course we do not take "rather dry” to mean 
that you have made a total abstainer of the plant. 
If the leaves show the slightest signs of shrivelling, 
water must be given. Your greenhouse will scarcely 
be warm enough to accommodate either H. bella or 
the closely-allied H. Paxtoni, both of which require 
more heat than H. carnosa. They are in reality 
stove plants. If you are able to give them this 
temperature, well and good, as they do not take up a 
great deal of room. 
G. Heathley is falling into the same mistake as 
many an amateur has fallen before him—viz., trying 
to grow a variety of subjects needing different kinds 
of treatment mixed together in one and the same 
house. He may meet with some success, certainly, 
in growing Tomatos along with a collection of green¬ 
house plants, as he proposes to do, but we are afraid 
that the success will be of the limited order of things. 
The pot plants will want shading during the summer 
months, and the Tomatos will not. Indeed, the 
more sun Tomatos get the better is it for them. 
This statement may easily be substantiated by 
noticing how much more plentiful they are during a 
hot sunny summer as, for instance, that of 1805, 
than in a dull sunless one, as that of 1894 The best 
thing to do under the circumstances is to devote one 
portion of the house to the Tomatos, and thus make 
it possible to give them all the sun that they can get, 
and to keep the pot plants in that part that is shaded 
artificially. 
Embryo Gardener enquires if Tomato plants can be 
obtained by any other means than that of sowing 
seed ? to which we may reply that, although the 
sowing of seed is the method of propagation most 
generally in use, cuttings will strike readily, and will 
produce good plants within a reasonable time. We 
know of some gardeners who prefer plants obtained 
from cuttings to those raised from seed for fruiting 
in winter, as they have an idea, based doubtless upon 
experience, that the former do not produce so much 
haulm as the latter, whilst they develop bloom trusses 
rather more readily. 
Seakalefrom Seed.—Your correspondent, " W. Fry,” 
wishes to know if crowns of these can be produced 
large enough for forcing in one year from seed. 
Having had much experience in the cultivation of 
this vegetable, I must say that it is very seldom 
indeed that they can be grown sufficiently large to 
be of any service. The ground must indeed be 
very fertile, and the season exceptionally favourable 
to plant growth, if such were accomplished, hence 
the reason gardeners have recourse to root cuttings. 
Could crowns large enough for forcing be obtained 
from one-year-old seedlings, doubtless gardeners 
would adopt that system in preference to going to 
the trouble of making cuttings. If “ Mr. Fry ” is 
desirous of cultivating this vegetable he will find no 
difficulty in growing good crowns from root sets. 
These should be of the thickness of a man’s finger, 
cut into lengths of about 3 in., and planted in 
rows from 18 in. to 2 ft. apart, allowing a distance 
of 9 in. between the sets. Several growths will start 
from each, all of which, except the strongest, should 
be removed when about 2 in. high. The present 
is a good time for planting— H. C. Prinsep. 
