546 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
April 29, 1893- 
throw more strength into the summer growth, and 
afford more light and air towards its better matura¬ 
tion ; a very important point in growing this class of 
Rose. I did not prune these until quite the end of 
March, and then only removed the points of such 
long shoots ; as, if properly matured during last 
autumn, they should bloom from almost every eye. 
In nailing these up, fasten the growths as horizon¬ 
tally as your space will allow, when they will break 
more uniformly. Very vigorous growers of this 
class, also make grand specimens as standards. The 
long growths will droop in a most graceful manner 
according as the weight of foliage and bloom 
increases. They are by far the best class to cultivate 
as standards, as their vigour keeps the standard 
briar stock in a healthy condition. 
It often happens jthat climbing Roses are some¬ 
what bare at the bottom and leave a considerable 
amount of w'all space uncovered. I would suggest 
that this be remedied by planting such good growers 
as Marie van Houtte, Souvenir d’un Ami, Anna 
Ollivier, and Madame Lambard. These will soon 
cover the lower portions, and the necessary moving 
of soil and additional manure needed to plant them 
will also aid the older Roses to a great extent. 
The last four Roses may be taken as a type of 
strong-growing Teas, and may be pruned in the same 
manner as Abel Carriere, Mrs. John Laing, General 
Jacqueminot, and Alfred Colomb from the hybrid 
perpetual section. Cutting the strongest shoots 
back to 9 in. and the weaker ones to 3 in. will be 
found a fairly good guide. Varieties that grow 
much weaker than these should be cut back harder. 
As regards the most suitable time for pruning 
Roses in sheltered districts like my own, the bulk of 
it may be done during March, but I leave the more 
tender Teas until the second week in April. Let 
those in the Midlands commence a week later 
throughout, and the northern rosarians wait an 
additional w-eek. 
When the prunings are collected, I like to lightly 
fork in the manure that was applied during winter 
and to mulch with a fresh layer. During the middle 
of May, when the plants are pushing into growth 
rapidly, this second layer may be forked in ; after 
this, keep the hoe going, as stirring the surface soil 
helps them very much.— Experience. 
--J-- 
ONIONS FOR PROFIT." 
The author of this little book, in his introduction, 
says that those who desire to make the culture of 
Onions pay will have to leave old ruts and adjust 
their methods to fit modem conditions. The writer 
being a cultivator, and one who has applied old 
methods to a new purpose on a rather extensive 
scale, must be held to speak from practical experience 
on the subject. In a review of soils he says that 
Onions can be grown, on any soil, from sand up to clay 
or even manure ; but what he terms a sandy muck he 
would consider an ideal soil if it can be arranged for 
sub-irrigation. The deep, rich, and well-drained, 
brown loams of river bottoms, or in other words well- 
drained and rich alluvial soil, he continues are 
admirably adapted for Onion culture. Land that 
has lain for some time in pasture should have a 
year’s preparation with some other crop, such as 
Potatos, to mellow it. Although Onions can be 
successfully grown upon the same piece of ground for 
many years it is advisable to change the location of 
the crop every year or every two years wherever 
disease makes its appearance. What he describes as 
the new method of Onion culture is the raising of 
seedlings under glass in early spring and planting 
them out in the field later on. The new method is 
the application of this principle on a large scale, the 
advantages of which he describes. Another feature 
of this Onion culture is the diminution of hand 
labour by the use of various machines for preparing 
the ground, weeding, planting, &c. The various 
kinds of manures that are especially adapted forOnions, 
irrigation and general cultivation, the harvesting and 
storage of the crop, as well as many other matters, 
are treated of in turn. There are fifty-four wood-cut 
illustrations in the pamphlet or little book. The 
whole is treated in a practical way, and making allow¬ 
ance for difference in climate, some of the precepts 
might be adopted in this country, both in private 
gardens and by Onion growers of a larger scale. 
*“ Onions for Profit.” An Expose of modern methods in Onion 
Growing, by T. Greiner. Published by \V. Atlee Burpee & Co.. 
Philadelphia, 1893. 
EARLY GOOSEBERRIES. 
Perhaps you will put on record through the medium 
of your paper that I have this day (April 20, 1893) 
brought you a handful of Gooseberries, most of them 
measuring three-quarters of an inch in length by 
half an inch in breadth, and some of them even 
larger. They were grown in the open air at pidsbury, 
and gathered by me this morning. You may gather 
a quart off the same tree if you care to do so. They 
are nearly a fortnight earlier than the earliest on 
record. I find that on April 30, 1871, and 1882, we 
had Gooseberry pie, the weather being then very 
warm, but 1893 beats them easily. Is there any con¬ 
nection in these intervals of eleven years between 
sun-spots and Gooseberries ? I can handle the latter, 
but I know nothing about the former. 
In this district old-fashioned Tories and orthodox 
Churchmen used to consider that Chester Races 
(held in the first whole week in May) was the proper 
place and time for the first Gooseberry pie, as Easter, 
the first great festival of spring, was the proper time 
for roast lamb and bitter herbs in the guise of mint 
sauce. It has often happened that even in the most 
favoured districts of Cheshire near to the sea there 
were scarcely any Gooseberries fit to gather at race 
time. This year they will be common enough long 
before then, for as the trees are in full leif and heart 
they can stand frost if it comes. The tree I gathered 
these from is certainly an exceptional one, for it is 
about fourteen feet across, and ten feet to the top. 
It grows in an exceptional spot at the bottom of the 
churchyard wall, and that may account far the large 
size and delicious flavour of the fruit. 
This very fine weather is doing more good for the 
country than most people imagine. Calves and lambs 
have done rarely. We have not lost a chicken from 
natural death. We had twenty-two ducklings hatched 
this morning from twenty-two eggs. There are more 
goslings than we have had for years. Old deeds 
relating to land at Didsbury contained a clause recit¬ 
ing that geese were subject to " tithe.” How should 
we argue the matter if anyone claimed tithe of geese 
now ? Anticipating old May Day our cows are now 
sleeping out at night, for the oak trees are showing 
green. Don’t let us have any inquiries about that 
absurd old rhyme about the Oak and Ash, or croak- 
ings about the weather that is to be. The present 
glorious weather shows no signs of altering, and is 
once again proving the old truth that " Drought 
ne’er breeds dearth ” in England. I turned out two 
tame long eared owls last week. If they sit on the 
fence and wink at anyone I hope he or she will not 
throw stones at them .—Fletcher Moss, The Old Parson¬ 
age, Didsbury, in the Manchester City News. 
- •*««- 
THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 
(1 Concluded from p. 535.) 
Pruning. 
The knife and the saw in unskillful hands are capable 
of doing much, and often irreparable, injury to plants. 
There must be a right and a wrong way to prune 
even when that is necessary, but the same methods 
of the art are not applicable in every case, otherwise 
little skill would be needed. When and wherever 
practised, let it be “ an art that doth mend nature " 
not baffle and offend her When trees are grown 
against walls in the open air, a system of pruning is 
necessary to keep them as close to the wall as pos¬ 
sible, otherwise the shelter and increased heat — the 
primary benefits obtained by the use of walls—are 
frustrated. The method, furthermore, will vary 
according to the species of tree, so that the necessary 
skill and knowledge in each case must be acquired by 
close attention and diligence on the part of the 
beginner. 
Old and sometimes only moderately old wall 
trees are a disgrace to the garden where they 
are allowed to remain crowded with old and greatly 
elongated spurs year after year, without any attempt 
to shorten or thin them at the annual pruning. If 
they were moderately fruitful there would be an 
excuse for the practice, but the reverse is more often 
the case, especially with Pear trees, wdrch can neither 
produce good sized fruits nor many of them under 
the conditions Sunlight is too greatly obstructed 
and the heat obtained by refraction and radiation is 
diminished. Standards and bushes on strong grow¬ 
ing stocks are often pruned on the orthodox principle 
to limit their size and retain a certain shape, and the 
severe restriction often rewards the cultivator with a 
plentiful supply of plant stakes but little or no fruit. 
The natural size and habit of the trees should be more 
studied, so that their natural dimensions and good 
crops of fruit may assist in preventing the trees from 
an excessive production of useless wood. Such trees 
should merely have the weak and useless as w r ell as 
the badly placed shoots cut away while yet in a small 
state. 
Cutting away large stems and branches, removing 
barrow-loads of strong annual shoots and attempts 
to train crooked branches after they get old are 
merely forms of coercion. A curious case of coercion 
once came under my notice. Some large trees were 
blown down by the wind and the owner, no doubt 
sorry to lose them, had the heads cut off and by the 
aid of men and ropes had them set upright again, and 
after nailing on the bark wondered why they refused 
to grow ! 
Ornamental trees and shrubs are often badly mis¬ 
managed either for want of proper and timely thinning, 
planting in unsuitable positions, and severe pruning or 
mutilation. Choke-muddle shrubberies are evidences 
of the two former, and the shrubs in some of the public 
gardens and recreation grounds of London and its 
suburbs are instances of the latter. Lilacs, Privets, 
and other flowering shrubs are headed down in a 
manner that neither exhibits sense nor judgment, for 
they cannot flower as they ought. Isolated Euony- 
mus bushes and others are cut into formal and 
meaningless masses. When trees are planted in the 
streets where there is no room for them to attain 
their natural dimensions, there are reasons for 
restricting them ; but when they are meant for 
the ornamentation of recreation grounds, they ought 
to be allowed to assume their natural form instead 
of being mutilated like old worn out and inverted 
brooms. 
Where space is ample and the trees are of various 
kinds, they should not be pruned all after one 
pattern like the trees in a toy shop. Every tree 
should be allowed to assume its natural form, what¬ 
ever that may be, and restrictions put on those branches 
only which grow too strongly, tending to make the 
tree malformed or lop-sided. Pruning is hardly the 
name for this sort of work, nor is pruning, in the real 
sense of the term, necessary. Beauty of form can be 
discerned only in those trees or shrubs which are 
allowed to grow and assume their natural forms. The 
real beauty of different species of trees consists in the 
diversified forms of their leafage and the general 
contour and habit of the whole. All these facts are 
items for the rising generation of gardeners to study 
and become thoroughly conversant with. 
Insect Enemies. 
It is not my intention to enumerate all the insect 
enemies of plant life and give remedies for them, as 
the subject is too vast for a tithe of it to be compre¬ 
hended in a paper like the present. It is my object 
rather to indicate the necessity of gaining a sufficient 
insight and knowledge into the habits of the principal 
enemies of plant life as they come under observation 
or fall to the lot of the young gardener to experience, 
as to enable him to cope with them effectually on 
scientific principles. The endless nostrums and 
complicated concoctions that are often brought for¬ 
ward for the destruction of various plant enemies 
would make a hen-aphis laugh, if she could, at the 
futile attempts made to eradicate her progeny. 
Aphides give most trouble to soft wooded plants 
grown under glass whether for fruit or flowers. Judi¬ 
cious ventilation to keep the plants healthy and 
strong, with a free use of the syringe and clean water, 
will often prevent a deal of injury that might other¬ 
wise occur. A vigilant eye will detect the founding 
of colonies an I effect their destruction before they 
have time to become established. This is far more 
effectual and serviceable to the plants themselves 
than any remedy that can afterwards be applied when 
the young expanding buds and tender leaves have 
been drained of their life-blood, so to speak, before 
their tissues have had time to expand or get hardened. 
It is just at this time the injury is done, and if the 
evil is allowed to proceed for a time unchecked, many 
soft wooded plants are ruined for life, and the gar¬ 
dener only reaps disappointment for his trouble in 
growing them It is the duty of those who have the 
immediate care of the plants to detect and destroy 
the stray individuals that give rise to colonies, not 
waiting for the head gardener to tell him that his 
plants are being destroye 1 by aphides or any other 
pest. 
