July 6, 1901. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
715 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man ”— Bacon. 
(HFc ©artomttg 
Edited by J. FRASER, F.L.S., F.R.H.S. 
SATURDAY, JULY 6 th, igoi. 
The Editorial and Publishing Offices are 
now at 4, Dorset Buildings, Salisbury 
Square, Fleet St., London, E.C., where 
all communications and remittances are 
to be addressed to the Proprietors. 
NEXT WEEK'S ENGAGEMENTS. 
Monday, July 8th.—Meeting oi the United Horticullural 
Benefit and Provident Society. 
Tuesday, July gth.—Wolverhampton Floral Fete (3 days); 
Gloucester Rose ; Harrow Rose. 
Wednesday, July 10th.—Formby Rose; Stambridge Rose; 
Worthing Rose. 
Thursday, July nth.—Bath Floial Fete and Rose Show; 
Brentwood Rose; Eltham Rose; Helensburgh Rose; 
Woodbridge Rose. 
Saturday, July 13th.— Royal Botanical and Horticultural 
Society of Manchester Rose Exhibition. 
&e Woburn Experimental Fruit 
Farm.— The large party from London 
and its suburbs, as well as from greater dis¬ 
tances, that inspected the Strawberry 
grounds of Messrs. Laxton Bros , Bedford, 
on Monday, June 24th, was driven in con¬ 
veyances to inspect the Woburn Experi¬ 
mental Fruit Farm, established by the 
Duke of Bedford in 1894 near Ridgmont. 
At that time some 20 acres of arable land 
were laid out and trenched two spits deep, 
loosening up the subsoil and replacing that 
taken out in its original position. No 
manure was applied. The soil is of average 
fertility, overlying a deep bed of Oxford clay, 
and lies at an elevation of 270 ft. above sea 
level. Planting was commenced immedi¬ 
ately and has been continued or added to 
by fresh plots or plantations as new ideas 
suggested themselves. Fruit trees, bushes 
and Strawberries constitute the principal 
subjects now under trial or experiment, the 
main object or design of which is to show 
farmers, market gardeners and fruit growers 
generally what can be done by certain 
methods of planting and cultural treatment. 
The plots under treatment are now very 
numerous, something like 918 of them being 
catalogued. Apples and Plums amongst 
the larger trees are very extensively em¬ 
ployed. There is also a large stock of 
Gooseberries, Black Currants and Straw¬ 
berries, with smaller quantities of other 
fruits. 
Of dwarf Apple-trees alone there are 180 
lots under experiment, all of which are 
worked upon the Paradise stock. They 
were planted in November, 1894, as three 
year old trees, which have now attained 
considerable size. The varieties employed 
for this set of experiments are Bramley’s 
Seedling, Cox’s Orange Pippin and Potts' 
Seedling. A square of ground around each 
tree is dressed with artificial manures at a 
rate estimated at an equivalent of 12 tons 
of farmyard manure. The square isannually 
increased in size, and will be continued so 
that their periphery will meet in the course 
of fifteen years, so that all the ground will 
be covered with this dressing. These 
manures consist of sulphate of potassium 
at the rate of 94 lbs. per acre ; superphos¬ 
phate, 152 lbs. ; and magnesium sulphate, 
32 lbs., all of which are applied in Novem¬ 
ber. Nitrate of sodium at the rate of 97 
lbs. per acre is added in February. Some 
half a dozen plots are under experiment for 
different treatment of the surface soil. All 
have the same quantities of artificial 
manure, and the same varieties are employed 
for the purpose of ready comparison. With 
the exception of one plot no great differ¬ 
ences were observable as far as the growth 
of the trees was concerned. This plot was 
originally planted in 1894, but as it was 
cleaned by mistake the trees were lifted and 
replanted in 1895. Since then the weeds 
have been allowed to grow at their own 
sweet will. The Apple-trees have evidently 
had a great struggle for existence, for they 
are still very small stunted bushes com¬ 
pared with those on the plots on either side 
of them ; and some are dead or nearly so. 
The calculation is that the weeds utilise or 
waste about two-thirds of the moisture or 
rainfall, so that the Apples suffer from the 
deficiency and grow very slowly in the ab¬ 
sence of that water which acts as the 
vehicle for conveying the dilute or scanty 
plant food in the soil from the roots to the 
leaves. The present belief is that the trees 
will ultimately attain to good size when 
their roots have had time to pentrate the 
hard dry soil. At present they are loudly 
demonstrative of the fact that trees so 
treated lose several years’ growth by com¬ 
parison with those grown in -clean land. 
On one side of the last mentioned plot is 
one where the weeds are entirely removed 
but the surface of the ground beaten hard. 
On the other side is a plot which is dug 
twice or thrice during the course of the year, 
close to the roots but without injuring them. 
The trees in both of these plots have made 
admirable growth ; and, indeed, it would 
be difficult to tell in what particular respect 
they differ, if at all. The plot on which the 
weeds have been allowed to grow undis¬ 
turbed should constitute a good object 
lesson to those who still believe that fruit 
trees may be profitably grown on grass, 
whether intended for hay or for the pastur¬ 
ing of sheep or cattle beneath them. 
Akin to these trials is a plantation of 
standard Apples on the Crab stock, such 
as are used for the plantation of Orchards. 
The ground was trenched before they were 
planted, and manure applied as in the case 
of other plots close by. The trees are near 
the top of a gentle slope which might be 
said to be in their favour. The grass has 
been allowed to grow beneath them, how¬ 
ever, and that fact has told immensely to 
their disadvantage. The heads are very 
small and the stems quite thin by compari¬ 
son with those of their neighbours on clean 
ground. The suggestions made by Mr. 
Lewis Castle, the resident superintendent 
of the fruit farm, were that grass land was 
unfavourable to the profitable growth of 
Apple-trees, particularly those on the 
Paradise stock which have their* roots 
mostly near the surface. Cherries might 
with advantage be planted on grass so as 
to check over luxuriance during their 
earlier years, and thereby induce early fruit¬ 
fulness ; but otherwise the system of plant¬ 
ing on grass land was altogether a mistake 
if the best results are to be expected. A 
suggestion was made by a visitor some 
years ago that the lack of aeration to the 
roots might be the cause of the trees doing 
so badly in grass land or where the weeds 
are allowed to grow. In order to test this 
a plantation was made three years ago, and 
the roots put under special conditions. Zinc 
cylinders were put down to the depth of 18 
ins., and having a diameter of 3 ft. to-3^ ft. 
The trees were planted and staked. Then 
the surface of the ground was covered over 
with a layer of cement close up to the trees, 
which are now practically being grown in 
large pots, bottom upwards with the stem 
of the trees protruding through the central 
hole in the bottom of the pot. The root 
system of the tiees is in direct contact with 
the soil and subsoil below. A few iron 
pipes were let through the cement surface 
covering for the purpose of supplying 
water equivalent to the rainfall. After the 
application of the water the pipes are tightly 
corked up so as to exclude air. The object 
of this experiment was to prove whether 
the lack of aeration to the surface of the 
soil was what made the trees do badly in 
grass land or in that where the weeds were 
allowed to grow. The trees are flourishing 
and quite as large as they could be expected 
if grown under natural conditions. The 
conclusion is that lack of air to the roots 
has little to do with the case, but that the 
moisture wasted or utilised by the grass is 
the true reason for the trees doing so badly 
in grass land. A slight modification of this 
trial was suggested and carried out by Mr. 
Castle about two years ago. An Apple- 
tree was planted in a pot, the latter being 
plunged to the rim in soil. The surface 
was then covered with a layer of asphalt 
and so it has remained to this day. The 
tree is not making much growth but is 
healthy ; and although iis roots are practic¬ 
ally hermetically sealed so far as an earthen¬ 
ware pot can do so, they must have all the 
air they require, and the moisture they 
utilise must all percolate through the sides of 
the pot from the surrounding soil. These 
facts would seem to explain why it is that 
street trees can live and thrive although 
their roots are covered by stone, wooden or 
asphalt paving. They must get sufficient 
moisture from below by capillary attraction, 
and the hard and solid surface prevents the 
loss of the same by evaporation from the 
surface. On the whole, then, the question 
of fruit or other trees being able to grow 
under these various conditions is purely that 
of being able to get a sufficiency of moisture 
by their root system during the period of 
growth. 
Some interesting experiments have been 
made in the manuring of Gooseberries with 
varying quantities of artificial and farmyard 
manures. Several plots had artificial 
manures applied to them equivalent to 12 
and 30 tons of dung per acre. The bushes 
are light green in colour, and making very 
moderate growth, but are heavily laden with 
fruit, the berries being of small size. One 
plot had stable manure applied to it as a 
top-dressing at the rate of 30 tons per acre. 
The bushes are dark green, growing vigor¬ 
ously, and laden with berries of handsome 
size. The number of berries is evidently 
much less than on the other plots and this 
elicited the question whether they had been 
thinned, the reply being in the negative. 
Here again we think it is largely a question 
of moisture. Farmyard manure apart from 
its fertilising ingredients has the property of 
making the soil more retentive of moisture, 
or, as in this case, of conserving the mois¬ 
ture in the soil. This recalls an old adage 
that the weather, or more particularly the 
rainfall, is a more potent factor in determin¬ 
ing the weight of any given crop than all 
the manures that can be applied. It is 
also widely known or recognised that the 
best results are obtained by combining the 
natural with artificial manures, the former 
to supply humus to the soil, thereby in¬ 
creasing its retentiveness of moisture and 
plant food, the latter to make good the 
deficiencies of farmyard manure, or to 
supplement the plant food it contains. 
A large number of different kinds of fruit 
trees are planted in the form of hedges en¬ 
closing the different breaks or squares of 
ground. The object is twofold, namely, to 
furnish shelter for the fruit trees the hedges 
enclose, and in the second place to produce 
something useful in the way of fruit. In a 
word, they are wanted to be profitable as 
well as useful; and the different kinds 
employed, including Crabs, Plums, Dam¬ 
sons, &c., is to determine which give the 
best results. The Plum-tree hedges in 
several instances carried a good crop of 
