August 22, 1908. 
550 
THE GARDENING WORLD . 
at the bottom of the plants and is gradually 
working upwards. The' variety affected is 
Valerie Greenham. (Mums, Essex.) 
As far as we can determine there is no 
disease in connection with your 'Chrysanthe¬ 
mums. There is a blight of Chrysanthe¬ 
mums, but although your leaves commenced 
somewhat similarly they do not seem to 
continue it. The leaves you send rather 
suggest something wrong with the roots, 
either that you have been keeping them in 
too waterlogged condition, or something has 
gone wrong with the drainage. The appear¬ 
ance might, however, have been brought 
about by an injudicious use of fertilisers. 
Some varieties have strong constitutions and 
will stand bad usage to a much greater ex¬ 
tent than others. Evidently the treatment, 
whatever it is, is telling upon Valerie 
Greenham more than the others. You should 
ascertain to see whether the drainage is 
good, and if so, do not feed so heavily with 
artificial stimulants. We presume you have 
been applying sulphur to the leaves, but 
there is nothing on the outside of the leaf 
that sulphur could destroy. 
3136. Chrysanthemum throwing Blind 
Buds. 
'Can you tell me what is the cause of 
C hrysanthemums throwing blind buds, more 
especially Duchess of Sutherland? (Mums, 
Essex.) 
There is a variety of causes that might 
contribute to the throwing of blind buds in 
Chrysanthemums. Duchess of Sutherland is 
not an easy one to rear in all cases and 
bring to perfection. But any Chrysanthe¬ 
mum would soon appear blind if it threw 
a bud rather early in the season and then 
commenced growing again, pushing up side 
shoots. If the latter are not pinched im¬ 
mediately with the object of getting the 
bud to develop, it will be very dilatory in 
making a fresh start, or it may not start 
again at all. This is of very frequent 
occurrence amongst Chrysanthemums, and 
it can be seen amongst plants growing in 
the open border and left to their own re¬ 
sources. Another cause that would con¬ 
tribute to blind buds would be the result 
of injury by one or other of the insects 
allied to the frog hopper and even to the 
frog hopper itself. When these creatures 
puncture the buds in an early stage, if they 
come to anything at all the chances are 
that they will be one-sided. The remedy 
against the frog hopper is to get rid of the 
larvae under the spittle, which appears so 
plentiful in June. An occasional syringing 
with strong smelling tobacco water might 
help to keep away the other allied insects 
which also jump in a similar fashion to 
the frog hopper. In the case of buds which 
you intend to produce the bloom, it would 
be well to keep a sharp eye upon them as 
soon as they are formed and to remove all 
side buds which may arise. 
VEGETABLES. 
3137. Peas Failing;. 
I made a sowing of late Peas and they 
grew well for a time, but now they look 
stunted and are not flowering at all well. 
Please can you tell me what "is the matter, 
and the remedy. An earlier lot produced a 
boiling or two, but did not fill well and 
got blighted. What was the reason? (Sub¬ 
scriber, Sussex.) 
Although a kind of mildew was the im¬ 
mediate cause of the blighting of the Peas, 
it gets encouraged owing to the unsuitable 
condition of the soil. To be successful with 
vegetables it is necessary to have the soil 
; n a yery good condition of tilth by trench- 
■'g it, if not every year at least every 
second or third year, and manuring it at the 
-ame time. The trenching enables the vege¬ 
table, such as Peas, to penetrate the soil 
deeply so as to be beyond the influence of 
drought. The mildew of Peas is encouraged 
in dry and shallow soils and in droughty 
seasons. In the case of late Peas, it is 
necessary to take even further precautions 
against dry weather—by taking out trenches, 
piacing some manure in the same, covering 
it witn soil and then sowing the Peas. By 
leaving these trenches a little hollow along 
the middle it encourages ail the rainfall to 
sink in there instead of running off by the 
surface. You can also apply water arti¬ 
ficially and it will readily soak into the 
soil. A mulching of manure or even grass 
will tend to hold the moisture in the soil 
and enable the Peas to make good growth 
e>en in dry weather. You should therefore 
trench a portion of your vegetable ground 
in the forthcoming autumn and be well pre¬ 
pared for dry seasons like the present. In 
the following year trench another portion 
and so on till all has been done, then begin 
again on the first trenched portion. 
3138. Seaitale. 
I have a lot of plants of this appearing 
in my garden. My Seakale has not done 
well, being generally very thin and small. 
Y\ ill you kindly tell me in your next issue 
what to do and how to prepare a bed, when 
and how to transplant these plants, or what 
to do with them? 1 generally force it with 
leaves under pots, but -not successfully. I 
find The Gardening World a very great 
h.Ip. (R. E. Eaning, Suffolk.) 
The end of February or the beginning of 
March is as good a time to make a fresh 
plantation of Seakale as any. This would 
also apply to transplanting specimens so as 
to fill up the beds. Seakale is usually a 
good tempered plant, and if carefully lifted 
with all its roots at the end of September 
or the beginning of October it may be trans¬ 
planted then with safety, but if this is in¬ 
convenient you could have the roots lifted 
and laid rather thickly in a trench and 
well covered with soil until the proper 
time. It is largely a question of proper 
tillage of the ground. As Seakale roots 
rather deeply, the ground should really be 
trenched to get it to grow vigorously and 
well manured at the same time. You could, 
therefore, prepare a piece of ground in this 
way during winter in a fresh site and be 
ready to plant the Seakale about 18 in. apart 
in the lines and 18 in. to 2 ft. between the 
lines, the latter being the better distance 
where you can spare the land. You do not 
tell us anything about the nature of your 
soil, whether heavy or light, poor or other¬ 
wise. In either of these cases it is necessary 
to improve the soil by the method we have 
stated, and by using horse manure in heavy 
soils and cow manure in light soils. Then 
you make no mention whether the ground 
is well exposed to light and air. Seakale 
cannot endure shade any more than Cab¬ 
bages. The requisites then are to plant at 
the beginning of March in soil that has 
been well trenched and manured in an open 
situation. If you first grow your Seakale 
well, there should be no difficulty in forcing 
it under pots in spring. Of course, if you 
start very early it is a question of using 
a large depth of fermenting manure to get 
the plants started into growth. If you do 
not start before the 14th of March you can 
place on the Seakale pots or boxes and 
build manure round about and between them 
to a depth of 2 ft. just covering the top of 
the pots with a few inches of the manure. 
The heat generated will cause the Seakale 
to come along more rapidly than it would 
under natural conditions, and it will be 
beautifully blanched so long as it is kept 
in the dark. If you have a hothouse of 
any sort you can have Seakale by Christmas. 
We have seen it obtained by lifting the roots 
and placimr them amongsf loaf mould in a 
house heated by hot water pipes. The best 
quality seakale, however, will be obtainable 
from the plants forced in the open ground 
unless you have the convenience to keep the 
atmosphere moist in which the crowns are 
being forced. 
FRUIT. 
3139. Peach Tree not Fruiting. 
I have a Peach tree in the garden and it is 
now ten years planted, but though it looks 
healthy it never bears any fruit. The soil 
is rather heavy, almost, clay in places. Be 
you think this has anything to do with it ? 
■(S. Freeman, iSurrey.) 
Peaches do not succeed well in the open 
garden. They require shelter, because the) 
bloom early in spring, otherwise the flowers 
that are produced would very often get 
destroyed. Your heavy soil could be greatly 
improved by forking it up during the 
winter months, so as to expose to the weather. 
At the same time a good quantity of mortar 
rubble should be worked in amongst the soil, 
as stone fruits are greatly benefited by this 
material. You are not likely, however, to be 
very successful with a Peach tree grown in 
the open ground. A better plan would be to 
prepare a site for it against a wall of some 
sort, and that wall should be facing the 
south. It will not be an easy matter to 
make a shapely tree out of it for covering 
a wall, unless it is very much cut back at 
the time of lifting and that would probably 
cause it to gum or canker. The best plan 
would be- to get a young tree for planting 
against a wall, well preparing the soil for 
it, using plenty of lime rubble. 
3140. Ringing Apple Tree. 
I have been told that it causes the fruits 
of an Apple tree to grow larger if you cut 
off a ring of bark from the trunk. The tree 
also sets fruit more freely and bears heavier 
crops every year. Can you tell me if there 
is any truth in this and say if I should be 
right in doing it to my trees. ('Cheshire 
Lad, Cheshire.) 
No doubt it would cause the fruits for a 
3 r ear or two at least to get larger than usual 
until the ring heals over and the downward 
course of the sap to the roots resumes its 
course. We think it a barbarous method, 
however, merely to get the fruits to swell 
larger for a few years at the risk of injuring 
the tree and laying it liable to disease by 
cutting a ring out of the bark. It could 
scarcely induce a better set of fruit, although 
for a year or two it might incline the tree 
to be more fruitful. The chances are, how¬ 
ever, that your success in a few years’ time 
would be very much less than if you had 
not ringed the tree at all. By a proper 
system of summer and winter pruning you 
can incline the tree to become fruitful in a 
way that would be more durable than by 
ringing. For instance, during September 
you can thin out shoots from the head of 
standard trees, where crowded, allowing 
light to play more effectively on the branches \ 
left, and this would also encourage the 
plumping up of fruit buds. After a stand¬ 
ard tree once becomes fruitful in this way, 
it is more inclined to remain so in after 
3'ears. 
3141. Figs Falling. 
Can 3'ou please say why the fruit of mv 
Fig tree falls off before becoming ripe or 
fit to eat ? It is planted against a wall 
about 5 ft- high, but as I allow it to go 
higher than this the branches have grown 
3 ft. above the wall. These branches pro¬ 
duce a lot of fruit, but they fall off when 
only half grown. (Fred Castle, Middle¬ 
sex. ) 
Figs to do well in this country require 
the aid of a wall to bring them to proper 
maturity. It is more than probable that 
your tree is growing too rampantly in a 
rich or heavy soil, and the roots being 
