44 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
January 19, 1907. 
that is, a root which goes straight down, 
from the base of the trees, is present, this 
must be sawn oft also. The soil must be 
carefully taken away and all fibrous roots 
laid aside in the process of looking for 
the “tap” root. 
The trench should be filled up again 
with turfy loam instead of that which was 
taken out, and made firm. This is a sure, 
if drastic, method of making a barren tree 
fruitful. 
Red and White Currants are found 
in most gardens, and sometimes are sadly 
neglected owing to changes in the tenancy, 
etc. A well-trained bush should not have 
the shoots closer than four inches, and 
the centre quite clear of any, so that 
sun and air can have full play. Ail, 
therefore, which develop in excess should 
be removed, while those that remain may¬ 
be cut back to the fifth bud, making a 
clean cut. It is sometimes necessary to 
remove portions of dead wood, and in a 
case of this kind allowances should be 
made in pruning, so that fresh shoots may 
take the place of the old. 
Black Currants do not make so much 
young growth as the above, and will re¬ 
quire very little pruning, unless to retain 
the shape of the bush. All old useless 
wood must be cut out each season, and 
young shoots retained in their place. 
Gooseberries bear fruit on the young 
wood, also on spurs. The chief thing is 
to keep the bushes thin and the centre 
hollow. It may be noted here that iit is 
much easier to gather fruit front a bush of 
this kind, than one in which the shoots are 
allowed to cross and recross each other 
in a wonderful tangle. 
Raspberries require the old canes cut 
out in the autumn, and the young ones 
fastened to the trellis or post. No more 
than four new canes should be retained, 
and all others cut away. Indeed, properly 
speaking, attention to the new canes 
should really commence in summer select¬ 
ing what is required for another year and 
removing the others. This is decidedly 
an advantage, as it gives added strength 
to those selected. 
Renovating Old Trees. 
It would not be right to finish this 
article without saying a few words on old 
neglected trees on walls, etc. These, in 
most cases, are allowed to form so much 
rank wood that fruiting is impossible. 
During summer a start should be made by 
pinching all shoots not required, and cut¬ 
ting them off close to the old branch at 
the winter pruning. 
Such trees invariably have too many 
spurs, in some cases no more than two 
inches apart. These old spurs must be 
cut out with the secateurs, and the wound 
pared down smoothly with a knife. The 
remaining spurs, if they be longer than 
three inches, should be cut back (see dia¬ 
gram 6). _ . 
A serious check is given the tree if ail 
parts are treated at once, so only the top 
half should be done one season, and the 
remainder the following year. The work 
is somewhat laborious, and requires 
patience, but good results in the future 
are assured if the operation be neatly 
done. 
It should be added that if root-pruning 
is required, it should not be done at the 
same period. If the wounds made he 
large, a little coal tar should be rubbed 
on to help to heal the wound and'to pre¬ 
vent bleeding, that is, loss of sap. 
N.B.- Pruning should never be done 
during frost. 
D. Grant McIver, A.R.H.S. 
- +++ - 
THE CAUCASIAN . . 
LtE]SlTEj4 HOSE 
(Helleborus caucasicus.) 
All of the true Christmas Roses are 
white, as represented by H. niger and its 
varieties. The Lenten Roses, although 
■belonging to the same genus, bloom later 
in the season, and have flowers of various 
colours from light green to white and 
dark purple, with many curious and pleas¬ 
ing intermediate shades according to the 
species. 
H. caucasicus tinder notice has basin- 
shaped, light green flowers, which make 
a contrast with the glossy green cif the 
leaves. Many people would not appre¬ 
ciate a green flower, but the habit and 
general appearance of the plant find many 
admirers; even our native species, the 
green Hellebore (H. viridis), always, per¬ 
haps, a scarce plant, is getting scarcer 
every vear owing to the ravages of people 
who collect both flowers and roots. Many 
garden varieties have been raised by cross¬ 
ing these Hellebores. H. caucasicus has 
a creamy-white variety named H. c. aibus ; 
a creamy-yellow one named H. c. lute- 
scens, and a spotted one, H. c. punctatus, 
having rosy flowers finely spotted or 
speckled with a darker purple. 
Those who would like to cultivate these 
hardy flowers should select a position in 
the garden that is not exposed to the long 
afternoon sun in summer. This, of 
course, applies more particularly- to 
growers in the South, seeing that the cli¬ 
mate is so different further North and the 
soil seldom gets so dry-. Some of the 
species will live in a soil that is a close 
approach to clay-, but all of them may- be 
grown in deeply-dug soil that is fairly- re¬ 
tentive of moisture and -which can be en¬ 
riched by means of well-decay r ed cow 
manure. Thus by- selecting a site that 
may- be shaded from the afternoon sun, 
and is well exposed to light from other 
quarters, will suit most of the species of 
Hellebore or Lenten Roses admirably. 
A collection is highly interesting and al¬ 
ways worth growing, while many of them 
are certainly pretty and valuable for their 
long duration during February- and 
March. 
-- 
Gardening for Children. — The Kent 
Education Committee are in favour of 
allowing instruction in gardening to be 
given to the children in the county schools. 
Evolution of Flowers. —Lecturing 
recently at the University of London, Pro¬ 
fessor Bottomley-, of King’s College, 
pointed out that a flower is a machine for 
manufacturing seeds, and that it was es¬ 
timated that flowers first began to bloom 
about 500,000 years ago, before which they 
were mere plants. When insects were 
evolved flowers were also evolved to attract 
insects as a means of distributing pollen. 
As in Darwin’s theory- of the evolution of 
man, so in the evolution of flowers there 
was, up to a few years ago, a missing link 
which marked the evolutionary- stage be¬ 
tween the fern world and the true flower 
world—namely, the Maidenhair tree, dis¬ 
covered in Japan 
The Caucasian Lenten Rose (Helleborus caucasicusp 
