November g-, 1907. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 7*5 
rhamnoides), Scotch Roses, Hydrangeas, etc. 
The usual plan is to plant the taller growing 
subjects on the outside of the garden and 
the dwarf ones inside; but in places where 
the sea breeze blows strong for any length of 
time during the period of growth, the best 
plan would be to plant the dwarfer ones nest 
the breeze with taller ones inside, so that 
the force of the wind would thus be 
gradually broken or directed over the garden 
rather than through it. The Euonymus, 
Veronica, and tree Ivies are amongst the 
hardiest of the dwarf growing species to 
plant next the sea breeze. 
VEGETABLES. 
2351. Potatos with Small Tubers. 
The Potatos in my garden made very 
strong growth, covering the ground com¬ 
pletely with their stems, and I thought the 
crop should have been heavy, but the Potatos 
were so small that half of them were useless. 
Can you explain this, and say why they did 
not produce larger tubers? The ground was 
well manured, and is now full of worms. 
Do you think this would have anything to 
do with it? (Charles Burton, Soms.) 
Possibly various conditions combined to 
bring about the state of matters which you 
describe. Without knowing the circum¬ 
stances we can only make suggestions which 
occur to us, and which we have seen produce 
similar results. Possibly you used a strong 
glowing variety without giving them suffi¬ 
cient space between the plants, but more es¬ 
pecially between the lines of Potatos. Early 
varieties should always be employed in small 
gardens, and as a rule these make much, 
shorter growth than tall growing main-crop 
sorts. Possibly your garden may be shaded 
by trees, whereas Potatos do best under full 
exposure. Indeed, they do not succeed well 
unless fully exposed to sunshine and every 
breeze that blows. Judging from the fact 
that your soil is full of worms, it would 
indicate that it is full of decaying vegetable 
matter through long cultivation and manur¬ 
ing. To reduce this latter condition the best 
plan is to trench the ground at least 2 ft. 
deep, bringing the lower soil up to the top 
and turning the top' soil down. Then finish 
up in spring by giving it a dressing of lime 
which may just be turned under the surface. 
Early varieties that would suit small gar¬ 
dens would be Sir John Llewellyn, Early 
Rose, the white kidney form of Beauty of 
Hebron, and Duke of York. We do not think 
that the worms have anything to do with the 
small size of the tubers. They are merely 
plentiful because there is plenty of food fcr 
them. 
2352. Celery with Blotched Leaves. 
During the last few weeks my Celery has 
been looking very bad with large, light 
coloured blotches all over the leaves, and 
very often with holes in them. Will this 
make the Celery unfit for use? If so, what 
might I do? Away back in summer there 
was a little of it upon the leaves, but it is 
■now very bad. (R. Morris, Bucks.) 
You might have sent us a leaf or two for 
examination, but judging from what you say 
we presume your Celery is suffering from the 
Celery leaf miner. The danger is confined 
to the blade of the leaf, if this is all that is 
troubling your Celery, so that the sticks will 
still be clean and useful till well into the 
winter at least. The only danger is that the 
damage to the leaves will gradually extend 
downwards to the sticks in the soil, especially 
if we get freezing and thawing weather pre¬ 
sently. We are afraid it is too late now to 
destroy the grubs in the leaves, as most of 
■them by this time have passed into the soil 
where they will remain during the winter in 
the form of pupae and come out again next 
spring and repeat the trouble. The pupae 
do not go very deeply into the soil, and very 
often you may find them by carefully pulling 
the soil away from the stems with the fingers 
and picking out the small oval pupae, which 
are of a greenish-yellow colour. The more 
of these that you can pick up the fewer there 
will be to trouble you next season. When 
you plant Celery next year you should keep 
a sharp look out amongst the plants to see 
that they are not being attacked by the fly 
in the same way again. Very often you may 
detect the fly at work, and you may identify 
it by its being a fly with rather longer wings 
than the house fly, but lighter in colour and 
having a dark W-shaped marking across the 
wings. If you have reason to believe that 
the enemy is at work laying eggs upon the 
foliage, you should give the latter a good 
dusting of dry soot, and if this is done while 
the sun is shining it will have a considerable 
deterrent effect upon the fly. This process 
could be repeated at intervals during June 
and July, after which the fly is less injurious 
to the plants because they have been able to 
make some growth. If you get a severe at¬ 
tack of this leaf miner soon after the plants 
are put out it will cripple them considerably. 
FRUIT. 
2353. Pruning an Old Pear Tree. 
On the gable end of an outhouse here is an 
old Pear tree which has borne no fruit for 
the last two years. I think it wants prun¬ 
ing, as nothing has been done to it for some 
years, and the branches have grown 2ft. or 
3ft. awav from the wall and look unsightly. 
(W. A. L,, Northamptonshire.) 
Pear trees on walls do not fruit well if 
allowed to grow at freedom for a number of 
years. You also lose the advantage of the 
heat which the wall supplies or accumulates 
for .the benefit of trees grown thereon. Your 
best plan will be to cut all these branches 
back to a bud near the stems from which they 
originate. Leave all the short spurs which 
you may find on the branches. By this dras¬ 
tic method of pruning a neglected (tree you 
will, of course, lose the fruit blossom next 
year, unless you can find any flower buds on 
some of the shorter branches, which might be 
left for next year till the tree recovers some¬ 
what and gets better furnished with short 
spurs. The evil which you try to remedy in 
thus cutting back the branches that extend 
away from the wall will be likely to give rise 
to another. The hard cutting may induce a 
thicket of vigorous young shoots nexit year 
instead of short spurs, which are more de¬ 
sirable. To counteract this tendency a good 
plan would be to root-prune the Pear tree. 
If it is a very large one, you could root- 
prune half of it now and the other half a 
twelvemonth hence. The plan is to take out 
a trench in a semi-circle round the tree and 
about 51ft. from the trunk. If you meet with 
any very strong roots they should be cut 
through with a saw. Then proceed to dress 
the cut surface with your knife, making it 
smooth. After you have removed all the 
rambling roots in this fashion that go be¬ 
yond the trench, you should fill up the latter 
with some good soil and thus induce the cut 
ends of the roots to develop numerous fibrous 
roots into the fresh soil thus supplied. The 
pruning will serve as a check upon rampant 
growth in the head of the tree and to bring 
it back into a fruitful condition. 
2354. Apples Dropping Before Ripen¬ 
ing. 
As a beginner in gardening I find your 
paper invaluable. In your next number will 
you kindly name the six kinds of Apples 
which I send with this, and mention the 
months in which they should be used. The 
garden I have lately bought has been com¬ 
pletely neglected for some years. Numbers 
of the Apples have dropped long before being 
ripe. What is the cause? (A. H. Wilson, 
Suffolk.) 
The Apples you sent are :—1, Kedleston 
Pippin (dessert variety, in season from De¬ 
cember to January) ; 2, Hereford Beaufin 
(cooking, December to January); 3, Golden 
Harvey (dessert, December to May); 4, John 
Apple (dessert, December to May); 5, Nor¬ 
folk Beaufin (cooking, December to January); 
6, Hall Door (cooking, December to 
January). The reason why some of your 
Apples dropped before they were ripe is be¬ 
cause they have been injured by the codlin 
moth, which lays its eggs in the eye of the 
young fruit, sometimes as soon as they are 
the size of marbles. Some of them, however, 
might have been a second brood hatched out 
later in the season. If you had collected 
some of these fallen fruits as soon as they 
fell no doubt you would have found the grub 
in them that has been doing the mischief. 
There are other reasons sometimes for fruits 
falling, as, for instance, when there are too 
many for the strength of the tree to bring to 
maturity. Dry seasons will sometimes cause 
them to drop’ freely. Good cultivation and 
keeping the trees clean are remedies. Some 
of the fruits are also attacked by a fungus 
named Cladosporium dendriticum, which 
produces a skin disease indicated by black 
blotches. It does not much affect the quality 
of the fruit, but spoils their appearance and 
prevents them from getting to their proper 
size if it attacks the trees early. It really 
injures 'both foliage and young fruits, and 
should be kept in check. You can use a 
double remedy at the same time fcr these two 
enemies, the codlin moth and the fungus. 
Prepare some Bordeaux mixture by dis¬ 
solving two pounds of copper sulphate in a 
wooden vessel, using a sufficient quantity of 
water to dissolve the sulphate. Then put 
1 lib. 6 ozs. of new.ly slacked or fresh ground 
lime into so much water and break the lime 
into pieces before putting it in. Stir this 
until the lime becomes free of lumps if pos¬ 
sible. In any case, it would be well to use 
a piece of old sacking to put the sulphate into 
and also the lime to take out the lumps. 
When both these are dissolved, mix them and 
then add more water to make the whole 
amount up to fifteen gallons. W hen this has 
been done, dissolve 1 oz. of Paris green or 
London purple, and when thoroughly held 
by the water pour it into the other 'mixture. 
The Bordeaux mixture is to destroy the fun¬ 
gus or hold it in check, and the Paris green 
to poison the grub of the codlin moth when 
it commences to eat its way into the small 
or young Apple. This operation should be 
first applied when the young fruits are about 
the size of peas, 'that would be sometime in 
May or early June, according to the season. 
The operation should be repeated at inter¬ 
vals of a fortnight in order to poison the 
grubs according to the time they make therr 
appearance. The repetition of the remedy is 
necessitated if tjiere are heavy showers of 
rain to wash the insecticide and fungicide off 
the fruits and leaves. If you take this pre¬ 
caution during the forthcoming summer it 
will greatly reduce the pest and enable j’ou 
to get good and clean Apples. You cannot 
calculate upon getting rid of either of these 
by one season’s applications, as the codlin 
moth may come from other plantations and 
the spores of the fungus as well. It is satis¬ 
factory to note, however, that if you apply 
these remedies carefully you can save a very 
large percentage of your Apples that would 
otherwise be injured or destroyed. 
GARDEN ENEMIES. 
2355. Apple Trees Being' Eaten Away. 
Will you kindly tell me what is the matter 
with the enclosed Apple branch ? It seems to 
be eating the trees away. Is there a chance 
of their getting all right again, or would it 
be better to cut them down ? What sort of 
grease is used for trunks of trees to prevent 
insects crawling up? (Essex.; 
The branch you sent us was badly infested 
