December 14, 1907. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
791 
It consists of a mixture of loam and clay. 
Is it suitable for fruit bushes? Please name 
the four* best Apples and two Pears if they 
are likely to do any good in the garden. 
(A. T. Granger, Kent.) 
The soil you mention is suitable enough 
for Apples, Pears and the small fruits, such 
as Gooseberries and Currants. The only mis¬ 
giving we should consider about it is that 
the soil might get dry in the summer time 
seeing that there is no available reserve of 
moisture below the 3 ft. At the same time 
any rain which falls may take some time to 
run awav. If we were fond of fruit and had 
such an opportunity we should plant Apple 
and Pear trees and take means to prevent 
them from starving. The Apples we should 
recommend are Cox’s Orange Pippin, 
Duchess of Oldenburg, Braddick’s Non¬ 
pareil and Dutch Mignonne. All of these 
Apple trees should be grafted or budded 
on the Paradise stock. The Pears we should 
recommend are Williams’ Bon Chretien (Au¬ 
gust and September) and Doyenne du Co¬ 
rnice (October and November). These Pears 
should be grafted on the Quince stock. The 
reason we should recommend the above 
stocks is that they' are shallow rooters and 
thus keep near the surface. They also serve 
to restrict the size of the tree and bring it 
into a fruitful condition at a much earlier 
period than on the 1 natural stock. To still 
further encourage them to produce roots 
near the surface you should place a mulch 
of litter or rank manure over the ground as 
far as the roots*extend. Anything to pre¬ 
serve the moisture will do and the roots will 
thus be encouraged to keep near the surface. 
During continued hot weather it would also 
be advantageous to give each tree a pail or 
two of water and the mulching would serve 
to keep this from drying up too quickly. 
This watering would be all the more neces¬ 
sary' if the tree is carrying fruit, and the 
latter would get a much larger size than if 
left to its own resources. 
GARDEN ENEMIES. 
2450. Apple Tree Bark Eaten. 
Two of my' young Apple trees have had 
the bark eaten off nearly all round the stem. 
Can you suggest what might have done this? 
I was at first inclined to blame the c-'s, but 
it has been gnawed off by teed" and not 
scratched in the usual way ^".te by cats. 
I should be much obliged fcr vour opinion. 
(G. Marsh, Wilts.) 
Most likely' the injury has been done by 
field mice or voles, which are very fond of 
eating the bark of trees when other things, 
such as grass and corn, are not to be had. 
Several remedies may be applied to keep 
them away. At the same time you can set 
traps to catch them. A plan that has been 
fovnd serviceable for keeping away mice is 
a sprav fluid made up of lime, sulphur and 
salt. You can make the mixture for your¬ 
self by getting 3^ lbs. quicklime, if lbs. 
flowers of sulphur and iA lbs. of common 
salt. The plan of making it is to boil the 
sulphur and half of the lime in H gallons of 
water. Then slack the rest of the lime in 
another quantity of water and dissolve the 
salt in it. Now add the two mixtures to¬ 
gether and water to make up the whole to 
five gallons. The trunks of all your fruit 
trees having smooth bark could be sprayed 
with this preparation for the purpose of 
keeping the mice away. Where the bark is 
old, rough and practically dead on the sur¬ 
face the mice are not likely to trouble you. 
SOILS AND MANURES . 
2451. Improving Soil for Seakale. 
Our soil is very heavy and we get a deal 
of rain at all times, especially in autumn 
and spring. What is the best way to im¬ 
prove it for Seakale? Would rank stable 
manure answer the purpose, as I can get 
plenty of that ? I may say I have not tried 
this vegetable before. (A. Mitchell, Ar¬ 
gyllshire.) 
Your best plan would be to trench the 
soil and use plenty of rank horse manure, 
both in the lower and upper trenches. Leave 
it as rough as possible or ridge at the top 
for the winter. Presently you could employ 
some seaweed if you can get it as a layer 
over the top. It sea sand is obtainable, give 
a good dressing of that before planting the 
Seakale, and dig the seaweed and sand into 
the top spit. The Seakale may be planted 
some time in March according to the condi¬ 
tion of the soil for the time being. 
2452. Soil Holding Water. 
A portion of my garden lies low, and 
every winter the water always stands there 
for some days after rain, and I cannot get 
it to run away. What can I do to prevent 
the water from standing on it as it spoils 
any crops growing on it? (T. B. H., Mid¬ 
dlesex.) 
If there is not sufficient fall to get outlet 
for a drain you should make a blind one. 
Take out a fairly deep drain across the 
lowest part of the ground and fill this up 
with brickbats and rubble stone within 3 ft. 
of the surface. If you make the drain deep 
enough you will have a lot of soil to dispose 
of after filling up the drain with brickbats 
and stones. This extra soil can be spread 
over the hollow portion and that will still 
further help to remedy matters. By the 
time a drain has been cut vou may reallv get 
through some stratum of clay, which is hold¬ 
ing back the surface water. It will soon, 
therefore, sink away after it leaves off rain¬ 
ing. 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
2453. Staging a Basket of Chrysan¬ 
themums. 
Would you kindlv read over Rule 1 of 
the enclosed regulations for competition and 
answer through The Gardening World 
whether competitors in Class 40 should have 
been allowed to bring in their baskets and 
make them up in the hall and stage them 
before g a.m. the following morning. I, 
being a distant competitor, had to stage my 
basket before 10 p.m. the evening previous 
to the show. (R. A. Grigor, Dumfriesshire.) 
We think if baskets were prohibited from 
being filled on the night previous to the 
show, it should have been made more ex¬ 
plicit in the rules and regulations. In read¬ 
ing the rule, we should take it for granted 
that although a basket is neither a bouquet, 
wreath nor cross, that it had to be made up 
in the hall. There might have been someone 
placed there on the morning of the show to 
see such, things made up in the hall, but this 
same party might not have been there on the 
evening previous to see you making up the 
basket. This is the only reason we can see 
of any necessity for disqualifying you. At 
the same time your basket and the materials 
to be arranged in it could have been placed 
in the hall and then arranged on the morn¬ 
ing of the show. At the same time, we 
should have taken it for granted according 
to the rules and regulations that we should 
have been permitted to place a basket in the 
hall on the night previous to the show. Not¬ 
withstanding the instructions given in Rule 
1, we note under Class 40 that a basket filled 
with Chrysanthemums and arranged for ef¬ 
fect had to be arranged in the hall, and no 
doubt they also intended this to apply that 
the arrangement should be made on the morn. 
ing“ of the show. From what we can see of 
it, you would have been within the mark to 
have placed your material in the hall over¬ 
night and arranged them in the morning. 
2454. Book on Onions. 
Will you please tell me in your next issue 
what address I am to write to for the new 
book on “ Onions,” a description of which 
appears in your issue of the 16th ult. The 
address on the top of the article appears to 
be inadequate. (Beginner, Norfolk.) 
This question was answered in last issue, 
see No. 2,435, P- 77 8 - 
2455. Moss on Apple Tree. 
I have an old Apple tree which is very 
much infested with moss and looks unsightly 
in winter. I believe you once gave a re¬ 
medy for this, but cannot recollect where to 
find it. I shall be much obliged for the 
information. (R. Skelton, Sussex.) 
Caustic soda is a very good agent for the 
removal of moss from fruit trees. It is a 
very dangerous article to handle, however, 
and you must be careful not to get it on 
your hands or clothes, otherwise y'ou will 
get them injured. A better remedy than 
caustic soda alone is as follows Get a 
1 lb. can of 70 per cent, caustic soda and 
1 lb. of carbonate of potash, 80 per cent., 
and ^ lb. soft soap. Put these in two gal¬ 
lons of water to dissolve, then dissolve the 
soft scap in some hot water, adding it to 
the rest. 1 his should be done in a vessel 
capable of holding ten gallons of water, so 
that when you have got the ingredients dis¬ 
solved add water to make ten gallons. With 
this spray the trees. Select a still day and 
a dry one, if possible, otherwise you might 
be inconvenienced by the wind blowing the 
spray upon you. Then spray' the trees so 
that all the affected parts are just wetted 
with this liquid. Mosses and lichens will 
soon die and fall away, while many insects 
will also be destroyed if thev have been har¬ 
bouring under the moss. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
Vilmorin-Andrielx et Cie., 4, Quai de 
la Megisserie, Paris.—Catalogue of Seeds 
of Hardy Trees and Shrubs; also Catalogue 
of Seeds of Plants of the Greenhouse and 
Orangery, of Trees and Shrubs and Useful 
Plants of Warm Countries. 
CHRYSANTHEMUMS 
AT THE 
CRYSTAL PALACE. 
The early winter exhibition of the Na¬ 
tional Chrysanthemum Society' was held 
at the Crystal Palace, Sy'denham, on the 
4th and 5th inst., when a very fine display' 
of the autumn queen was got together. 
The chief or only drawback was the lack 
of visitors to make the show a success. 
The lead for 18 Japanese blooms was 
by Mr. J. Preece, gardener to Miss 
M illmott, Warley Place, Brentwood, 
Essex. Grand blooms were Mme Ober- 
thur, Algernon Davis, W. H. Whitehouse 
Mrs. J. Bryant, F. S. Vallis, J. H. Sils^ 
3 uia , Alme. Carnot, G. Gooding*. General 
Hutton, Mme. P. Radaelli, Mrs. G. 
Black. Mrs. T. Dalton, Mme. G. Rivol 
and Mrs. F. W. Vallis, the rest being- 
duplicates of those named. The size of 
the blooms gave the table a crowded ap¬ 
pearance. Mr. H. Humphrey, gardener 
to the Hon. Sydney Holland, Kneesworth 
Hall. Roy'ston. Herts, took the second 
award, with several very' fine blooms, in¬ 
cluding F. S. \ allis, Mme. Oberthur 
r. . Vallis, Gen. Hutton, etc. 
Mr. W. Mease, gardener to A. Tate, Esq ’ 
Downside, Leatherhead, came in third 
with an even and fresh lot, though 
