ocTOBEE 4, i9ia. THE GARDENERS' MAGAZINE. 
749 
SOME DEBATABLE TOPICS. 
Why are Apples Failing: to 
Mature ? 
Judg:e8 at the Shrewsbury 
Show. 
the centres of round, stone-edged beds, 
plante<l with scarlet pelargoniums and yel¬ 
low calceolarias. Could anything be more 
absurd ? To my mind public para garden¬ 
ing should be educational, with an intent 
to show people where and how to put flowers 
where they are in an<l not out of place, not 
to put tliem anywhere and anyhow purely 
for the sake of having them. H. 
Apples are none too plentiful this year 
in many placets, and in more than one plan¬ 
tation 1 have noticed the same disappoint¬ 
ing trouble as was so prevalent last season. 
To state a case in point, I was in a planta¬ 
tion the other day which contains a number 
of healthy and well-grown trees of Lord 
Grosvenor apple, that are carrying a heavy 
crop of fruit, but on every tree, and almost 
without exception, the apples are scrubby 
little specimens about the size of walnuts, 
ill-shapen and wrinkled about the eye. 1 
am told that before the flowers opened the 
trees were sprayed with nicotine solution 
for the apple-sucker, which was obviously 
effective, as no one could wish for a better 
crop so far as numbers are concerned. The 
question open to debate then is. What is the 
cause of the fruits failing to come to ma¬ 
turity ? 
It is necessary to explain that the trees 
in Question, in common with most others 
by the way, were the victims earlier in the 
season of a severe attack of Apple Aphis, 
and though attempts were made to cope 
with it by means of spraying, these were 
only partially successful owing to delay in 
getting at the work until the pests were 
safe inside the curled-up leaves. Is the un¬ 
satisfactory behaviour of the apples now 
due to the effects of that attack of aphis ? 
This is the point under debate, and I should 
like to have the views of other readers of 
The Gardeners’ Magazine on the subject. 
It has been suggested that the cause of the 
apples failing to swell properly is due to 
something being wrong with the fertilisa¬ 
tion at the time of setting, but I rather 
favour the theory of aphis crippling growi:h 
and sucking the sap out of the leaves 
period. Last year I saw a 
whole crop of Bramley’s Seedling affected 
•a the same way, end in numerous planta¬ 
tions and orchards again this season the 
trouble is widespread. Is aphis the initial 
cause of it ? If so, we shall have to look 
upon this pest as being amongst the most 
injurious to apple crops. 
Head Grafting: Old Apple 
Trees. 
apple tree too old to be hef 
another variety Don’t s 
at once please, because it is a sui 
jcct that wants thinking about. I do n< 
W when I say that Brar 
has no superior as a variei 
it trees, and it is claimed h 
at it has the power of imparting son 
natural vigour to the stock, ai 
tbft ■ **®ju^^nates it, but this is hard 
is Bramley’s, if the sto< 
Q ® ^ could point out now a sco 
orchard trees that have be4 
three years, and up to a fe 
This * they looked very promisin 
for has apparently been too mm 
on however, for big pieces of ba: 
tha f have died and peeled off, ai 
and Bramley heads has wilt< 
dead short, some of the trees a 
labour nr S ““rich time ai 
abovp ^.*^^_rhrown away. Experience of t 
of henH^^^ raises a doubt as to the wisdc 
In vearo that are getting ( 
the when they are too old 
point open to debate. 
AVhy do they not change their judges a 
bit more frequently at the world-famed 
Shrewsbury Show .5" No doubt the Shrews¬ 
bury Committee could answer this question 
better than anybody, and the answer 
might be that they have got good men and 
true for the work and could not improve 
upon them. I do not dispute the point at 
all, for I happen to know a good many of 
them, and can testify to their abilities, but 
the proverb that there are as good fish left 
in the sea as those that are draw’ii out ap¬ 
plies also to show judges, and in more ways 
than one changes, so far as the adjudicators 
of prizes are concerned, are good. I do not 
mean to say that the present set of more 
or less stock judges should be put aside 
altogether, but it would be in no way un- 
complimentaiy to them if they stood out 
for a year or two in favour of other experts, 
and then came in again later on. It would 
be interesting to know% by the way, how 
many years some of the Shrewsbury judges 
have officiated, and, though it is compli¬ 
mentary to them to be asked again and 
again, there is a good deal to be said in 
favour of changes. 
Deep Culture and Prize Onions. 
It goes without saying that size is the 
ruling factor in exhibition onions, and, no 
matter what other qualities your bullis may 
possess, you stand very little chance unless 
you have them of large size. It has come 
ito be a generally-acoe])te<l theory that 
trenching the ground tw'o or three feet deep 
is an essential operation in the cultivation 
of large onions, but I am beginning to have 
my doubts as to whether there is as much 
in this theory as we have been led to be¬ 
lieve. I should like to hear wdiat others 
have to say about it, but a well-knowm exhi¬ 
bitor and prize-winner informed me the 
other day that he has obtained bigger onions 
this year than he has had l)efore, and has 
grown them on well-dug and manured 
ground that was trenched the year before, 
but not this season for the onions. I would 
suggest treating the matter experimentally 
by trenching half a bed in the orthodox 
manner, and digging the other deeply, but 
without disturbing the subsoil. We know 
that onions like a firm soil, and perhaps it is 
that this deep trenching process loosens it 
rather too much. 
Why not Natural Effects in 
Public Parks? 
Why do the officials who are responsible 
for the bedding arrangements in public 
parks not pay a little more attention to 
natural effect, instead of surfeiting the eye 
with glaring masses of flowers whichever 
way you look ? A short time ago I strolled 
into a pleasant little public park at a 
popular 'West of England seaside holiday 
resort and a feature of this park is broad 
stretciies of turf, with deciduous foliage 
trees dotted about on it. These, with the 
grass growing up to the stems, would have 
been ornamental and quite in place, but 
instead of this a circular bed some eight 
feet in diameter had been made round e^h 
of them, and the rings were edged with 
artificial-looking stones. What was the re^ 
suit ? Simply that fine-looking, ornamental 
trees were seen growing, as it were, out of 
EUCRYPHIA CORDIFOLIA, 
Among the numerous choice shrubs con- 
taine<l in the extremely interesting colla¬ 
tion ma<le by Mr. T. B. Bolitho in his 
famous gartlen at Trew’khlen, near Pen¬ 
zance, is a fine example of this South 
American sjKHnes, which, at the present 
time, early September, is in full flow’er. It 
is lews w’ell known than tin? allied siKvies, 
E. pinnatifolia, of which, by the way, 
perhaps^ the bc^t sp^K'imen in the country 
is growing at Trewidden, and it is said 
to have flowered for the first time out of 
doors in this country, in tlie Coomlie Woo<l 
nursery of Messrs. J. Veitch and Sons, in 
1897. Ciood examples are rare, and the 
species appears to be unknown in most gar¬ 
dens in the south-w'est, although it is essen¬ 
tially a plant for the climatic conditions 
which prevail in Devonshire, Cornwall, 
South Wales and Ireland. 
E. cordifolia is a native of Chili and 
Chiloe, where it forms a tree in the forests. 
The leaves arq evergi^een, broadly oblong, 
thick in texture, tw*o to three inches long, 
and one to one and thix^e-quarters of an 
inch wide, very downy on the under-surface, 
especially on the veins and petioles, and 
clothed with short, silky hairs on the upper 
.surface. The margims are more or leas cre- 
iiate. Ah in the ease w'ith the under¬ 
surface of the leaves, the hark of tho 
younger wxiod is extremely downy. Tlio 
flowers appear singly from the leaf axils, 
each one l)eing alxiut two inches across, 
with white petals, and a central mass of 
brownish stamens. Each shoot bears seven 
or eight, or more, flowers from near tho 
a|)ex, and a very beautiful picture is forme<l 
when the blossoms are at their liest. It 
is apparently a difficult plant to propagate 
by any other method than seeils, and. like 
the better-known species, the most satisfac¬ 
tory plants are those raised from them. It 
thrives in loamy soil, but is not averse to a 
little peat being placetl about the roots at 
planting time. In those gardens in the 
.south-west where it does not already exist 
it ought certainly to be given a position 
amongst the choicest subjects. A figure and 
description of the shrub is given in the 
“ Botanical Magazine,” t. 8209. 
W. D. 
A Handsome Poplar (Populus 
trichocarpa). —Our attention has re¬ 
cently been called to a very handsome pop. 
lar, of which two specimens occur among the 
trees forming the roadside avenues, con¬ 
sisting mainly of limes and planes, at East 
Acton., The tree belongs to an entirely 
different species from the ordinary 
slender poplar, representing the popular 
type of the genus. It has a similar habit 
to the lime^ and bears large leaves, some 
six to eight inches long without the ^talk, of 
an acutely-pointed pear-shape, attached by 
the semi-circular base to a rather long 
stalk, and with the underside of a silvery 
white. They are somewhat pendulous, and 
in a breeze display their silvery backs very 
freely and prettily. The tree is a by no 
means common one, but might well be re¬ 
commended for more extensive use for subur¬ 
ban avenues, as its foliage appears very 
early in the spring, and it forms a capital 
foil here and there amongst the commoner 
trees utilised for that purpose.—C. T. D. 
