THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
March, 1910 
W. Gitt, | 
Remarkable Pines (Pinus insignis), 22 years old, Wirrabarra Forest. 
- Fruit Culture in Japan. 
In a book-just published on the above 
subject, 
narrated. Plum trees are watered with 
some strange statements are 
saline as a preventive of fruit-casting. 
Packets of salts are often buried near 
the trees, aud the author suggests that it 
may be that the salt acts osmotically, and 
thus creates a condition of dryness in the 
roots, which is known to prevent premature 
dropping of the fruit. Oblique cuts are 
also made on the bark to check a super- 
abundant fiow of sap when fruit is ripen- 
ing. The system of growing fruits on a 
kind of pergola is largly practised, for the 
accessibility of the fruit and protection 
from sudden storms render this method 
very suitable for growing the choicer 
pears, &c. An example of this system, 
called tanazukuri, upwards of a hundred 
years old, is said to ex’st near Tokyo. 
Fruit in Japan has been regarded more 
[PHoro- 
Of the 
kahkis, or date-plums, about 800 varieties 
exist at the present day. Peaches and 
nectarines, both local-forms and intro- 
asa sweetmeat than a necessity. 
duced varieties, are largely cultivated. 
Plums are produced in large quantities, 
one village-marketing 690 tons, which 
sold for £400 
Bruit as a Remedy for Gout. 
While the staunch vegetarian holds 
strong. views with regard to a diet of fish, 
flesh, or fowl being more or less poison- 
ous to the human system, the fruitarian 
does not regard with special favor the 
fare which the furmer individual consid- 
ers indispensable to health. To 
fruitarians uncooked fruit is the only 
natural.food, and they put their views 
into practice by limiting their diet to 
fruit. The chief . opponents 
exclusively fruit diet 
to an 
have been the 
medical men, who contend that ,such .a. 
diet is not suitable in a cold country 
such as the United Kingdom. With 
regard tu gouty persons, they have long 
contended that, in ‘the case of persons. 
suffering from gout, the liberal use of 
fruit is attended with considerable risk,. 
and some have asserted that the consump- 
tion of fruit has a tendency to develop 
the disease in healthy persons. Now the 
pendulum shows signs of swinging the 
other way, and we shall not be surprised 
to find in the medical journals a strong 
advocacy of a diet of sylvan simplicity. 
One medical man_has already declared 
that he has frequently cured gout with 
grapes and oranges, and he declares that 
his advice to gouty patients is ‘Eat 
plenty of fresh, ripe, uncooked fruit.’ 
While the prices of fruit assist in the 
elimination from the system of gouty 
tendencies, the fact must not be over: 
looked that the consumption of fruit in 
large quantities may prove injurious to 
