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JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER.  November  6, 
I  am  writing  from  Kent,  than  which  there  is  no  county  in 
England  better  suited  for  growing  a  variety  of  fruit,  and  in 
none,  perhaps,  are  better  methods  practised  by  market 
growers,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  everything  is  not  as  it 
should  be  even  here.  When  journeying  through  the  Cherry¬ 
growing  districts  I  observe  young  orchards  being  planted 
year  by  year  and  coming  into  bearing.  If  this  were  not  so, 
what  becomes  of  the  thousands  of  trees  that  are  annually 
sent  out  from  our  leading  nurseries  }  In  other  parts  where 
the  Apple  is  pre-eminent — notably  in  the  Weald  of  Kent — 
there  is  the  same  display  of  young  orchards  ;  and  fruits 
which  are  necessarily  of  shorter  duration,  such  as  Goose¬ 
berries,  Currants,  Raspberries,  and  Strawberries,  come  and 
go,  but  in  its  season  the  operation  of  planting  is  ever  going 
on,  and  the  total  area  of  land  under  fruit  is  steadily  increas¬ 
ing.  You  hear  the  Kentish  farmer  talk  hopelessly  of  corn¬ 
growing,  and  he  has  grave  doubts  about  the  ultimate  profits 
of  Hop-culture,  but  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  has  seasons 
of  dearth  and  seasons  of  glut,  he  says  little  about  his  fruit 
that  is  uncomplimentary,  and  steadily  goes  on  planting. 
In  the  case  of  our  hardy  fruits — Apples  in  particular — we 
are  apt  to  saddle  a  good  deal  of  unmerited  blame  on  past 
generations  of  planters.  We  talk  of  the  plethora  of  worthless 
varieties  still  in  cultivation,  as  though  their  unwelcome 
presence  were  the  fault  of  our  forefathers,  but  we  havn't  the 
heart  to  do  away  with  them.  But  we  owe  something  to  our 
predecessors  all  the  same,  for  who  is  there  who  has  a  giant 
matured  tree,  or  an  orchard  of  them  for  the  matter  of  that,  of 
Blenheim  Orange,  Wellington,  or  some  other  good  old 
Apple,  who  has  not  reason  to  bless  the  hand  that  planted 
them  1  But  this,  as  Kipling  would  say,  is  another  story, 
and  it  teaches  us  to  be  fair  in  our  criticisms  of  what  has  been 
done.  We  should  remember  that  in  the  past  decade  high- 
class  varieties  were  not  so  numerous  as  they  are  now  ;  a 
nation  at  home  was  not  clamouring  for  first-rate  fruit,  neither 
were  there  other  nations  over  the  water  thirsting  to  supply  it. 
The  Apples  of  our  grandfathers  were  good  enough  for  their 
needs,  but  times  have  changefl,  and  if  the  poor  seedling  and 
non-descriptive  varieties  that  are  still  produced  on  trees  that 
have  long  survived  the  planters,  are  not  good  enough  for 
present  demands,  there  is  a  remedy — they  can  be  done  away 
with  ;  but  the  cutting  down  of  an  Apple  tree,  be  it  ever  so 
unworthv,  if  it  still  bears  fruit,  is  too  much  for  the  courage  of 
many  a  fruit  grower. 
At  this  season  of  the  year,  when  fruit  growers,  private  and 
commercial,  are  making  their  plans  for  planting,  the  moment 
is  opportune  for  a  word  on  methods,  particularly  as  regards 
orchard  trees.  The  man  who  plants  a  permanent  orchard  is 
doing  something  for  posterity,  and  he  should  realise  the 
responsibility  of  this.  The  next  generation  reaps  the  full 
benefit  of  his  wisdom,  and  it  also  suffers  through  his 
mistakes.  I  can  give  an  instance  of  this.  A  friend  of  mine 
recently  purchased  a  couple  of  orchards,  one  planted  with 
Blenheim  Orange  and  the  other  with  another  variety.  About 
the  selection  no  fault  could  be  found,  and  the  trees  were  in  a 
full  state  of  bearing,  but  the  Blenheims  though  they  were 
planted  at  orthodox  distances  apart,  had,  through  their 
spreading  habit  of  growth,  become  overcrowded,  and  my 
friend  was  in  the  dilemma  of  leaving  them  to  spoil  each 
other  or  cut  away  a  lot  of  valuable  fruiting  wood.  The 
Apples  in  the  other  orchard  were  of  an  upright  and  less 
vigorous  habit  of  growth,  and  though  planted  at  the  same 
time  there  was  a  waste  of  space  between  them.  You  see  the 
point  perhaps,  if  the  two  varieties  had  been  planted  in 
alternate  rows  they  would  have  filled  the  space  without  any 
overcrowding,  and  just  as  much  or  more  fruit  would  have 
been  obtained,  without  the  painful  necessity  of  hacking 
healthy  trees  about  just  when  they  were  in  a  splendid  state 
of  bearing. 
Considering  the  number  of  standard  trees  that  have  been 
sent  out  from  nurseries  during  recent  years,  one  might  think 
that  there  was  no  need  for  further  propagation  ;  but,  bless 
you,  they  don  t  all  grow.  I  wonder  how  much  money  is 
annually  wasted  through  planting  inferior  specimens,  and 
sticking  trees  into  grass  land,  irrespective  of  suitability,  and 
taking  little  or  no  notice  of  them  afterwards.  In  the  plant¬ 
ing  of  permanent  orchards,  a  useful  lesson  or  two  might 
easily  be  learned  from  some  of  our  Kentish  growers.  I  could 
point  out  some  notable  examples  to  my  readers,  instances  in 
which  there  are  no  haphazard  methods,  but  where  the  thing 
is  done  on  practical  lines  and  with  a  purpose. 
To  begin  with,  the  proper  place  to  make  a  permanent 
orchard  is  not  a  pasture,  but  a  ploughed  field.  The  trees 
1902. 
make  an  infinitely  better  start  in  ground  that  is  under  culti¬ 
vation  for  the  first  few  years,  and  perhaps  no  finer  examples 
of  young  Apples  could  be  seen  than  those  planted  in  Hop 
gardens  in  Kent.  After  a  few  years  the  Hops  are  grubbed, 
the  ground  is  laid  down  to  grass,  and  an  orchard  is  estab¬ 
lished  that  remains  profitable  for  more  than  a  lifetime.  I  am 
aware,  however,  that  it  is  not  always  feasible  to  plant  on 
cultivated  land,  and  when  trees  are  planted  in  pasture  no 
grass  should  be  allowed  to  grow  round  the  stem  for  the  first 
few  years. 
In  the  case  of  standards,  let  us  do  away  once  and  for  all 
with  the  anxiety  to  get  fruit  before  we  have  got  a  tree.  The 
latter  should  be  the  first  consideration,  fruit  will  be  sure  to* 
follow,  and  in  the  pruning  and  general  management  the  idea 
should  be  to  lay  a  sound  foundation  of  bone  and  muscle,  so 
to  speak,  and  there  will  be  no  doubt  about  the  resources  of 
the  tree  in  the  future.  And  again,  plant  good  specimens. 
There  is  no  economy  in  a  cheap  Apple  tree  if  it  is  a  noor  one. 
and  many  notable  failures  and  monetary  losses  may  be  traced 
directlv  to  the  mistaken  policy  of  buying  at  the  presumably 
cheapest  market. 
When  planting  an  orchard  I  have  little  sympathy  with 
planting  trees  twice  as  thickly  as  they  should  be,  with  the 
idea  of  removing  every  alternate  one  when  they  get  crowded. 
Xine  times  out  of  ten  they  never  get  removed  at  all,  and  the 
orchard  is  spoiled  ;  and  even  if  they  are,  you  are  put  to  the 
painful  necessity  of  destroying  trees  just  when  they  have 
arrived  at  a  state  of  bearing.  It  is  far  better  to  make  what¬ 
ever  sacrifice  of  space  that  may  be  necessary  at  the  outset 
with  the  sole  object  of  establishing  an  orchard  that  will;  be 
a  credit  to  the  planter  and  a  source  of  profit  to  himself  and 
his  successors. 
Lastly,  let  me  advise  everyone  to  plant  good  varieties.  I 
need  not  mention  them,  for  they  have  been  drummed  into* 
our  ears  till  they  are  household  words.  Their  name  is  legion, 
but  the  planter  may  count  on  his  fingers  the  sorts  most  suit¬ 
able  for  a  permanent  orchard,  and  the  way  in  which  this- 
Apple,  or  that  acquits  itself  in  the  locality  should  also  be  a 
guide  in  making  a  selection.  Above  all  things,  let  the 
planter  of  a  permanent  orchard  remember  that  he  is  not 
planting  for  to-day,  nor  to-morrow,  but  for  years  hence  ;  and 
if  he  works  on  sound,  practical  principles  he  will  benefit  him¬ 
self,  and  his  successors  will  bless  him  in  their  day. — G. . 
■ - <•••► - 
Stem  Vascular  System  of  Certain  Dicotyledons. 
Mr.  Worsdell,  in  a  paper  on  this  subject  before  the  British 
Association,  said  his  object  was  to  show,  from  anatomical  data, 
that  no  hard-and-fast  line  existed  between  the  two  classes  of 
dicotyledons  and  monocotyledons.  The  hollow  vascular  cylinder 
of  the  stem  of  a  great  number  of  dicotyledonous  orders,  if  not  of 
all,  had  been  derived  from  a  system  of  scattered  bundles  such  as 
was  characteristic  of  the  stem  of  almost  all  monocotyledons.  The 
flowering-stem  and  peduncle,  as  being  those  parts  of  the  caulome 
which  had  undergone  least  modification  owing  to  the  necessities 
of  adaptation  to*  external  conditions,  exhibited,  as  a  rule,  most 
clearly  the  primitive  structure  which  in  the  vegetative  parts  had 
become  obscured.  The  axial  organs  of  the  seedling,  owing  to 
their  limited  diameter  and  the  small  number  of  leaf-traces  con¬ 
cerned  in  the  building-up  of  the  vascular  system,  could  not  as  a 
rule  possibly  exhibit  primitive  scattered  arrangement  of  the 
bundles.  As  the  stem  increased  in  height  and  became  more 
woody,  and  the  leaved  smaller  and  more  numerous,  the  scattered 
arrangement  of  bundle's  in  the  stem  (chiefly  a  residt  of  the  latter 
being  mainly  built  up  of  large  leaf-bases  from  which  great 
numbers  of  pluriseriate  bundles  entered  the  axis)  gradually  be¬ 
came  modified  into  that  of  a  hollow  cylinder,  which  was  neces¬ 
sary  both  to  support  the  bending  strains  from  a  tall  stem  and 
to  facilitate  the  continuous  centrifugal  addition  of  new  conduct¬ 
ing  tissues  by  means  of  a  secondary  meristem.  The  stems  of 
plants  possessing  scattered  bundles  supported  bending  strains  by 
means  of  a  sub-peripheral  sclerotic  band,  and,  in  those  cases 
where  a  secondary  meristem  was  present,  increased  their  con¬ 
ducting  tissue  by  the  continuous  centrifugal  formation  of  new 
scattered  bundles  accompanied  by  interfascicular  tissue.  As  far 
as  the  investigation  had  gone,  the  primitive  scattered  arrange¬ 
ment  of  bundles  could  be  traced  in  the  stem  of  about  thirty 
dicotyledonous  orders,  and  no  doubt  many  more  would  reveal  it. 
In  some  monocotyledons  the  scattered  bundles  had  become  very 
peripheral,  and  even  reduced  to  a  single  series  or  row  of  bundles. 
In  some  cases  amongst  dicotyledons  where  the  scattered  arrange¬ 
ment  had  vanished  from  the  stem  it  could  still  be  found  in  the 
less  modified  foliage-leaf,  especially  where  the  petiole  was  cylindri¬ 
cal  in  contour  or  possessed  a  considerable  diameter.  In  view  of 
the  above  facts  the  author  cannot  agree  with  those  writers  who 
maintained  that  the  vascular  structure  of  the  seedling  stem  cf 
dicotyledons  generally  proved  it  to  be  primitively  tubular  in 
dicotyledons  generally  proved  it  to  be  primitively  tubular. 
