The Graden

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 442, 1 February 1890, Page 6

The Graden

(By HORTIS.)

All the rakings, sod grass and refuse of the garden can be used as a foundation for a compost heap. Cultivate the peach orchard in the same manner as when cultivating corn. That is, use the cultivator and stir the top soil frequently. Do not try to cultivate onions deep ; if an inch of the surface is kept mellow, and no weeds allowed to grow, it is all the cultivation that will be needed. Wood ashes are excellent on the flower beds. Roses need an application of them occasionally. All kinds of flowers will be benefited by superphosphate and ashes. Weeds make excellent green manure if turned under. A rank growth of weeds indicates fertile land, but such land can be exhaus'ed by removing weeds as well as by removing a regular crop. It will pay, therefore, to turn the weeds under and let them rot in the ground. The liquid manure is more valuable than the solids and a liberal use of the absorbent material will aid in arresting its loss. It should be saved carefully, and a drain at the rear of the stalls should conduct it to some kind of a receptacle, from which it may be pumped over the manure heap. The “ Fruit Grower ” says that fruit cut and placed on trays in the sun to dry should not be covered or shaded while the sun shines, as the process of evaporation should be continuous and uninterrupted. Vou place your fruit in the sun for the purpose of evaporating it, and you should allow the sun to shine on it as hot and as long as it will until this is accomplished. It usually requires three or five days for apricots and four to six for “ skin ” peaches to dry in the sun. New Fruits—Japan Plums. This season Messrs Hay and Sons have fruited one or two of the Japan plums introduced by them a few years ago. One called “ Chabot,'’ fruit large and very highly coloured, yellowish purple, fleshvellow, rich, sweet, juicy, and very pleasantly flavoured, and stone small, is a feature in these pi urns. This variety came into bearing n hen two years of age. I saw one in the nursery with three large and handsome fruits upon it. The fruit was ripe this season on the 17th January. The season being a very cold one, this would indicate that it would be possible to biing the fruit into the market at a much earlier period in a warm season. Other varieties of these plums have been fruited by Mr Hay, also by H. J. Blythe, Esq., and. by Captain Herrold. The habit of these plum trees is uptight, and with a strong, vigorous growth. The foliage is bright green an i handsome, somewhat resembling the apricot in appearance. From the present appearance of the numerous young plants which I saw in stock, these plums promise in the near future to be a handsome addition to the stock of fruit trees already imported into New Zealand from Japan. This specimen will shortly be planted in every orchard in the province of Auckland. Jubilee Horticultural Exhibition. The Managing Committee of the Jubilee sports have kindly ottered to give £4O towards payment of the necessary expenses connected with the Jubilee Horticultural Exhibition. Those interested held a meeting last week, and accepted the £4O, and it is expected this money will in pait pay expenses, thus leaving the takings at the door to pay prize money. Throughout the last two weeks horticulturists have been astonished at the amount of sympathy that has been expressed toward them on account of the Horticultural Show having been cub oft from the Jubilee programme. It is to be hoped such sympathy will be continued up till the date of the Show, and that the sympathisers will visit the exhibition in numbers, when they will see the best collection of horticultural produce that has ever been staged in Auckland. The difficulties that have been ibrown in the way of this exhibition have created a stronger determination to make it a thorough success. All intending competitors should recollect that entries must be posted or left at Robson’s Rooms so that the Committee may receive them by eight o’clock to-night, in order that the Committee may have time to arrange space, etc. The exhibition is to be held in the Choral Hall on Friday, January Slst, and Saturday, the Ist February.

Cutting Off Old Flowers and Buds.

Where a supply of first class flowers is required, a systematic cutting off of spent flowers and superabundant buds must be adopted. Most plants that flower and seed freely will soon get exhausted if entirely left to themselves, thereby greatly curtailing not only the quality of the flowers, but also shortening the period of their flowering. As soon as ever a flower shows signs of being spent, that flower should be cut off, as the strength wasted in' bringing it to maturity will be so much less to be expended upon the others still in bud. Again, where a pl.rnt shows a large number of flower buds, numbers of these buds can easily be nipped off before they begin to expand. The strength that would have been used in developing the many will thus be concentrated in the few, thereby much improving the quality. Of course in dealing with individual varieties, much will depend on whether they seed freely or not; in varieties which seed freely a few seed pods left to mature will exhaust the plant and check the production of more buds sooner than any amount of blossoms. Care should at least be taken to cut off any seed t ods as soon as they are formed. By adopting a syftem of cutting off spent blooms, the appearance of the garden and plants will be greatly improved. Thinning Out Fruit. This operation is of equal importance with pruning or attention . to the soil, yet how few are aware of it, and fewer still disposed to practise it. It is a pity to them to see the fruit cut down, and the task seems out of proportion to the profit to be derived from it, if indeed there is any profit, which is very much doubted. So the trees are allowed to overbear and the fruit to remain small and of inferior quality, the unrelieved strain tending to and establishing biennial fruiting. Now, as such fruit is of reduced value, and almost worthless as a market fruit, why not experiment a little, if only with a single tree, or even but a part of the tree, which is certainly no difficult task, taking but a few minutes of time? But let the test be carried far enough to get the full benefit, which requires the removal of from two-thirds to three-fourths of the fruit if the tree is a prolific bearer. The difficulty usually is in not removing enough. Wnen loosely set, let not less than threefourths be removed, leaving the remaining fruit equally distributed through the tree. The result will be about the same amount of fruit as if left unthinned, and so improved as to seem another sort in flavour and quality, as well, as in size, which will be three or four times as large as if left unthinned, corresponding to the proportion removed. It will also be found that the work is nob nearly bo arduous as was supposed. Use a convenient ladder and thin

out by band, removing the inferior specimens. The proper time to do this is when the fruit has attained about the size of cherry among quite small g owing sort® otherwise a little larger. Even when h ning is neglected till the fruit is grown, it will be labour well spent f thin out; but for a fair test it should be fair y done. As is well known, there is a great dift enee in the bearing quality of trees, and ve find this feature—that the shy bearers have usually large fruit and the prolific small. It is impossible for the latter to grow their numerous specimens as large a 3 the fruit of the former. But if thinned out so as to equal the other in distribution there will be much less difference in the size of the fruit. If to thinning is added free pruning of the branches and attention to the soil, improvement may be carried to the extent of materially changing the character of the fruit, making of a poor variety a comparatively good one, not only with young trees which seem more susceptible of change in this respect, but old neglected ones, which it is nub generally difficult to rejuvenate, and give a new lease of life, with the fruit improved far beyond what the former usually bad treatment afforded. No highly prolific tree has sufficient vigour to grow the fruit large; the demand is simply too great, and the strain is hurtful to the tree, consisting. mainly of the tree’s effort to grow and mature its seed. This it will do or fail. And this concentration upon the ®eed is at the expense of the remainder of the fruit, affecting its size and quality. The core will remain much the same. . If the demand here is’lessened, which it will be by the reduction of the number of cores or specimens of fruit, tht liberated force of the tree will be employed, among other things, in growing the flesh and improving the flavour and quality of the fruit, leaving the tree at the same time in a healthy condition.— Correspondence ‘Country Gentleman.’