dition to the soil within their range. On the contrary, it will be well if the continued exuberant growth shews its necessity for the staple of the soil to be reduced in fertility by the admixture of one less fertile, or even of drift-sand.

If there is an excess of branches, the saw and the pruningknife must be gradually applied. It must be only trees of very weak vital powers, such as is the golden pippin, that will bear the general cutting of the annual shoots, as pursued by Mr Williams. A new vigorous variety would exhaust itself the following year in the production of fresh wood. Nothing beyond a general rule for the pruning can be laid down, and it amounts to no more than the direction to keep a considerable vacancy between every branch, and that above or beneath it; and especially to provide, that not even two twigs shall chafe against each other. The greater the intensity of light, and the freer the circulation of air among the foliage of the tree, the better the chance for its healthy vegetation.

If the disease, being in a fruit tree, is a consequent of old age, it is probably a premature senility, induced by injudicious management, for very few of our varieties are of an age that insures to them decrepitude. I have never yet known a tree, unless it was in the last stage of decay, that could not be recovered by giving it more air and light, by careful heading in, pruning, improvement of the soil, and cleansing the bark.

If the soil, by its ungenial character, induces the disease, the obvious and only remedy is its amelioration; and, if the subsoil is the cause of the mischief, the roots must be prevented striking into it. In all cases, it is the best practice to remove the tap root. Many orchardists pave beneath each tree with tiles and broken bricks. If the trees are planted shallow, as they ought to be, and the surface kept duly fertile, there is not much danger of the roots striking into the worse pasturage of the subsoil. On this point, the experience of Mr W. Nicol, the gardener at Newick Place, in Sussex, agrees with my own. He says the canker may be avoided in most instances by paying proper attention to the soil in which the tree is planted. Canker, he thinks, will seldom occur if the surface-soil is good, for in that case, the roots will never descend into the prejudicial subsoil, but spread out their radicles near the surface, where they find food most

abundant. If this is not kept up, the roots descend into the obnoxious substratum, and the disease assuredly follows. (Baxter's Library of Agric. and Hortic. Knowledge, 3d Edit. 22.)

It remains for me to detail the course of treatment I have always found successful in effecting a cure in any variety not decrepit from age, if the canker has not spread to the roots.

Having completely headed down, if the canker is generally prevalent, or duly thinned the branches, entirely removed every small one that is in the least degree diseased, and cut away the decayed parts of the larger, so as not to leave a single speck of the decayed wood, I cover over the surface of each wound with a mixture, whilst in a melted state, of equal parts tar and rosin, applying it with a brush immediately after the amputations have been performed, taking care to select a dry day. I prefer this to any composition with a basis of cow-dung and clay, because the latter always is more or less absorbent of moisture, and is liable to injury by rain and frost, causing alternations of moisture and dryness to the wounds, that promote decay rather than their healing, by the formation of new wood and bark. The resinous plaster seldom or never requires renewal. Mr Forsyth, the arch-advocate of earthy and alkaline plasters, finding they promoted decay if applied to the wounds of autumn-pruned trees, recommends this important act of cultivation to be postponed to the spring. Such a procrastination is always liable to defer the pruning until bleeding is the consequence. If a resinous plaster is employed, it excludes the wet, and obviates the objection to autumnal pruning. Mr Forsyth's treatment of the trunks and branches of trees, namely, scraping from them all the scaly, dry exuviæ of the bark, is to be adopted in every instance. He recommends them then to be brushed over with a thin liquid compound of fresh cow-dung, soap-suds, and urine; but I very much prefer a brine of common salt. Each acts as a gentle stimulus, which is their chief cause of benefit; and the latter is more efficacious in destroying insects, and does not, like the other, obstruct the perspiratory vessels of the tree. The brine is advantageously rubbed in with a scrubbing, or large painter's brush. Some persons recommend a liquid wash, containing, as prominent ingredients, quick-lime and wood-ashes, which, as the disease arises from an over-alkalescent state of the sap, cannot

but prove injurious, and aggravate the disease. Mr Forsyth, formerly gardener at Kensington Palace, made a considerable sensation at the close of the last, and at the commencement of the present century, by the wonderful effects produced upon trees, as he asserted, by the following composition, used as a plaster over the wounds from which the decayed or cankered parts had been cut out :

One bushel of fresh cow-dung.

Half a bushel of lime rubbish; that from ceilings of rooms is preferable; or powdered chalk.

Half a bushel of wood-ashes.

One-sixteenth of a bushel of sand; the three last to be sifted

fine. The whole to be mixed and beaten together until they form a fine plaster. (Forsyth's Observations on FruitTrees, p. 68.)

Mr Knight, in a very able and sarcastic pamphlet published in 1802, entitled "Some Doubts relative to the efficacy of Mr Forsyth's Plaster," fully exposed the quackery, perhaps falsehood is not too harsh a term, in this horticulturist's statements.

Mr Forsyth received a parliamentary grant of money for his discovery; but this, as Mr Knight observes, "affords a much better proof that he was paid for an important discovery, than that he made one."

"Should the public," continues this distinguished physiologist, "believe that an old dying tree can be restored to youth and vigour, merely by being plastered with lime, cow-dung, and wood-ashes, and that a piece of such tree may by such means be made immortal, I think it would be a good speculation for some enterprising genius, in imitation of the quack doctors of the sixteenth century, to bring forward a nostrum to restore and per petuate youth in the human subject. Should such a projector join Mr Forsyth, and the one undertake the animal, and the other the vegetable world, under Dr Anderson's patronage, I will venture to predict that the success of each, in the cures they perform, will be equal."

It has been very ingeniously suggested, that, if a destruction of the bark by external violence, and consequently, likely to terminate in canker, has occurred, it would be a good plan to in

sert, as in budding, a piece of living bark, exactly corresponding to the excision, from a less valuable tree.

In conclusion, I would enforce upon the orchardist's attention the importance of obtaining his grafts or buds from trees not affected by the disease, because, apparently, it is hereditary; and, though after-culture may eradicate the malady, it is always far better to avoid the infection than to have to employ a specific.

ON THE PROPAGATION OF FRUIT-TREES.

THE article at page 325 of the last Number by F. on the Apple-tree, was exceedingly interesting; it tallied precisely with our own experience, for we also had met with a notice which appeared in some periodicals seven or eight years ago. Then the public were told the same tale which recently has been revived as a novelty, that cuttings would supersede grafting, and that if those of the apple and pear particularly were inserted into potatoes, they would assuredly strike root, and produce fruitful handsome trees in a very short time.

F., it appears, brought the assertion to the proof, and, by a series of fairly conducted experiments, detected its fallacy. We did not follow in exactly the same path; but being desirous to turn the theory to advantage generally, made trial with several species of shrubs, which were of difficult propagation, and inserted cuttings into potatoes, and slices of tubers containing their eyes in some instances, and in others after having mutilated them by boring with an awl till the germ of the future shoot was obliterated; yet in every instance the cutting failed, though the potato frequently grew.

In order to bring the inquiry to issue, a notice of the renew. ed theory was sent to the Gardener's Gazette, and this brought a reply or rather a still more unqualified assertion of the feasibility of the practice by a correspondent, which was expressed in the paragraph that is now quoted verbatim, and signed "Samuel H. Carlisle, Vine Cottage, Romford"-"I have only to add," he says, "that, in process of time, grafting may be dispensed with,

not only by a scion or cutting planted in a potato or turnip, which is sure to take when skilfully managed, but also by a mere slip, planted as you would plant the slip of a gooseberry. Should any of your readers be disposed to doubt the practicability of this statement, I have only to say that they may call upon me, and I will lead them to ocular demonstration of the fact."

Now, here we find a positive assertion, and a challenge to the proof. Yet there needs no extraordinary perspicuity to discover somewhat of the ambiguous, or jesuitical, in the statement; for, not to be hypercritical on the style-of what fact will ocular demonstration be afforded? Will it be shewn that mere cuttings, without the medium of a tuber or bulb, have been converted into trees; or that the potato and turnip have promoted the production of roots? It might also be asked, "how do you propose to satisfy us that the tree now rooted and GROWING was bona fide in the first instance kept alive by the fluids of the tuber, &c. till the vital principle became sufficiently powerful to develop roots?" At all events we must be content to believe, and take the proof upon trust. In the mean time Mr Carlisle is bound to present a detailed account of his process, and to say, in what consists the skilful management of the cutting and its adjunct.

The note of the Editor, page 326, which states that "all the burr-knot and codlin tribes of apple-trees grow freely from cuttings," claims attention, and appears to be grounded on good authority. It has induced us to lay before the practical reader the following statement of a simple fact. In the year 1822, while residing near Frome in Somersetshire, we heard it asserted that a clergyman, curious in horticultural experiments, had proved that large apple-boughs, as thick as a man's arm, would take root if a foot or more of the stem were securely fixed in the soil. No mention was made of species or variety; but on applying to a nurseryman in the vicinity, it appeared that the fact was, to a limited extent, worthy of belief; and in walking about the garden two branches were selected, one about six feet long, the other about half that length; they both were, more or less, furnished with burrs, or nodose processes which afforded evident proofs of embryos of roots, somewhat resembling those aërial vascular radicles which emerge from the axils of some vines, when forced in a very moist atmosphere. The two boughs were plant