GARDENING NOTES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXI, Issue 9698, 1 November 1909, Page 7

GARDENING NOTES.

SOME NEW THEORIES

f$ FRUIT TREE PLANTING,

WOBURN EXPERIMENTAL FRUIT

FARM

EFFICACY OF RAMMING THE

GROUND.

PRINCIPLE OF CAUSE AND

EFfc'ECT.

SOME REMARKABLE RESULTS

PRUNING AND MANURING.

There is always something new in almost everything under the sun. We now hear of entirely new methods of tree planting in orchards. Most of our readers will have read of the Wobnrn Experimental Fruit Farm, which .Britain owes to private beneh'cence, it being run at the expense of the Dufee of Bedford, who has incurred an expense, in connection with it, to date probably amounting to some £20.000. Results of the Woburn

experiments liemre iv almost every text-book of fruit culture. Mr SpenUinfreville Pickering, M.A., a enthusiastic student of physical chemistry, was the real originator of the Woburn Experimental Fruit Farm. With regard to the planting of fruit trees, Mr PicKering holds that the removal of the third of the length of the roots of a tree which is about to be planted does no harm, and generally does good. The reason is that it restricts the area from which new roots jau be shot out, aud the new roots are, therefore, better nourished. "To attempt to help a tree by trying to save its fibrous roots at planting is, , ' to use Mr Pickering's pungent words, "like endeavouring to feed a dead donkey." His method of planting trees, geraniums, or brussels sprouts is as follows:—A shallow hole is dug, into which the tree is put. Tne roots are placed just as they happen to come, and the earth is shovelled over them. Then the surface is rammed with a heavy rammer, until the whole is thoroughly puddled, and shakes like a jelly. As a critic said: It is planting a tree gate-post fashion.

The consolidation of the earth is such the ground remains quite hard .Jgkor the next twelve mouths. After the rammiog, a shovelful of earth is always thrown over the rammed ground so as to render hoeing possible. The ramming is done only over the roots, aud before the end of the first seasou the many roots will be found to have penetrated beyond the bowl of consolidated earth into the loose ground beyond. As lecords of the first season's growth, the length of new wood on the rammed trees averaged 38 per cent in favour of ramming; aud as records of ' the second season, 54 per. cent. The extra wood formed by the rainmad roots is stated to be due to extra root formation.

As records of the fruit production in the case of one kind of apple, the .average yields of the rammed trees orer the uurammsd were 108 per cent.

Why is ramming beueticial? was asked.

Because the more intimate contact of the soil with the voots favours the development of a large number of new rootlets. The proximity of grass to fruit tree has a very evil effect. The poison seems to be due to a chemical, not a bacterial action. Weeds, although their effect on the trees is bad. do not jfiieem to havo the lethal effect which has. If you pruue the branches of a fruit tree heavily, you must pruue the roots. If you do not prune the branches, you won't need to prune the roots. Then why prune so much?

No good results whatever have been noticed for all the money laid out ou dung and artificials for apples for fourteen years. And the gooseberries, currants aud raspberries tried with the dung have failed miserably. The soundest of all knowledge is. no doubt, experience—that is, trying various things and drawing conclusions from the results.