Good Companions A flourish has been set recently on the
quaint and new science the cross-fertilisation of fruit. In regard to apples, pears, plums cherries, it is now precisely known which sorts need congenial no bours and what those neighbours are. Sweet cherries, for example, all almost completely barren unless the flowers can be fertilised f. some neighbour of a different sort ; and it is an outstanding mem the Morello that it is almost alone in being completely self-fertile. myself, I have a single Morello on a north wall and it bears profu every year. Pears are in three classes, and a very large majority a lutely need neighbours of the right class if they are to bear a crop. of the very few that is self-fertile is " Fertility " (Improved). Again quote my own experience, I bought an absurdly cheap tree of Fey: from a popular market stall. In spite of its diminutive size, it wa only pear-tree in the garden that produced a crop. Among apples. so-called triploids (notably Brarnley's Seedling and Blenheim Or are in especial need of good neighbours. In Worcestershire, Cox's Or (the most popular of all apples, but often a shy bearer) is usually d, dated with Worcester Peannain ; in some other counties James Gr is preferred. Plums have equal need of well-selected neighbours. Clough motto "Great is juxtaposition" is true in this above o references ; and the yield of fruit in England would be immeasun. increased if the new discoveries were more widely appreciated. R.H.S. has produced a good pamphlet on the subject ; but the and most ingenious is a very brief page or two issued at the pr.c fourpence by the John Innes Horticultural Institution, 31 Mostyn R London, S.W. 19. Its title is The Fertility Rules in Fruit Plow:, It would be well worth the while of amateurs who grow bush frirt spend time in artificially pollinating with a camel's-hair brush, as 1, custom with peach-growers.
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