Tender Blossom In a highly optimistic prognostic of the prospects
on farms of all sorts it was said the other day that the tree fruits promised well. After hearing this I went to the nearest tree, a Louise Bonne pear, and counted the blossoms on one very small lower bough. They numbered 360 or more. Blossom is plentiful on pear, plum and apple ; but it gives no indi- cation whatever of the crop to be harvested. I doubt whether there ever was a year when apple-blossom in an orchard was not sufficient for a good, even a bumper, crop, though an occasional tree may fail. I possess a quince tree that always out-flowers most of its neighbours, but the largest number of quinces it has yet yielded is exactly one! I am inclined to think that (frosts and the Three Icemen aside) the most important pre- liminary to a good crop is the right degree of sun and moisture through the fertilising period. Swarms of bees are of little use if the conditions are not suitable to the pollen. However, wealth of blossom, certainly con- spicuous this Easter, is a most welcome sight. Is there any flowering shrub in the decorative list more beautiful than the commercial apple ? Apple-trees are as fair to look on as most of the crabs, much grown for purely aesthetic reasons. Perhaps an exception should be made in favour of the red-leafed, red-flowered, red-fruited Eleyi.
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