COUNTRY LIFE
Floriferous Autumn
Last week I counted forty-seven blossoms on one small apple tree and buds were opening on the first day of October. Such unseasonable eccentricities are to be seen here and there in many years, but hardly to this extent. Autumn is always in some regards like a second spring. Seed is sown, naturally and artificially, and seeds germinate. The activity of many roots is perhaps greater now than at any date. New leaf shoots are put forth on many trees and bushes. All' this is common in greater or lesser degree, to most years ; but this autumn growing weather of a peculiar seduction, has followed arresting weather, and the flowers that bloom in the spring have become the flowers that bloom in the autumn. In my garden is one low ID'ank covered solely with yellow alyssum, set there chiefly to keep weeds down. It is now almost as continuously bright with its sunny flowers as it was in spring. There are a few blossoms on both the sweet briar and Penzance- briar hedge that tops the bank. The ceanothus on the wall is at least as full of flower as ever it was and the shoots still grow. The aftermath of grass is much closer and thicker than the growth that was cut in June. Odd blossoms appear on the most unlikely plants and bushes—on broom, spiraea and carnation. Who said that autumn stands for melancholy ?
* Grass as Enemy
Is it an accident or a proper sequel that the one floriferous apple tree in the orchard was made quite clear of grass for a considerable distance round the trunk ? All the rest are more or less encumbered with grass. The clearance was done about four weeks before the buds broke. The coincidence is at least curious. It has been abundantly proved that in most districts grass is a considerable hindrance to the growth and well-being of young trees. That great chemist, Mr. Spencer Pickering, could alter the colour of the apple-tree's fruit merely by altering the size of the cleared space about the trunk. A particular apple, naturally of a green tint, reddened as soon as the grass approached ; and in this case redness was a symptom of decreased vitality. It is, of course, all to the bad that a fruit tree should flower at this season ; and perhaps the clearing of grass may be badly timed. Why grass interferes with vitality has not been exactly determined, for trees se surrounded suffered just as much when they were well supplied with water (by means of underground pipes). It is presumed that the grass has some chemical as well as mechanical influence. However it is probably only the young tree that suffers. The veterans are successfully resistant to any poison the grass may excrete, if this is the essential trouble.
* * * * A Debt to France
Most of us are lamenting the absence of any sort of crop in the orchard ; but the deficiency does not extend, so far as I have seen, to the cider apples, which are in good quantity in many western orchards. They are a remarkable product, for which the chief credit must be given to the French. They differ very greatly from other apples in chemical constituents and good cider cannot be made out of other sorts. The true cider 'apple or bitter-sweet is truly named. It has more sugar and, what is perhaps more important, more tannin than other apples ; and the French have been accenting these qualities for a very great many years. Perhaps the most famous, if not the most typical, is Medaille d'Or, which has the advantage of prodigality. It bears immensely. It is bearing immensely this year in western orchards. The pity is that it has the defects of its virtues, and bears so plentifully that it often breaks in pieces its own rather tender shoots. A number of experiments have been made in England in recent years with a view to find a cross that should prove less fragile without losing its essential virtues. I saw one such cross of which hopes are enteatained, last week in Herefordshire, where both the apple and its fermented juices flourish.
• * * Young Giants The making of many of the trees themselves, apart from the variety of race, is interesting and ingenious. Any sort
of apple stock is budded close to the ground with any sort apple that has shown power and rapidity of growth. As soon as this graft reaches the desired height it is cut and grafted with the desired variety. I saw many thousands of trees of an average height, I should say, of not less than eleven feet with good strong, plentiful and well-shaped boughs that were little more than three years old. The speed of growth is altogether astounding, whatever the cause—the soil, the climate, or the nature of the buds and grafts. The speed of the mechanical operation is also sufficiently astonishing, though I should say even these budders of apples were excelled in sheer rapidity by some of the workers in nursery gardens for roses. I dare not suggest how many hundred a man and a boy can do within a day ; and a negligible quantity fails to " take." If a bud in July should fail, very little time is lost, for the stock is then grafted in the following spring. Both crafts are worth practising ; but grafting is the more useful to the private gardener. Any old or young tree of an indifferent sort may be grafted with a good sort, and come into bearing within three years. The growth of the grafts on a strongly rooted tree is scarcely credible to those who have had no experience of the transformation. There is, of course, a newer system of multiple grafting of smaller shoots that is quicker still.
* * * Stupid Dogs Many tall but true stories are told from time to time about the homing instinct in dogs ; but I do not know that I have ever heard one about the lack of that instinct. Yet dogs can be fools, even in this regard. I possess a spaniel that is an excellent retriever, is very obedient and understands as well as other dogs the simpler demands and instructions. Yet he is totally unable to find his way home if he once strays more than half a mile or even less. I attribute the loss of a sense of direction to the fact that he was kept severely tied up except for an occasional lesson, until he was nearly one year old. He is still of the mind of the Prisoner of Chillon, who " regained his freedom with a sigh." Directly you touch the cord by which he is sometimes tethered he runs up with every sign of pleasure and holds up his head for the clasp to be fastened to his collar. You might suppose that he was afraid of being lost. By way of contrast—a visitor's cocker spaniel, that escaped from the car in a village about a mile and a half away ran straight back, though it had never made the journey except in a closed car. This same dog cannot be taught to retrieve. So different are dogs' capacities. Is another dog of my acquaintance afflicted with stupidity or only bad temper? Of late in his older age he has come to regard the motor-car as his private possession, to which only his the right of entry, and flies savagely at any other person who dares so much as to touch the doors. His jealousy is an unfortunate by-product of dogs' almost universal delight in the motor-car.
* * * In the Garden
Varieties of flowers have many queer names, many difficult, some easy to remember. " Mephistopheles " is one that I find easy, not only from a certain salience in the word ! It stands for the most variously coloured of the newer montbretias, of which I saw several recently in the garden of their inventor. One of the biggest, just about to appear, is to be called, I believe, R. 0. Backhouse. These montbretias chiefly excel in size. They suggest rather an alstroemaria than an old mont- bretia, and this magnitude is a great addition to their beauty. This quality of size has to my eye half-ruined some flowers : the biggest dahlias and zinnias are perhaps the least lovely. It is a virtue in new autumn crocuses as well as new montbretias. There is a very lovely double crocus of Dutch origin ; and Mr. Backhouse has added great beauty to the form of the crocus. The cup of the latest is a model for an artist's amphora. It is a surprising quality in these autumn crocuses that when plucked they last well in a vase in the house if the vase is empty of water. They live apparently on the juices of the stalks, which rot off if water is given them.
. W. BEACH THOMAS.
Previous page
