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Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) by L. H. Bailey

L >> L. H. Bailey >> Manual of Gardening (Second Edition)




Mulches also serve a most useful purpose in preventing the ground from
packing and baking by the weight of snows and rains, and the cementing
action of too much water in the surface soil. In the spring, the
coarser parts of the mulch may be removed, and the finer parts spaded or
hoed into the ground.

[Illustration: Fig. 153: Covering plants in a box.]

Tender bushes and small trees may be wrapped with straw, hay, burlaps,
or pieces of matting or carpet. Even rather large trees, as bearing
peach trees, are often baled up in this way, or sometimes with corn
fodder, although the results in the protection of fruit-buds are not
often very satisfactory. It is important that no grain is left in the
baling material, else mice may be attracted to it. (The danger of
gnawing by mice that nest in winter coverings is always to be
anticipated.) It should be known, too, that the object in tying up or
baling plants is not so much to protect from direct cold as to mitigate
the effects of alternate freezing and thawing, and to protect from
drying winds. Plants may be wrapped so thick and tight as to
injure them.

[Illustration: Fig. 154: Covering plants in a barrel.]

The labor of protecting large plants is often great and the results
uncertain, and in most cases it is a question whether more satisfaction
could not be attained by growing only hardy trees and shrubs.

The objection to covering tender woody plants cannot be urged with equal
force against tender herbs or very low bushes, for these are protected
with ease. Even the ordinary mulch may afford sufficient protection; and
if the tops kill back, the plant quickly renews itself from near the
base, and in many plants--as in most hybrid perpetual roses--the best
bloom is on these new growths of the season. Old boxes or barrels may
be used to protect tender low plants (Figs. 153, 154). The box is filled
with leaves or dry straw and either left open on top or covered with
boards, boughs, or even with burlaps (Fig. 154).

Connoisseurs of tender roses and other plants sometimes go to the pains
of erecting a collapsible shed over the bush, and filling with leaves or
straw. Whether this is worth while depends wholly on the degree of
satisfaction that one derives from the growing of choice plants (see
_Roses,_ in Chap. VIII).

[Illustration: Fig. 155. Laying down of trellis-grown blackberries.]

The tops of plants may be laid down for the winter. Figure 155 shows a
method of laying down blackberries, as practiced in the Hudson River
valley. The plants were tied to a trellis, as the method is in that
country, two wires (_a, b_) having been run on either side of the row.
The posts are hinged on a pivot to a short post (_c_), and are held in
position by a brace (_d_). The entire trellis is then laid down on the
approach of winter, as shown in the illustration. The blackberry tops
are so strong that they hold the wires up from the ground, even when the
trellis is laid down. To hold the wires close to the earth, stakes are
thrust over them in a slanting position, as shown at _n n._ The snow
that drifts through the plants ordinarily affords sufficient protection
for plants which are as hardy as grapes and berries. In fact, the
species may be uninjured even without cover, since, in their prostrate
position, they escape the cold and drying winds.

In severe climates, or in the case of tender plants, the tops should be
covered with straw, boughs, or litter, as recommended for regular
mulch-covers. Sometimes a V-shaped trough made from two boards is placed
over the stems of long or vine-like plants that have been laid down. All
plants with slender or more or less pliant stems can be laid down with
ease. With such protection, figs can be grown in the northern states.
Peach and other fruit trees may be so trained as to be tipped over
and covered.

Laid-down plants are often injured if the covering remains too late in
the spring. The ground warms up early, and may start the buds on parts
of the buried plants, and these tender buds may be broken when the
plants are raised, or injured by sun, wind, or frost. The plants should
be raised while the wood and buds are still hard and dormant.

_Pruning._

Pruning is necessary to keep plants in shape, to make them more
floriferous and fruitful, and to hold them within bounds.

Even annual plants often may be pruned to advantage. This is true of
tomatoes, from which the superfluous or crowding shoots may be removed,
especially if the land is so rich that they grow very luxuriantly;
sometimes they are trained to a single stem and most of the side shoots
are taken away as they appear. If plants of marigold, gaillardia, or
other strong and spreading growers are held by stakes or wire-holders (a
good practice), it may be advisable to remove the weak and sprawling
shoots. Balsams give better results when side shoots are taken off. The
removing of the old flowers, which is to be advised with flower-garden
plants (page 116), is also a species of pruning.

Distinction should be made between pruning and shearing. Plants are
sheared into given shapes. This may be necessary in bedding-plants, and
occasionally when a formal effect is desired in shrubs and trees; but
the best taste is displayed, in the vast majority of cases, in allowing
the plants to assume their natural habits, merely keeping them shapely,
cutting out old or dead wood, and, in some cases, preventing such
crowding of shoots as will reduce the size of the bloom. The common
practice of shearing shrubbery is very much to be reprehended; this
subject is discussed from another point of view on page 24.

The pruner should know the flower-bearing habit of the plant that he
prunes,--whether the bloom is on the shoots of last season or on the new
wood of the present season, and whether the flower-buds of
spring-blooming plants are separate from the leaf-buds. A very little
careful observation will determine these points for any plant. (1) The
spring-blooming woody plants usually produce their flowers from buds
perfected the fall before and remaining dormant over winter. This is
true of most fruit-trees, and such shrubs as lilac, forsythia, tree
peony, wistaria, some spireas and viburnums, weigela, deutzia. Cutting
back the shoots of these plants early in spring or late in fall,
therefore, removes the bloom. The proper time to prune such plants
(unless one intends to reduce or thin the bloom) is just after the
flowering season. (2) The summer-blooming woody plants usually produce
their flowers on shoots that grow early in the same season. This is true
of grapes, quince, hybrid perpetual roses, shrubby hibiscus, crape
myrtle, mock orange, hydrangea (paniculata), and others. Pruning in
winter or early spring to secure strong new shoots is, therefore, the
proper procedure in these cases.

Remarks on pruning may be found under the discussion of roses and other
plants in subsequent chapters, when the plants need any special or
peculiar attention.

Fruit-trees and shade-trees are usually pruned in winter, preferably
late in winter, or in very early spring. However, there is usually no
objection to moderate pruning at any time of the year; and moderate
pruning every year, rather than violent pruning in occasional years, is
to be advised. It is an old idea that summer pruning tends to favor the
production of fruit-buds and therefore to make for fruitfulness; there
is undoubtedly truth in this, but it must be remembered that
fruitfulness is not the result of one treatment or condition, but of all
the conditions under which the plant lives.

All limbs should be removed close to the branch or trunk from which they
arise, and the surface of the wound should be practically parallel with
such branch or trunk, rather than to be cut back to stubs. The stubs do
not heal readily.

All wounds much above an inch across may be protected by a coat of good
linseed-oil paint; but smaller wounds, if the tree is vigorous, usually
require no protection. The object of the paint is to protect the wound
from cracking and decay until the healing tissue covers it.

Superfluous and interfering branches should be removed from fruit-trees,
so that the top will be fairly open to sun and to the pickers.
Well-pruned trees allow of an even distribution and uniform development
of the fruit. Watersprouts and suckers should be removed as soon as they
are discovered. How open the top may be, will depend on the climate. In
the West, open trees suffer from sun-scald.

The fruit-bearing habit of the fruit-tree must be considered in the
pruning. The pruner should be able to distinguish fruit-buds from
leaf-buds in such species as cherries, plums, apricot, peach, pear,
apple, and so prune as to spare these buds or to thin them
understandingly. The fruit-buds are distinguished by their position on
the tree and by their size and shape. They may be on distinct "spurs"
or short branches, in all the above fruits; or, as in the peach, they
may be chiefly lateral on the new shoots (in the peach, the fruit-buds
are usually two at a node and with a leaf-bud between them), or, as
sometimes in apples and pears, they may be at the ends of last year's
growths. Fruit-buds are usually thicker, or "fatter," than leaf-buds,
and often fuzzy. Heading-back the tree of course tends to concentrate
the fruit-buds and to keep them nearer the center of the tree-top; but
heading-back must be combined with intelligent saving and thinning of
the interior shoots. Heading-back of pears and peaches and plums is
usually a very desirable practice.

_Tree surgery and protection._

Aside from the regular pruning to develop the tree into its best form to
enable it to do its best work, there are wounds and malformations to be
treated. Recently, the treating of injured and decayed trees has
received much attention, and "tree doctors" and "tree surgeons" have
engaged in the business. If there are quacks among these people, there
are also competent and reliable men who are doing useful service in
saving and prolonging the life of trees; one should choose a tree doctor
with the same care that he would choose any other doctor. The liability
of injury to street trees in the modern city and the increasing regard
for trees, render the services of good experts increasingly necessary.

Street trees are injured by many causes: as, starving because of poor
soil and lack of water under pavements; smoke and dust; leakage from gas
mains and from electric installation; gnawing by horses; butchering by
persons stringing wires; carelessness of contractors and builders; wind
and ice storms; overcrowding; and the blundering work of persons who
think that they know how to prune. Well-enforced municipal regulations
should be able to control most of these troubles.

Tree guards.

[Illustration: Fig. 156. Lath tree guard.]

[Illustration: Fig. 157. Wire-and-post tree guard]

Along roadsides and other exposed places it is often necessary to
protect newly set trees from horses, boys, and vehicles. There are
various kinds of tree guards for this purpose. The best types are those
that are more or less open, so as to allow the free passage of air and
which are so far removed from the body of the tree that its trunk may
expand without difficulty. If the guards are very tight, they may shade
the trunk so much that the tree may suffer when the guard is removed,
and they prevent the discovery of insects and injuries. It is important
that the guard does not fill with litter in which insects may harbor. As
soon as the tree is old enough to escape injury, the guards should be
removed. A very good guard, made of laths held together with three
strips of band-iron, and secured to iron posts, is shown in Fig. 156.
Figure 157. shows a guard made by winding fencing wire upon three posts
or stakes. When there is likely to be danger from too great shading of
the trunk, this latter form of guard is one of the best. There are good
forms of tree guards on the market. Of course hitching-posts should be
provided, wherever horses are to stand, to remove the temptation of
hitching to trees. Figure 158, however, shows a very good device when a
hitching post is not wanted. A strong stick, four or five feet long, is
secured to the tree by a staple and at the lower end of the stick is a
short chain with a snap in the end. The snap is secured to the bridle,
and the horse is not able to reach the tree.

[Illustration: Fig 158. How a horse may be hitched to a tree.]

Mice and rabbits.

Trees and bushes are often seriously injured by the gnawing of mice and
rabbits. The best preventive is not to have the vermin. If there are no
places in which rabbits and mice can burrow and breed, there will be
little difficulty. At the approach of winter, if mice are feared, the
dry litter should be removed from about the trees, or it should be
packed down very firm, so that the mice cannot nest in it. If the
rodents are very abundant, it may be advisable to wrap fine wire netting
about the base of the tree. A boy who is fond of trapping or hunting
will ordinarily solve the rabbit difficulty. Rags tied on sticks which
are placed at intervals about the plantation will often frighten
rabbits away.

Girdled trees.

Trees that are girdled by mice should be wrapped up as soon as
discovered, so that the wood shall not become too dry. When warm
weather approaches, shave off the edges of the girdle so that the
healing tissue may grow freely, smear the whole surface with
grafting-wax, or with clay, and bind the whole wound with strong cloths.
Even though the tree is completely girdled for a distance of three or
four inches, it usually may be saved by this treatment, unless the
injury extends into the wood. The water from the roots rises through the
soft wood and not between the bark and the wood, as commonly supposed.
When this sap water has reached the foliage, it takes part in the
elaboration of plant-food, and this food is distributed throughout the
plant, the path of transfer being in the inner layers of bark. This food
material, being distributed back to the girdle, will generally heal over
the wound if the wood is not allowed to become dry.

[Illustration: Fig. 159. Bridge-grafting a girdle.]

In some cases, however, it is necessary to join the bark above and below
the girdle by means of cions, which are whittled to a wedge-shape on
either end, and inserted underneath the two edges of the bark (Fig.
159). The ends of the cions and the edges of the wound are held by a
bandage of cloth, and the whole work is protected by melted grafting-wax
poured upon it. [Footnote: A good grafting-wax is made as follows: Into
a kettle place one part by weight of tallow, two parts of beeswax, four
parts of rosin. When completely melted, pour into a tub or pail of cold
water, then work it with the hands (which should be greased) until it
develops a grain and becomes the color of taffy candy. The whole
question of the propagation of plants is discussed in "The
Nursery-Book."]

Repairing street trees.

The following advice on "tree surgery" is by A.D. Taylor (Bulletin 256,
Cornell University, from which the accompanying illustrations are
adapted):--

"Tree surgery includes the intelligent protection of all mechanical
injuries and cavities. Pruning requires a previous intimate knowledge of
the habits of growth of trees; surgery, on the other hand, requires in
addition a knowledge of the best methods for making cavities air-tight
and preventing decay. The filling of cavities in trees has not been
practiced sufficiently long to warrant making a definite statement as to
the permanent success or failure of the operation; the work is still in
an experimental stage. The caring for cavities in trees must be urged as
the only means of preserving affected specimens, and the preservation of
many noble specimens has been at least temporarily assured through the
efforts of those practicing this kind of work.

[Illustration: Fig. 160. A cement-filled cavity at the base of a tree.]

"Successful operation depends on two important factors: first, that all
decayed parts of the cavity be wholly removed and the exposed surface
thoroughly washed with an antiseptic; second, that the cavity, when
filled, must be air tight and hermetically sealed if possible. Trees are
treated as follows: The cavity is thoroughly cleaned by removing all
decayed wood and washing the interior surface with a solution of copper
sulfate and lime, in order to destroy any fungi that may remain. The
edges of the cavity are cut smooth in order to allow free growth of the
cambium after the cavity is filled. Any antiseptic, such as corrosive
sublimate, creosote, or even paint, may answer the purpose; creosote,
however, possesses the most penetrating powers of any. The method of
filling the cavities depends to a great extent on their size and form.
Very large cavities with great openings are generally bricked on the
outside, over the opening, and filled on the inside with concrete, the
brick serving the purpose of a retaining wall to hold the concrete in
place. Concrete used for the main filling is usually made in the
proportion of one part good Portland cement, two parts sand, and four
parts crushed stone, the consistency of the mixture being such that it
may be poured into the cavity and require little or no tamping to make
the mass solid. (Fig. 160.)

[Illustration: Fig. 161. A wound, made by freezing, trimmed out and
filled with cement.]

"Fillings thus made are considered by expert tree surgeons to be a
permanent preventive of decay. The outside of the filling is always
coated with a thin covering of concrete, consisting of one part cement
to two parts fine sand. Cavities resulting from freezing, and which,
though large on the inside, show only a long narrow crack on the
outside, are most easily filled by placing a form against the entire
length of the opening, having a space at the top through which the
cement may be poured (Fig. 161). Another method of retaining the
concrete is to reinforce it from the outside by driving rows of spikes
along the inner surface of either side of the cavity and lacing a stout
wire across the face of the cavity. For best results, all fillings must
come flush with the inner bark when finished. During the first year,
this growing tissue will spread over the outer edge of the filling, thus
forming an hermetically sealed cavity. In the course of time, the
outside of small or narrow openings should be completely covered with
tissue, which buries the filling from view.

[Illustration: Fig. 162. Bridge-grafting or in-arching from saplings
planted about the tree.]

"It has been found that there is a tendency for portland cement to
contract from the wood after it dries, leaving a space between the wood
and the cement through which water and germs of decay may enter. A
remedy for this defect has been suggested in the use of a thick coat of
tar, or an elastic cement which might be spread over the surface of the
cavity before filling. The cracking of portland cement on the surface of
long cavities is caused by the swaying of trees during heavy storms, and
should not occur if the filling is correctly done.

"In addition to the preservation of decayed specimens by filling the
cavities, as above outlined, it has been proposed to strengthen the tree
by treating it as shown in Fig. 162. Young saplings of the same species,
after having become established as shown, are grafted by approach to the
mature specimen.

[Illustration: Fig. 163. Faulty methods of bracing a crotched tree. The
lower method is wholly wrong. The upper method is good if the bolt-heads
are properly counter-sunk and the bolts tightly fitted; but if the
distance between the branches is great, it is better to have two bolts
and join them by hooks, to allow of wind movements.]

"Injury frequently results from error in the method of attempting to
save broken, or to strengthen and support weak branches that are
otherwise healthy. The means used for supporting cracked, wind-racked,
and overladen branches which show a tendency to split at the forks are
bolting and chaining. The practice of placing iron bands around large
branches in order to protect them has resulted in much harm; as the tree
grows and expands, such bands tighten, causing the bark to be broken and
resulting after a few years in a partial girdling (Fig. 163).

[Illustration: Fig. 164. Trees ruined to allow of the passage of
wires.]

[Illustration: Fig. 165. Accommodating a wall to a valuable tree.]

[Illustration: Fig. 166. The death of a long stub.]

[Illustration: Fig. 167. Bungling pruning.]

"To bolt a tree correctly is comparatively inexpensive. The safest
method consists in passing a strong bolt through a hole bored in the
branch for this purpose, and fastening it on the outside by means of a
washer and a nut. Generally the washer has been placed against the bark
and the nut then holds it in place. A better method of bolting, and one
which insures a neat appearance of the branch in addition to serving as
the most certain safeguard against the entrance of disease, is to
counter-sink the nut in the bark and imbed it in portland cement. The
hole for the sinking of the nut and washer is thickly coated with lead
paint and then with a layer of cement, on which are placed the nut and
washer, both of which are then imbedded in cement. If the outer surface
of the nut be flush with the plane of the bark, within a few years it
will be covered by the growing tissue.

[Illustration: Fig. 168. The proper way to saw off a large limb. A cut
is first made on the under side to prevent splitting down; then it is
cut on the upper side. Then the entire "stub" is removed close to
the trunk.]

[Illustration: Fig. 169. A weak-bodied young tree well supported;
padding is placed under the bandages.]

[Illustration: Fig. 170. The wrong way of attaching a guy rope.]

[Illustration: Fig. 171. An allowable way of attaching a guy rope.]

[Illustration: Fig. 172. The best way of attaching a guy rope, if a tree
must be used as support.]

"The inner ends of the rods in the two branches may be connected by a
rod or chain. The preference for the chain over the rod attachment is
based on the compressive and tensile stresses which come on the
connection during wind storms. Rod connections are preferred, however,
when rigidity is required, as in unions made close to the crotch; but
for tying two branches together before they have shown signs of
weakening at the fork, the chain may best be used, as the point of
attachment may be placed some distance from the crotch, where the
flexibility factor will be important and the strain comparatively small.
Elms in an advanced stage of maturity, if subjected to severe climatic
conditions, often show this tendency to split. These trees,
especially, should be carefully inspected and means taken to preserve
them, by bolting if necessary."

[Illustration: IX. A rocky bank covered with permanent informal
planting.]

[Illustration: Fig. 173. A method of saving valuable trees along streets
on which heavy lowering of grade has been made.]

The illustrations, Figs. 164-173, are self-explanatory, and show poor
practice and good practice in the care of trees.

_The grafting of plants._

Grafting is the operation of inserting a piece of a plant into another
plant with the intention that it shall grow. It differs from the making
of cuttings in the fact that the severed part grows in another plant
rather than in the soil.

There are two general kinds of grafting--one of which inserts a piece of
branch in the stock (grafting proper), and one which inserts only a bud
with little or no wood attached (budding). In both cases the success of
the operation depends on the growing together of the cambium of the cion
(or cutting) and that of the stock. The cambium is the new and growing
tissue lying underneath the bark and on the outside of the growing wood.
Therefore, the line of demarcation between the bark and the wood should
coincide when the cion and stock are joined.

The plant on which the severed piece is set is called the stock. The
part which is removed and set into the stock is called a cion if it is a
piece of a branch, or a "bud" if it is only a single bud with a bit of
tissue attached.

The greater part of grafting and budding is performed when the cion or
bud is nearly or quite dormant. That is, grafting is usually done late
in winter and early in spring, and budding may be performed then, or
late in summer, when the buds have nearly or quite matured.

The chief object of grafting is to perpetuate a kind of plant which will
not reproduce itself from seed, or of which seed is very difficult to
obtain. Cions or buds are therefore taken from this plant and set into
whatever kind of plant is obtainable on which they will grow. Thus, if
one wants to propagate the Baldwin apple, he does not for that purpose
sow seeds thereof, but takes cions or buds from a Baldwin tree and
grafts them into some other apple tree. The stocks are usually obtained
from seeds. In the case of the apple, young plants are raised from seeds
which are secured mostly from cider factories, without reference to the
variety from which they came. When the seedlings have grown to a certain
age, they are budded or grafted, the grafted part making the entire top
of the tree; and the top bears fruit like that of the tree from which
the cions were taken.

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Turkey is restoring the citizenship of its most famous 20th century poet Nazim Hikmet over 50 years after it branded him a traitor.

Hikmet, a communist who died in exile in Moscow in 1963, was imprisoned in Turkey for more than a decade. He was stripped of his Turkish nationality in 1951 because of his communist views, but despite a ban on his poetry which remained in place until 1965, has remained one of Turkey's best-loved poets. His work, much of which was written in prison, including his masterpiece Human Landscapes, has been translated into more than 50 languages.

"This is very good news," said Richard McKane, Hikmet's English translator. "The restoration of his Turkish citizenship is long overdue: the people of Turkey and his readers are owed that."

Immortalised by Pablo Neruda, with whom he shared the Soviet Union's International Peace Prize in 1950, with the lines "Thanks for what you were and for the fire / which your song left forever burning", Hikmet was also supported by Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, when given the editorship for a day of Turkish newspaper Radikal two years ago, used the example of Hikmet in his cover story to criticise the lack of freedom of expression in Turkey. In 2000, 500,000 Turks petitioned the government to restore Hikmet's citizenship rights and repatriate his remains.

Deputy prime minister Cemil Cicek told the Associated Press that it was time for the government to change its mind about Hikmet. "The crimes which forced the government to strip him of his citizenship at that time are no longer considered a crime," the BBC quoted him as saying.

Hikmet, whose remains are currently in Russia, had said that he wished to be buried in Turkey in his 1953 poem Testament, translated by Ruth Christie. "Friends if it's not my lot to see the day / of independence... / if I die before that day / - and it seems I will - / bury me in a village graveyard in Anatolia / and if it's fitting / and a plane tree grows at my head, / then there's no need for a gravestone or anything else."

Cicek said that Hikmet's family would now decide whether to ship his remains back to his homeland.

Hikmet introduced free verse to Turkey in the 1930s, with his themes ranging from war to love. Despite his imprisonment he retained a deep passion for Turkey. "I love my country", he wrote in one of his poems. "I swung in its lofty trees, I lay in its prisons. Nothing relieves my depression like the songs and tobacco of my country."

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