Belated Spring
One of the oddities of the season is the discovery among several species of tree and plant that after all there is not a great deal of difference
between autumn and spring. Both are seasons when the sap is active, and it may travel up as well as down. The report of a chestnut tree in flower has been widely bruited, and the learned have argued that the chestnut is peculiar in its ability to anticipate spring. It is not. Fa example, a few weeks ago I saw .a laburnum flowering freely. It had been cut in late frosts (not like the chestnut tree, bomb-blasted), and, in the horribly popular phrase, had " staged a come-back." One may, of course, induce many plants to continue flowering by the simple process of pulling off the early flowers before they set seed, and this year campanulas have reacted satisfactorily to the treatment, and so have roses where the old flowers have been ruthlessly snipped off ; and thu sort of pruning may be more fruitful than the hard-pruning recom- mended—over-recommended—in March and ApriL
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