[article]
| Titre : |
The cherries and plums of Cambridgeshire |
| Type de document : |
texte imprimé |
| Auteurs : |
Peter Sell, Auteur |
| Année de publication : |
1991 |
| Article en page(s) : |
pp. 29-39 |
| Langues : |
Anglais (eng) |
| Mots-clés : |
plante ornementale |
| Résumé : |
"As well as our native cherries and plums, there was, up until the Second World War and just after, a vast number of orchards throughout the county, in which were mown some cherries and a wide variety of cultivated plums, many of which were very old varieties. Farmers and smallholders also planted trees along the margins of their fields. When fruit became cheap, money more beautiful and freezers available to store the fruit, it became no long& worth-while to have your own fruit trees. Orchards were cut down and ploughed up or built over. Very often, however, the margin of the orchard was left as a hedge. In this hedge often remained some of the old fruit trees, particularly Damsons and the poorer types of plum, but also quite frequently greengages. In many cases there is now no sign that there was ever an orchard there. The hedgerow plums can be troublesome to name, especially if the hedgerow is at all frequently cut. Cutting rarely kills them, unless the hedge is actually grubbed out, as they produce abundant suckers, but they may only occasionally get the chance to grow into a large tree. Even if they manage to do so, they seem to produce plums very rarely (at least in the Bassingbourn area, where I live). I first became familiar with a wide variety of plums as a boy in the 1930s when every summer holiday I used to climb the trees in our three orchards to stuff myself with them. Many of the trees, or their descendants, still survive, but they have not produced any plums for twenty years or more, except in 1987, when a sprinkling of plums appeared on many trees. It is not just the old trees but some new ones bought from reputable mowers which fail to produce plums. The large orchards of commercial growers still seem to produce crops, and it may be that effective pollination is easier there than where the trees are more widely scattered. Large clumps of blossom in a hedgerow may be clonal. in which case the trees need cross-pollination. Also, in an orchard, the trees may remain warmer and so be less affected by frost than they are in a more open terrain. Another problem is that Bullfinches Pyrrhula pyrrhula (L.) nip off many of the young buds. I would not like to say how much damage they cause, but an increase in Bullfinches after the Second World War did coincide with a decrease in plums. Ornamental plums and cherries which readers may want to obtain for their gardens can be looked up in Hilliers' Manual (1971)." (source : auteur) |
| Type de publication : |
périodique |
| Référence biblio : |
Sell P., 1991 - The cherries and plums of Cambridgeshire. Nature in Cambridgeshire, 33 : 29-39. |
| ID PMB : |
55875 |
| Permalink : |
http://www.cbnbrest.fr/catalogue_en_ligne/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=55875 |
in Nature in Cambridgeshire > n°33 (1991) . - pp. 29-39
[article]
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The cherries and plums of Cambridgeshire in Nature in Cambridgeshire, n°33 (1991)