28 G THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



tiling practical ? We are inclined, with a view to being practical, to 

 suggest that the climate of this country is improving. We make this 

 remark with the horrors of 1S60 fresh in our recollection. The few 

 observations made last month on the " possibilities" of the climate, must 

 have reminded some of our friends that there is really nothing new in 

 the perfect ripening of Chasselas Musque and Black Hamburg grapes 

 out of doors, and of large crops of fine peaches, nectarines, and apricots 

 from bush trees. In plain truth, there is nothing new in these things, 

 but they are rather unusual. Now, if observations of weather pheno- 

 mena are to be of any use, the end should be more fruit in the store, more 

 wheat in the rick ; more health on the cheek, and more peace in the 

 heart of man. Knowledge always tends in some way or other to some 

 such results. To take a prosy view of a matter which is full of highest 

 poetry, the penny loaf ought to grow larger with every fresh observa- 

 tion on stars, and comets, and thermometers, and weathercocks ; we 

 who till the soil ought to contribute in some way to make it larger 

 after all our elaboration of inquiries, and observations, and experiments. 

 It is very certain that in English gardens there might be much more 

 fruit grown than is produced at present. It is almost a disgrace that 

 there should be a single purchase of fruit, except oranges and mere 

 curiosities, imported into this country in any of our average seasons. 

 When the elements buffet us as they did in 1860 the case is different, 

 but even then we might have done better than we did, for the whole 

 case of fruit growing in this country is wrong to this extent — that we 

 place our trees too much at the mercy of the elements. The superb 

 varieties of pears that have been of late years introduced to cultivation 

 in this country teach us an important lesson as to fruit growing gene- 

 rally. These pears may be grown to perfection in gardens in all the 

 southern and midland counties, if grown as pyramids and bushes ; but 

 they cannot be grown anywhere as standard trees. So again if we visit 

 an exhibition, and having selected the finest samples of fruits, inquire 

 as to the mode in which they were produced, we shall almost invariably 

 find that they were grown on bushes, pyramids, or espaliers ; that, more- 

 over, they were actually cultivated, or, in other words, watched and 

 tended through all their stages of growth, for if they had been left 

 wholly to the care of Dame Nature, they would not have been fit for 

 the exhibition table at all, much less to have a distinguished place there. 

 The doctrine is gaining ground daily amongst practical men that fruit 

 must be cultivated. There is nothing new in the doctrine, no one 

 pretends that it has ever been utterly lost sight of; yet everybody knows 

 that hitherto the greater part of our home-grown fruits have grown 

 wild. To be sure, the trees are in gardens and orchards, and so forth, 

 but for all the attention they get they would be as well off in the 

 forest or on the common, for all that art has done for them has been to 

 graft tbem and to plant them, and then leave them to prosper or perish, 

 as circumstances might determine. Therefore we repeat that it is time 

 the possessors of English gardens began to cultivate fruit ; they have 

 been content "with wild fruit heretofore, and have taken their risk of 

 little or none ; the next phase of the subject will be fruits of finer 

 quality, in vastly greater abundance, and with less interruption of the 

 periodical supplies through the vagaries of the elements. 



