FEBRUARY. 53 



THE PFACH. 

 (By a Gardener in the Country.) 

 Suppose the month of March has arrived, and tlie compost for the 

 border has been duly prepared, as directed in my last |)aper ; take 

 advantage of the first dry weather in the month to wheel the compost 

 to the borier. As this has been duly prepared by turning (if its ci>m- 

 position rendered such necessary), no further trouble will be requisite, 

 further than sjireading it evenly over the bottom of the border, unless, 

 as before noticed, the soil contains mucii clay, or is deficient in hbruus 

 materials, when the bean-s^traw, stubble, kc, may be spiead over each 

 layer oi soil of three or four inches. 1'liis will help to keep the border 

 open and porous, and in a measure will serve as a substitute for turf 

 Proceed with the ti hng in till you have the border nine or ten inches 

 deep. Let this be levelled and slightly trod (provided the compost is 

 quite dry) ; if at all damp, the less it is trod down the belter, and 

 ]lanks, in such cases, must be provided ibr walkir.g and wheelii.g en, 

 while completing the border and planting the tiees. 



y.y pri vious directions on the drainage will allow for the border to 

 be only eighteen inches in depth. This, experience tells me, is quite 

 sufficient, unless in very dry localities, when I would reduce the 

 drainage so as to allow the borders to be two leet ; but, in the greater 

 number of situations, eighteen inches of i'order in depth, ten leet in 

 width, need on no account (so far as the trees themselves are con- 

 cerned), be exceeded. 



The width of border should in som.e respects be regulated by the 

 height of the wall: thus, for walls of less height than ten feet, the 

 border may be reduced, as a rule, to the height of the wall. This 

 brings me to the consideration of the Walls mcst suitable for growing 

 the Peach. It was formerly the practice to erect very high walls for 

 gardens, under the idea that they produced fruit of a superior quality. 

 Such is not the case ; and where great shelter is not reqmred, low walls 

 — that is, from eight to ten, or twelve feet high — are the best in every 

 point of view for growing wall fruits. Were I to begin now with a 

 series of walls for fruit culture, I would not care to have them more 

 than ten feet higli, and in many places consider even eight feet as 

 preferable. Eight-feet walls, with a coping four or five inches wide, 

 and shallow sloping borders, would be far more likely to realise good 

 annual crops, than the high walls so universally in use. However, as 

 I am not giving directions for a new garden, but simjly supplying a 

 few hints to the amateur, I wish merely to remark, that if new walls 

 liave to be built, look carefully at what I have stated, and do not care 

 to be as ambitious as your neighbour the Squire, whose garden walls 

 are sixteen or eighteen feet high, and with perhaps only one-third of 

 their surface covered with trees — but let one-half of that height suffice. 

 As, how'ever, new walls are not within the scope of every one, it follows 

 that \fn nmst take things as we find them, and if there are ex'sting 

 walls, why, the best must be done with them that circumstances admit 

 of For our present purpose, let us take them to be from eight to ten 



