340 THE GARDENER. [Aug. 



a moderate crop at least in some five or six years afterwards? Ad- 

 vice as to the best sorts to grow may be all very well, but that 

 the advice thus tendered will be practised by those to whom it is 

 addressed is beyond the range of probabilities ; it may be within 

 the reach of one or two to accomplish it, but to the great mass of 

 poor men it will prove superlluous. Perhaps some day the few who 

 hold the millions of broad acres of which Great Britain consists 

 may awake to the conviction that their vast possessions may be 

 improved, and the lives of their poorer tenants made more toler- 

 able, by the addition of a nursery to their estates, from which every 

 garden, great and small, may have a full and constant supply of 

 all useful kinds of productive fruit-trees free of charge, and shall 

 place all these gardens under such a degree of horticultural control 

 that none shall be lacking in any important respect. Such a pro- 

 posal as this carried out would be the means of almost working a 

 revolution in cottage homes, and be made useful in adding largely 

 to the means of subsistence of the rural poor. We have never too 

 much fruit. Very abundant seasons are in this unpropitious clime 

 "few and far between;" and, owing to the comparatively small 

 quantity of the better sorts of fruit that are grown, such kinds 

 are rarely within the reach of the poor. 



Many a writer, and oft, has painted the delightful spectacle of 

 seeing all our cottages covered with the fruit of the Peach, Necta- 

 rine, Pear, Apricot, and the Grape. What has been done practically 

 to realise this conception'? Comparatively nothing. Let the trees 

 be supplied by landowners free, and be subjected to a certain amount 

 of professional supervision, and then we may be found in a fair 

 way to realise the ideal picture. 



In good sooth, writers may write and printers may print whole 

 heaps of book-lore for the special edification of these same cottagers, 

 but the real work must be done by those whose position in life is 

 such as to give force to their precept and power to their example. 

 There are few greater aids to the promotion of improved cottage- 

 gardening than in the establishment of cottagers' shows, either once 

 or twice in the year ; but the promoters must not fall into the mis- 

 take of supposing that to establish the show is all they have to do. 

 The gathering together of produce of the year's labours may be, and 

 is, a sight of great interest; but that interest, and the advantage 

 of the spectacle, can only be measured by the patient working and 

 teaching that has been afforded by those who wish to see real im- 

 provement and success. The kindly word, the right advice, the apt 

 cultural hints, the showing how to do where mere precept fails, — this 

 is the seed to sow, of which the show is the fruit and realisation. 



