January 13, Ib70. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



FRUIT-GROWING IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 

 No. 3. 



PEACH CULTURE. 



j7j?&T was a hot sultry day when my excellent 

 * guide, M. Viret, and I started off by train 

 for the purpose of visiting the far-famed 

 Peach grounds of Montreuil, notably that of 

 M. Lepere. When we left the station the walk 

 was hot, dusty — the dust of that everlasting 

 gypsum which abounds all round the basin 

 of Paris, and with the exception of the day 

 I passed among the Asparagus cultures of 

 Argenteuil, I had not had for many a day so 

 broiling a walk as this. When we arrived at our desti- 

 nation M. Lepere was not at home, but we were courteously 

 received by his foreman, examined the whole of his method 

 of culture, and saw the results, and I was enabled to come 

 to my own conclusions on the matter. Let me, however, 

 say a word about this whole neighbourhood, the very home 

 of Peach culture round Paris. Nothing can be more 

 curious than the aspect of the whole place ; viewed from 

 any eminence it seems to be nothing but a congeries of 

 white walls. The gardens are very small, each surrounded 

 by high walls, glisteningly white with whitewash that a 

 churchwarden of the olden time might envy ; while the 

 larger gardens, such as those of M. Lepere, are broken 

 up into oblongs by walls running across them, and all 

 these are covered with Peach trees of every form and size. 

 It is evident, then, where the Peach is cultivated as such 

 a specialite, that greater pains can be bestowed than where 

 it forms only a portion of the many cares that an English 

 gardener has to contend with. No market gardener with 

 us would consider it worth his while to cultivate Peaches 

 to this extent ; the crop would be too precarious, and the 

 price, owing to most of the wealthy folks being out of town 

 when the Peaches are ripe, would be unremunerative. Wall 

 Peaches cannot be grown near London, as a specialite, with 

 profit — for this reason : the valley of the Thames suits the 

 trees well as far as growth is concerned, but the climate 

 is not bright enough in many seasons to ripen the wood 

 thoroughly, so that the crops often fail ; and when they do 

 not, as I have already said, they will not pay their ex- 

 penses. 



I do not think it necessary to enter into any lengthened 

 description of some of the remarkably curious specimens of 

 training to be seen here, the Lepere, Eugenie, and Napoleon 

 pieces are well known, but they are after all playthings, 

 and no way touch the subject on which I am writing. We 

 have not the time, and I hardly think the inclination, to 

 attend to sucli matters ; they unquestionably show what 

 the Peach will endure in the way of training, hut more 

 than this I cannot see that they do. I have before me 

 the " Traite du Pecher," by M. Lepere, probably the most 

 elaborate book on the cultivation and training of one 

 species of fruit tree ever published, and if anyone wishes 

 to master the system adopted at Montreuil he had better 

 consult this work. There are a few points which may 

 be worth mentioning — first, the protection given to the j 



No. 159,— Vol. XWI, Net Seeies. 



trees in spring. Various notions have been broached on 

 this subject, and I must perforce subscribe to the maxim 

 of my friend Mr. Radclyffe, that to attempt to grow wall 

 fruit in this country without protection is worse than 

 useless. But what protection '.' By some it has been 

 advocated that heavily- coped walls would answer ; to this 

 I unhesitatingly demur. Very heavily-coped walls — that is, 

 mud walls well thatched, are in extensive use in parts of 

 Dorset, but I never saw a healthy fruit tree on them, and 

 this is what I should expect ; the heavy coping shades a 

 large portion of the walls, and renders the tree so far un- 

 productive. The French walls are coped, not so heavily as 

 the Dorset ones ; but, then, the greater light and heat of 

 the Parisian summer to some extent obviate the mischief. 

 Were the copings heavier there, I believe the trees would 

 not be so healthy. The Montreuil growers do not, how- 

 ever, trust to copings ; they are exposed to the spring 

 frosts equally as we are, and their protection consists of 

 the paillasson, quantities of which are made in the winter 

 months ; it is simply a tolerably thick layer of straw laid 

 between pieces of wood, and tied together, being about 

 ] 8 inches wide. Iron bars are driven into the wall under 

 the coping, and these paillassons placed on them ; they 

 are put on early in spring, and removed when the fruit 

 is set. I do not think these, though very economical, 

 would answer as well as those curtain protectors of Mr. 

 Radclyffe ; it is not the severe frost which is dreaded, but 

 the moist hoar frost, on which the sun afterwards shines. 

 Equally if not more trying is heavy rain succeeded by 

 frost ; the blossoms are then full of water, the frost con- 

 geals the drops, and all the organs are blackened and 

 destroyed. My grandfather, who had a large experience 

 in the staple fruit of this county (Cherries), used to say 

 that he never cared how hard the frost was, provided there 

 was no rain beforehand; that dry frost never injured 

 the Cherry crop. Curtains run on rings, as Mr. Rad- 

 clyffe has explained his, or fastened to long poles, which 

 are leant against the wall, and placed on whenever there 

 is a sign of frost or wet, are far better protectors than the 

 paillassons. Of course they are more expensive, and 

 perhaps involve more trouble ; but then I hold if a man 

 possesses a wall he will not care for the little extra 

 money or trouble they entail. Here, then, I think we 

 have nothing to learn from our neighbours. 



With regard to training, all that at Lepere's is done on 

 the spur system, tending to promote the greatest quantity 

 of fruit buds, the ordinary system with us being in oppo- 

 sition to this, the " laying-in " of shoots. There are two 

 questions to be considered in reference to the comparative 

 merits of the two systems— first, as to appearance, and 

 second, as to profit. With regard to the first, there can 

 be no question that there is an air of extreme neatness in 

 a wall trained on the spur system, especially where the 

 trees are trained in the shape of a U. with two leading 

 shoots, and so it is witli a wall where the shoots are laid 

 in, and kept carefully trained ; so that it will be a matter 

 of taste, after all, as to which is the better arrangement. 

 And now as to profit. Great care is taken of these Mon- 

 treuil trees, the nails are taken out every year, the trees 



No. 1111.- Vol. XLIII., Old Sr.RiEB. 



