250 MR. FORSYTH ON GAME PRESERVES AND FENCES. 



Gardens and farms are made of the same earth, and if a fruitful 

 vineyard has been counted so great and so good an article as to 

 be coveted and longed for by the wisest of kings, surely a farm 

 a hundred times more extensive would become an exceedingly 

 interesting and desirable affair if it were cultivated according to 

 the present advanced state of British Horticulture. I cannot 

 help mentioning two notable examples of fruit-growing to show 

 what really can be done by first-rate gardeners in the open air, 

 with a little British earth. Mr, Plimley showed me the Black 

 Esperione Grape perfectly ripe against a wall in the plain earth 

 of the forcing-garden at Kensington, and Lord Blantyre's gar- 

 dener has ripened Black Hamburgh Grapes against a flued-wall 

 Avithout glass, in Scotland, despite of wind and weather, by 

 superior skill ; the berries finely flavoured, and some three inches 

 in circumference. I mention this to show the value of walls 

 and shelter, and likewise as stubborn facts, to show that England 

 could produce fruit to yield superior food and drink to her chil- 

 dren by means which I hasten to explain. And the reason why 

 I dwell upon and reiterate tlie subject of shelter is that every 

 gardener knows warmth to be one of the essential elements of 

 superior culture ; hence I know of no gardener worthy of the 

 name that does not strain to shelter every crop. The finer 

 species of crops, like the finer species of animals, are not to be 

 cultivated without due regard to their shelter, as well as to their 

 food. Hence the want of success with many farmers in exposed 

 situations ; for whilst guano and other stimulants are given to 

 the roots of the crops, the better part of the plant being above 

 ground, is left to be broken or chilled by the winds for want of 

 shelter ; and thus fine high diy healthy ground, the most pleasant 

 and desirable for man or beast to live on, is deserted (that is 

 the proper word to express it) ; for such is the inclemency of our 

 weather, that neither animal nor vegetable can long endure the 

 pelting of the storm and retain their health ; and consequently 

 game and animals desert it, while delicate crops die or suffer 

 injury ; but I have often marked the game leaving high ground, 

 and finding shelter on ground still higher, where the strong wind 

 was shorn of its power by the forest of pine-trees. 



The want of shelter to the farm is at the present day a brand 

 upon our agriculture, and when this desideratum is supplied, tlie 

 farmer, studying his own interest only, will efl[ectually provide 

 both food and shelter for game without intending to do so — 

 and lest the agriculturist should imagine that trees are unprofit- 

 able, I must beg leave to state that I agree with him entirely 

 in this opinion as long as he grows thorns that require labour, 

 and yield nothing but clippings. But Bosc's opinion is of im- 

 portance as a botanist and as a historian, that horses endured 



