SOILS AND CULTIVATION IN THE FLOWER GARDEN. 397 



attaching them to walls is a question which, though it may 

 seem a small one from some points of view, is important, and by no 

 means settled for the best. In our self-styled scientific age — the age 

 also of the galvanised iron church and the ironmonger's fence, which 

 is no fence — our gardens have been invaded by galvanised wire, which 

 is put up at great expense on garden and house walls, and is thought 

 to be an essential improvement in all new work. The question does not 

 merely concern walls for climbers round the house, but also the fruit 

 garden. In our cold country we cannot ripen the Peach or the 

 choicer fruits without the aid of walls ; galvanised wire is used in 

 many gardens, but many growers discover that its effect on the trees 

 is not good. There is a foundation of fact in these complaints, and 

 they are common to French and English gardeners. In France, 

 where the cultivation of wall fruit to supply the market with Peaches 

 and fine winter Pears is carried out well, the best growers are against 

 the use of galvanised wire, and think it much better to have the 

 wooden lattice only against the wall ; so they keep to the older and 

 prettier way of trellising the wall. For those who care about effect 

 this is well, for whatever harm the wire may do to the tree, of its ugli- 

 ness there can be no doubt. The old French and English way of 

 fixing branches to walls — having trellis-work made of Oak in about 

 I inch strips — was a very good one. Chestnut, too, was used, and was 

 thought to be the best, and is often used now in France. One 

 advantage of such woodwork is that it looks well on the walls even 

 before we get our plants up, and there is the great facility of being 

 able to tie where we wish, thus avoiding the use of nails and the other 

 miseries of training against walls. 



I use Bamboos in forming trellises, with very good results. Trellis- 

 work made of Oak or Chestnut lasted for many years, and was 

 efficient, and a well-made trellis of this sort saves us all the trouble 

 and injury to the wall of pock-marking it with nail holes, forming 

 nests for destructive vermin. 



There remains the question of fixing our lattice-work of Oak, 

 Chestnut, Pine or Bamboo. In old walls, holdfasts must be driven ; in 

 new ones, pieces of iron with strong eyes should be laid along here and 

 there in the courses of brick or stone as the work goes on. 



It is a great thing to be relieved from the ugliness and injury of 

 the galvanised wire. We would like to go a little further and keep 

 to old ways of tying things on walls. Those who look through their 

 bills may perhaps come upon items, and not small ones, for tarred 

 twine and other bought means of tying. In old times people would 

 have used the shoots of the yellow Willow, which did the work of 

 tying fruit trees to walls better than any tarred twine as far as the 

 main branches were concerned. To say that it is impracticable now 

 is nonsense, as in some great nurseries where millions of plants are 



