886 



ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. 



PART III. 



and the objection made now to it by proprietors is the same as it was in 

 former days, " The poore will breake downe our hedges, and wee shall 

 haue the least part of the fruit ;" but, notwithstanding this fear, we rejieat, with 

 Gerard, whose words we have above quoted, " Forward, in the name of God, 

 grafte, set, plant, and nourish up trees in euery corner of j'our ground : the 

 labour is small, the cost is nothing ; the commodity is great : your selues shal 

 haue plenty; the poore shall haue somewhat in time of want to relieve their 

 necessity ; and God shall reward your good mindes and diligence." (^Herbal, 

 p. 1459.) In the autumn of 1828, when in the south of Germany, we were 

 much struck with the beauty and value of the lines of fruit'trees which bordered 

 all the public roads ; the apples and pears ha\nng their branches bent to the 

 ground with fruit. On our return, we published the following observations in 

 the Gardetier^s Mri^aziue, which were met by exactly the same objections 

 from our correspondents as those stated by Gerard to have been urged in his 

 time, nearly 300 years ago : — " The common objection to planting fruit trees 

 in hedges is, that depredations would be made on them by the poor ; but it 

 is to avoid such depredations on the fruit trees of the rich, and to assist in 

 humanising and rendering better and happier the poor, that we are desirous 

 of introducing fruit trees every where. If the poor in Britain and Ireland 

 were rendered what the poor are in Wurtemburg and Baden, fruit trees here 

 would be as safe as they are there. If apples and pears were as commonly 

 grown as potatoes and turnips, depreciations would not be more frequently 

 committed on the one kind of crop than on the other. The cherry and 

 the pear are particularly eligible as hedgerow fruit trees, and would supply 

 kirschewasser (see p. 697.) and perry ; and entire hedges might be made of 

 many sorts of plums and apples, for plum brandy (see p. 090.) and cider, 

 besides the counnon culinary purposes of the fruit." (Ganl. Mag., vol. v. 



P»^5) ,. . . 



A valuable application of 



the new sorts of pears is, to 

 insert scions of them on old 

 pear trees of inferior sorts, 

 after heading the latter down. 

 As grafts can readily be pro- 

 cured from the Horticultural 

 Societies of London and Edin- 

 burgh, by all who are fellows 

 of these societies, for the 

 trouble of asking; and, by 

 those who are not fellows 

 of any society, for a mere 

 trifle, from the nurserymen ; 

 there can be no sufficient ex- 

 cuse for not performing this 

 important operation whenever 

 an opportunity is afforded. It may be alleged b}' some, that nurserymen will 

 not sell grafts or scions ; but, if any refuse to do this, all that is requisite is, 

 to purchase a plant from them, and cut the shoots off it, treating these shoots 

 as scions for budding or grafting are usually treated. If the plant is pur- 

 chased in the summer, in time for budding from its shoots, an arrangement 

 may be made with the nurseryman for letting it stand in the nursery till the 

 drawing season, in the autumn ; when it will most likely have made a second 

 series of shoots, which may be either cut off for grafting; or the plant maybe 

 removed, and serve as a tree. We mention this, to show that no nurseryman 

 has anything to gain by refusing to sell grafts, either of fruit trees, or of any 

 other tree. Some very interesting experiments on grafting cankered pear 

 trees with new vigorous-growing Flemish sorts will be found detailed by 

 Mr. Rivers, in the 12th volume of the Gardener's Magazine ; by which it ap- 

 pears, that trees in such a diseased state that their trunks were eaten through 

 in every direction by an insect in the larva state (probably the Dorcus 



