THE ORCHARD BEAUTIFUL. 265 



orchards in parts of Kent, as near Sittingbourne, are pictures when in 

 bloom. There is no better work in a country place than choosing a 

 piece of good ground to form an orchard ; and a dozen acres are 

 not too much in a country place where there is land to spare. 



Some may be deterred by the fear that their soil is too poor, 

 and planting is more successful on the fruit tree soils of Devon, 

 Hereford, and Kent than in some other districts ; 

 Poor soil should but the difference in soils is no reason why some 

 not hinder. counties and districts should be bare of orchards. 

 In many the soil is as good as need be, and 

 indeed, in the country south of London, where much of the land 

 is taken up with orchards, we may see the trees suffering more from 

 drought in dry years than they do on the sandstone soils of Cheshire 

 or in Ireland and Scotland, where there is a heavier rainfall. Few 

 of our orchard trees require a special soil, and where chalky or warm 

 soil occurs, the best way is to keep to the kinds of fruit it favours 

 most. But though the orchard beautiful must be of trees in all 

 their natural vigour, and of forms lovely in winter as in spring and 

 summer, the trees must not be neglected, allowed to perish from 

 drought, or become decayed from bug, scale or other pests, and it 

 should be the care of those who enjoy their beauty to protect them 

 from all such dangers. The idea that certain counties only are suited 

 for fruit growing is erroneous, and need not deter us from planting 

 orchards of the hardier trees and of good local kinds. Much of 

 Ireland is as bare of orchards as the back of a stranded whale, but 

 who could say this was the fault of the country? 



Owing to the use of dwarfing stocks, fruit gardens and orchards 



are now beginning to show shapes of trees that are poor compared 



with the tall orchard tree. However much these 



The trees to take dwarf and pinched shapes may appeal to the 



their natural gardener in his own domain, in the orchard 

 forms. beautiful they have no place. For the natural form 



of all our fruit trees is good indeed, winter or 

 summer. We know what the effect in flower-time is in the orchard 

 pictures of such painters as Mark Fisher and Alfred Parsons, if 

 we have not taken the trouble to see the finer pictures of the 

 orchard themselves, seen best, perhaps, on dark and wet days in 

 flower-time. Lastly, the effect of finely-coloured fruit on high trees is 

 one of the best in our gardens. Therefore, in every case, whatever 

 thinning of the branches we do, let the tree take its natural form, not 

 only for its own sake or the greater beauty of natural form generally, 

 but also for the interesting variety of form we get even among 

 varieties sprung from the same species. 



Clearly if we prune to any one ideal type of tree we can never see 



