74 FLOWERS AND GARDENS OF MADEIRA 



garden described above a large double -flowered 

 pink peach-tree is the pride of the garden when 

 in blossom. 



Besides these so-called fruit-trees, which are only 

 cultivated for their beautiful blossom, and bear 

 no fruit, many fruit-bearing cherries, plums, and 

 peaches have been planted in the more prosaic 

 part of the garden ; but the stone fruit, is only 

 a partial success. The peaches seem to deteriorate 

 when the trees have been more than a few years 

 in the island. Possibly the pruning is at fault, or 

 the fruit forms and ripens too quickly ; and when 

 the plum-trees are laden with fruit, a leste the 

 cruel, hot, scorching wind which the natives dread 

 in summer will blow for a few days, and shrivel 

 the fruit and spoil the whole crop. 



The orange - groves have vanished, destroyed 

 by disease, which gradually spread from Funchal 

 throughout the island, up to the higher land. The 

 lack of enterprise common to all Southern races 

 being a marked feature among the Portuguese, 

 no combined effort was ever made to check its 

 devastating progress. 



The garden has no definite boundary, no un- 

 sightly garden fence, which is the stumbling-block 

 of so many gardens. One can wander down 





