TRAINING. 843 



Calville to send to St. Petersburg, where they are sold in winter 

 for as much as eight francs each! Why should we have to buy 

 these from the French at such a high rate ? Considering the enor- 

 mous number of walled gardens there are in this country, there can 

 be no doubt whatever that by merely covering, by means of this plan , 

 the lower parts of walls now entirely naked and useless, we could 

 supply half a dozen markets like Covent Garden with the very choice 

 fruit referred to, and be entirely independent of the French. 



" Doubtless many think that these very fine fruit require a warmer 

 climate than we have for them. But by treating them as the French 

 do we may produce as good or a better result, and may, in addition, 

 grow tender but fine apples, like the Calville Blanc, that do little good 

 when grown as standards. The climate in most parts of England will 

 be found to suit them quite as well as that of Paris, if not better, 

 because the sun in France is in some parts a little too strong for the 

 perfect development of the flesh and flavour of the apple. There is no 

 part of the country in which the low cordon will not be found a most 

 useful addition to the garden that is, wherever first-rate and handsome 

 dessert fruit is a want. So great is the demand in the markets for 

 fruit of the highest quality that sometimes the little trees more than 

 pay for themselves the first year after being planted. In any northern 

 exposed and cold places where choice apples do not ripen well, it would 

 be desirable to give the trees as warm and sunny a position as possible, 

 while the form recommended for walls should be used extensively. In 

 no case should the system be tried except as a garden one an im- 

 proved method of orcharding being what we want for kitchen fruit, 

 and that for the supply of the markets at a cheap rate. 



" When lines of cordons are perfectly well furnished the whole line is 

 a thick mass of bold spurs. Some keep them very closely pinched in 

 to the rod, but the best I have ever seen were allowed a rather free 

 development of spurs, care being taken that they were regularly and 

 densely produced along the stem. If anybody will reflect that as a 

 rule the best vigour of the ordinary espalier tree flows to its upper 

 line of branches, he will have no difficulty in seeing at a glance the 

 advantages of the horizontal cordon, particularly if he bears in mind 

 that the system as generally applied to the apple is simply a bringing 

 of one good branch near the earth, where it receives more heat, where 

 it causes no injurious shade, and where it may be protected with the 

 greatest efficiency and the least amount of trouble. It is just a carrying 

 further of the best principles of grafting and pruning a wise bending 

 of the young tree to the conditions that best suit it in our northern 

 climate. The fact that by its means we bring all the fruit and leaves 

 to within ten inches or a foot of the ground, and thereby expose them 

 to an increase of heat, which compensates to a great extent for a bad 

 climate, will surely prove a strong argument in its favour to every in- 

 telligent person. 



" The form is so definite and so simple that anybody may attend to it, 

 and direct the energies of the little trees to a perfect end, with much 

 less trouble than is requisite to form a presentable pyramid or bush. 



