Chap. XVII.] THE SCHOOL OF HORTICULTURE AT VERSxVILLES. 271 



protection is put up before the buds are liable to be injured, 

 and removed when the fruit is set and all danger has passed 

 away. Thus a very cheap and effective protection is secured. 

 The kinds of Pears mostly grown here are Easter Beurre, by 

 which several walls are covered; Duchesse d'Angouleme, of 

 which there is a square of trellising nearly 600 yards long in 

 all, and about nine feet high; Beurre Diel ; and Louise Bonne 

 d'Avranches. 



The Peach is well grown and trained in some parts of the garden, 

 a form with five main branches being adopted with success. It is 

 analogous to the form used for the Pear in the same garden, and is 

 very readily made. It would be difficult to see walls more beauti- 

 fully covered with trees than a considerable portion of the peach- 

 walls here. The tree is ^ 

 here almost invariably 

 trained in a vertical 

 manner, and as usual pro- 

 tected in spring with deep 

 copings. I have to thank 

 Mr. Hardy for permis- 

 sion to have some of the 

 Peach and other trees 

 photographed, and for 

 other kindly help. 



In addition to the 

 trellises above described, 

 the most remarkable fea- 

 ture of this garden is the presence of a vast number of horizontal 

 cordon Apple-trees, both in single and superimposed lines of two 

 or three stages, all on galvanised wire. The trees are on the 

 Paradise stock, and nearly always confined to a single stem. These 

 trees sometimes bear enormous crops, but the fine Apples are 

 often destroyed by tlie grub. One border devoted to cordons is 

 about one thousand feet long, and altogether there are over four 

 thousand yards of cordon-trained Apple-trees in the garden. As 

 the greater portion of this length is composed of two and three 

 lines of wires placed at distances of a foot one above the other, 

 there are really more than five miles of horizontal cordon Apple- 

 trees on the true Paradise stock, and it should be observed that 







1^ 



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Border of suf'crimposed Cordons at Vcrsaillc. 



