420 THE PARKS AND GAEDENS OF PAEIS. [Chap. XXIV. 



Lebeufs garden at Argenteuil, where there is a wall beautifully 

 covered with fertile trees in this form. 



As regards trials made with a fruit- garden after the French 

 method in England, thanks to the spirited and judicious plan- 

 tings made by Mr. Leigh, of Barham Court, we have now in 

 Kent a fruit-garden made after French models, and of the highest 

 interest to growers of hardy fruit everywhere. Not content with 

 trying modes of training more in fashion abroad than with us, 

 or plantations of approved kinds of fruit on the cordon system, 

 Mr. Leigh has formed several new fruit-gardens ; and these 

 are replete with interest. There is a very large number of 

 trees planted, and several acres of ground devoted to fruit- 

 culture, all the walls being white as in a neatly-ordered French 

 fruit-garden. The first plantations were made in 1872, and in 

 three years the walls were covered with bearing fruit-trees ; 

 particularly noticeable being a wall covered with the finer kinds 

 of "Winter Pears, trained as single oblique cordons, and bearing 

 very fine fruit. This form is well suited for covering high 

 walls very rapidly, and for the production of the finest Winter 

 Pears, such as Doyenne d'Hiver. Those having high south, or, 

 still better, high east walls, could hardly do better than plant 

 them thus with this fine fruit, so seldom seen in perfection in 

 our gardens. The worthless specimens usually grown give no 

 idea of the quality of this unsurpassed Winter Pear, which, 

 throughout Europe, is rarely worth eating except under careful 

 wall-culture. Equally numerous at Barham Court are the erect- 

 trained five or seven-branched trees, which quickly run to the 

 top of the walls, and are very easily managed. They are a 

 marked improvement on the old horizontally-trained Pear-tree, 

 which took so long to form ; Plums, Pears, Peaches and Apricots 

 are thus trained here, and, so far, they promise a very good result. 

 There are several walled gardens facing pleasantly to the sun, on 

 a gentle slope, and there is plenty of wall-space, some of which is 

 of whitened felt, as in the Paris Municipal Garden, in the Bois de 

 Vincennes. This, however, is not a desirable material to use, 

 brick or concrete walls being far preferable. Most of the walls 

 here are neatly wired. Throughout each garden run lines of light 

 but strong trellis-work for Pears — a great improvement on the 



