426 THE PARKS AND GARDENS OF PARIS. [Chap. XXIV. 



all protection. There can be no doubt whatever that if we pay 

 as much attention to the Peach as the cultivators of Montreuil 

 do, we can attain quite as good a result. Our good fruit- 

 growers understand its culture well enough ; but of late years 

 public attention has, by various means which need not be detailed 

 here, been called away from the fact that, with walls, we can 

 produce the finest fruit in the world, and without them do little 

 or nothing with the choicer fruits. The " power of the climate " 

 in Paris may be very wonderful, but there is one thing it cannot 

 do better than our own — it cannot produce a better Peach than 

 is often gathered from walls both in England and Ireland. It 

 would be thought, perhaps, that with their climate, the French 

 would be able to dispense with j^rotection to the trees in spring, 

 and altogether leave their trees more to nature than the British 

 gardener ; but exactly the reverse is the case. The French Peach- 

 grower takes care to have a good protecting coping to his wall. 

 With us it is not uncommon to see the culture of the Peach and 

 Nectarine attempted without any coping at all. Of course we 

 want this protection as much as the French, or more so. Over 

 the greater part of the country, without question, the Peach may 

 be grown to the highest degree of perfection, and yet, though few 

 Englishmen could manage, as Dr. Johnson did, " seven or eight 

 large Peaches of a morning before breakfast began," they may well 

 say with him that getting " enough " of them is indeed a rarity. 

 To succeed with the Peach in the open air, we must remove it 

 altogether from the chance culture now bestowed upon it ; give 

 it full attention in spring and early summer ; select suitable soil 

 in the first instance, and thus avoid expense for what is called 

 made ground. We must take care to protect the trees in spring, 

 as the careful French cultivators do ; and take advantage of the 

 new and cheap ways of erecting walls. No chance culture on any 

 walls that may happen to surround the place will alter matters 

 much. 



We may do a good deal more than at present with our unoc- 

 cupied walls. Probably many readers who live near Oxford can 

 testify to the beauty and profit that result from the villagers 

 covering their walls with Apricot-trees. The same may be done 

 in many parts of England where such a thing is not now to be 

 seen ; but in the case of cottagers and others the only thing likely 



