456 THE TAEKS AND GARDENS OF PAEIS. [Chap. XXV. 



adopted in France is far superior to our own mode, and owes its 

 excellence to tlie abundant use of slender galvanised wire and the 

 little tightening implements, or raidisseurs. The wire is sold in 

 twenty-three different sizes. Of this an intermediate size, 12, 13, 

 or 14, is that best suited and usually selected for strong and 

 permanent garden-work, albeit a mere thread to the costly thick 

 iron ware we use. The sizes appropriate for cordons, trellises, etc., 

 are sold at from 30s. to 44.s. per mile, so that the material is cheap 

 enough. It is sold by weight, No. 12 size being 31s. per cwt of 

 1241 yards, and a smaller size 34s. per cwt. of 2031 yards. Of course 

 smaller quantities are readily obtainable. 



In some of the nurseries a simple kind of trellising is used for 

 training young wall and espalier trees. It is useful in enabling the 

 French to keep in stock trees for these purposes to a greater age than 

 is the case in our nurseries, and for various purposes should prove 

 useful to the grower of young fruit-trees. A larger and modified 

 application of the same plan would do well for large espalier-trees ; 

 indeed it is applied with good effect and perfectly suits a method, 

 not uncommon in France, of keeping the upper branches of trees, 

 trained horizontally, shorter than the low^er ones so as to secure 

 greater vigour in the lower branches. This trellis may be established 

 at a trifling cost by using light posts of rough wood, or, if perma- 

 nence and greater strength be desired, of T-iron. In either case 

 the posts must be firmly fixed. The wire should be passed through 

 a hole or strong eye in the top of the pole, and fixed with stones or 

 irons in the ground. In order to train the shoots straight, their 

 rods may be extended from the post to the wires with but little 

 trouble. Other illustrations of the neatest and best trellises in 

 use in French gardens occur in several parts of this book. 



Edgings for Parks, Public Gardens, Squares, Drives, etc. — 

 The edgings in gardens have a very important bearing on their 

 general aspect, and often on their cleanliness. An edging much 

 in use in the public gardens of Paris is made of rustic rods of 

 cast-iron, in imitation of the little edgings of bent branchlets that 

 many are familiar with. They are evidently cast from the model 

 of a bent branchlet, generally about as thick as the thumb, but 

 they are of various sizes. These irons are placed in the ground 

 firmly, and are very easily fixed. The fact that they are not 

 stift', ugly, and tile-like prevents their offending the eye if one 



