GENERAL PRACTICE SITUATION AND SHELTER. 67 



of sun and chilling blasts of cold innocuous, securing a genial climate a long day's 

 work. Through husbanding the sun heat, fruit trees under glass are not so liable to 

 suffer from spring frosts, as the blossoms, young fruit, and tender foliage are compara- 

 tively safe in a dry still atmosphere, whilst trees against walls are subjected to damp, 

 sudden changes of temperature and cold winds. Trees under glass are healthier, pro- 

 duce fruit with equal or greater certainty, and attain to a perfection in size, colour, and 

 quality unequalled by wall trees. So decisive are the results of the two systems, that 

 a fruit garden at the present time is rarely formed on the old lines, glass structures to 

 a large extent taking the place of walls. Still, some fruits, notably pears, are seldom so 

 juicy and melting when grown under glass as against walls. There is also the question 

 of shelter. Glass structures afford this, while they do not shade the adjoining ground 

 the same as do walls. 



Sheltering objects possess value in proportion to their height, and offer dis- 

 advantages in the degree of their shadow. A hedge or fence is an absolute necessity 

 as a boundary. A neatly-kept thorn hedge always pleases, and interspersed with 

 holly is agreeable in winter, yet a high hedge as a boundary is not found advisable in 

 practice. Fruit trees must have air and light, and a boundary hedge 4J feet to 6 feet 

 in height is better, with few exceptions, than a higher one, as trees closely sur- 

 rounded by high fences are neither healthy nor fruitful, but mostly infested with 

 insects. In all cases of shelter it is well to consider that from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M. no 

 obstacle whatever to the sun shining all day long on the site of a fruit garden should 

 interpose from April to September. Sites sheltered on the east and west by towering 

 oaks or elms, so as to shade half the ground in the morning and afternoon, are useless 

 for fruit growing. 



The best site for a fruit garden is a slope inclining to points between south-east and 

 south-west. A gentle slope due south, or preferably facing a little south-east, so as to 

 face the sun at about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, is the most suitable. Ground 

 inclining due east is objectionable from its exposure to the cold winds that often prevail 

 from that quarter during the spring and early summer months. A west or south-west 

 aspect is inadvisable in bleak exposures, on account of the strong gales which occur 

 about the time of the autumn equinox, blowing the fruit from the trees. Slopes 

 inclining northwards have the advantage of retarding the blossoming period so as to 

 escape frosts, but the crop thereby insured will not compensate for the greater perfection 

 those on the southern incline generally attain, as fruit on cold exposures does not 



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