FRUIT-TREES. 



199 



FRUIT-TREES. 



whether pears or apples, a tenth might 

 ripen early, a fifth ripen in October, a fifth 

 in December, and the remainder long- 

 keeping sorts in the winter. This pro- 

 portion might be adopted in the largest 

 establishments, and even in the orchards of 

 the cider counties, where the system about 

 to be described might be acted upon with 

 great advantage to the owners. In smaller 

 gardens, with which this work has more 

 immediately to do, the proportion of apples, 

 pears, and plums will be decided by indi- 

 vidual taste. Perhaps the best course 

 would be to divide the garden, one half, or 

 thereabouts, into apples and pears ; and to 

 plant the outside of the wall borders next 

 the walks with espaliers, for apples and 

 pears of the finer sorts. 



Fruit-Trees, Training of. 



We may best consider briefly the forms 

 in which trees may be trained by first 

 turning our attention to the modes and 

 conditions under which trees must, of 

 necessity, be grown. These narrow them- 

 selves, in point of fact, to two that is to 

 say, a tree may be grown naturally, so to 

 speak, without any support, save and except 

 its own stem or trunk, from which proceed 

 the branches ; or it may be grown artifici- 

 ally that is to say, by the aid of artificial 

 supports, in the form of stakes, wires, and 

 walls, which enable us to give whatever 

 direction we please to the branches, and 

 otherwise mould them to our purpose by 

 the processes of pinching and pruning, 

 which have been already explained. 



By a rough and ready form of classifica- 

 tion, then, all fruit-trees may be grouped 

 in two divisions, as those that are grown 

 without artificial supports, and those that 

 are grown with artificial supports. These 

 divisions overlap each other, it is true, 

 inasmuch as any fruit-tree may be grown 

 in either way, the conditions being favour- 

 able under which they are grown, but each 



method of growing is more favourable to 

 some descriptions of fruit-trees than to 

 others. For example, we find in this 

 country apple-trees, pear-trees, cherry- 

 trees, and plum-trees, grown in orchards, 

 but peaches, nectarines, and apricots re- 

 quire the shelter and warmth afforded by 

 a wall with a south aspect, to enable them 

 to bring their fruit to perfection when 

 grown in the open air. Yet there is nothing 

 to prevent the growth of the trees named 

 in the first group on walls and other kinds 

 of support ; nor, on the other hand, is 

 there anything that militates against the 

 culture of the trees in the second group 

 under the form prescribed by nature, when 

 we give them the protection that they 

 require in our climate by means of orchard 

 houses, in which they may be grown in 

 pots or in borders in the pyramid or bush 

 form. 



The arrangement proposed may, there- 

 fore, be regarded as a conventional ar- 

 rangement that is to say, an arrangement 

 which, if not absolutely in keeping with 

 nature, is at least convenient for the treat- 

 ment of the subject. We say, then, that, 

 broadly speaking, trees may be grown 

 without artificial supports, or with them ; 

 and taking this general view, we find that 

 the trees that are grown without artificial 

 supports are the apple-tree, the pear-tree, 

 the cherry-tree, and the plum-tree. Under 

 this condition, the forms assumed by these 

 trees are the standard and the pyramid or 

 bush form, the former being more suitable 

 for culture in isolated positions or in 

 orchards, and the latter for gardens and 

 smaller areas of ground and for orchard 

 houses. All the trees mentioned, and the 

 peach, the apricot, and the cherry, may be 

 grown by aid of artificial supports. When 

 recourse is had to artificial support, the 

 support assumes the form of a vertical 

 stake or a horizontal line, either singly or 

 collectively, or of a plane surface, though, 



