60 The Fruit and Kitchen Gardens, near Paris. 



'•' What is done at Versailles as regards espalier training 

 might be very advantageously imitated in other large gardens, 

 and, for small gardens, no mode is so proper. If the trees be 

 well managed, they will almost support themselves, by the 

 time the first, and not expensive, woodwork decays. They 

 occupy comparatively little space ; some crops can be grown 

 almost close to them ; and their appearance, loaded as they 

 ought to be with fruit, cannot certainly be deemed unsightly. 



" We observed some pear trees trained on espaliers, hori- 

 zontally, it may be said, but with an important peculiarity. 

 On remarking them we were informed that their branches 

 were originally trained from the stem at an angle of 45° of 

 elevation; but that they were afterwards brought to a hori- 

 zontal position, excepting the parts near the stem, which still 

 retained almost the original position. Although lowering the 

 branches was, I believe, an after-thought as regards these 

 trees, yet I believe a better principle than that of allowing 

 the branches to ascend at the above angle for a little way 

 from the stem, could not be adopted." 



The orange trees here, Mr. Thompson states, are magnifi- 

 cent. The number is 1500; some are 300 years old, with 

 stems thirty-nine inches in circumference ; one has the inscrip- 

 tion; '■^ Seme en, 1421," and must therefore be 420 years old. 



Advantages of Cast Iron Pipes for Flues. 



In the market garden of M. Truffant, at Versailles, Mr. 

 Thompson notices a mode of heating houses by means of iron 

 pipes for flues : — 



"In two compartments, where bottom heat for the pine 

 apples is supplied by means of hot water, top heat is obtained 

 from a six inch cast iron pipe, serving as a flue from the same 

 fire which heats the water for bottom heat. From the fire at 

 one end it uniformly ascefids along tlic front, till it terminates 

 in a brick chimney at the farther end of the compartment. 

 The joints of the cast iron pipe are merely cemented with 

 clay. There is a fire at each of the opposite ends of the two 

 compartments ; and the chimney where the pipes terminate, 

 is in the middle, at the front. Hot water was previously em- 

 ployed for top heat ; but the tubular cast iron flue was found 



