376 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



orchards in parts of Kent, as near Sittingbourne, are pictures when in 

 bloom. There is no better work in a country place than choosing a 

 piece of good ground to form an orchard ; and, considering the 

 number of trees that are worth a place for their beauty as well as 

 their fruit, a dozen acres are not too much in a country place where 

 there is land to spare. 



POOR SOIL SHOULD NOT HINDER. In planting some may be 

 deterred by the fear that their soil is too poor, and no doubt it is a 

 much simpler matter on the good fruit tree soils of Devon, Hereford, 

 and Kent than in other districts ; but the difference in soils is no 

 reason why some counties and districts should be bare of orchards, and 

 in many the soil is as good as need be. Indeed, in the country south 

 of London, as in Kent, where much of the land is taken up with 

 orchards, we may notice the trees suffering much more from drought 

 in dry years than they do in the good sandstone soil of Cheshire or in 

 Ireland and Scotland, where there is a heavier rainfall. Few of our 

 orchard trees require a very special soil, and where chalky or very 

 warm soil occurs, the best way is to keep to the kinds of fruit it 

 favours most. But though the orchard beautiful must be of trees in 

 all their natural vigour, and of forms lovely in winter as in spring and 

 summer, the trees must not be neglected, allowed to perish from 

 drought, or become decayed from bug, scale or other pests, and it 

 should be the care of those who enjoy their beauty to protect them 

 from all such dangers. The idea that certain counties only are suited 

 for fruit growing is erroneous, and even if it were true, the fact need 

 not deter us from planting orchards of the hardier trees and of good 

 local kinds. Much of Ireland is as bare of orchards as the back of a 

 stranded whale, but who could say this was the fault of the country ? 



THE TREES TO TAKE THEIR NATURAL FORMS. Where we plant 

 for beauty we can have no choice for any but the natural form of the 

 tree. Owing to the use of what are called dwarfing stocks and like 

 contrivances, fruit gardens and orchards are now beginning to show 

 shapes of trees that are not beautiful compared with the grand old 

 orchard tree. However much these dwarf and pinched shapes may 

 appeal to the gardener in his own domain, in the orchard beautiful 

 they have no place. For the form of all our fruit trees is very good 

 indeed, winter or summer, and that is a great point if we seek beauty. 

 We know what the effect in flower-time is in the orchard pictures of 

 such painters as Mark Fisher and Alfred Parsons, if we have not taken 

 the trouble to see the finer pictures of the orchards themselves, seen 

 best, perhaps, on dark and wet days in flower-time. Lastly, the effect 

 of finely-coloured fruit on high trees is one of the best in our gardens. 

 Therefore, in every case, whatever pruning we do, let the tree take its 

 natural form, not only for its own sake or the greater beauty of natural 



