THE ORCHARD BEAUTIFUL. 377 



form generally, but also for the variety of form we get even among 

 the varieties sprung from the same species. 



Clearly if we prune to any one ideal type of tree we can never see 

 the interesting variety of form shown by the varieties of one species, 

 as the Apple and Pear. Keeping to the natural form of each tree, 

 moreover does not in the least prevent thinning of the branches where 

 overcrowded the best way of pruning. 



ROOT PRUNING IN THE ORCHARD. We have not only to avoid 

 ugly and constrained forms of training and pruning, but never in the 

 orchard where the true way is to let the tree take its natural free and 

 mature form, should the practice of root pruning be allowed. 



Our orchard trees especially the trees native of Britain like the 

 Apple and the Pear are almost forest trees in nature and take some 

 years first of all to make their growth and then mature it, which in 

 gardens for various reasons make men try to get in artificial ways the 

 fruit that nature gives best at the time of maturity : so root pruning 

 was invented in our own day, and it may have some use in certain soils 

 and in limited gardens, but we may well doubt its value taken all in 

 all, and we have to pay too dearly for it. One would hardly think it 

 would enter into people's heads to practice root pruning in the orchard ; 

 but the word is a catching one and leads people astray. I have several 

 times had the question seriously put to me as to how to root prune 

 forest trees a case where all pruning is absurd in any proper 

 sense save in the way effected by the forest itself. The trees in the 

 orchard should be allowed to come freely to maturity, and in the way 

 the years fly this is not a long wait. By planting a few well chosen 

 young trees every year the whole gradually comes into noble bearing, 

 and the difference between the naturally grown and laden tree and 

 one of the pinched root-pruned ones is great in beauty. 



CIDER ORCHARDS are often picturesque in the west of England 

 and in Normandy, and so long as men think any kind of fermented 

 stuff good enough for their blood, cider has on northern men the first 

 claim from the beauty of the trees in flower and fruit, and indeed 

 throughout the year. The cider orchard also will allow us to grow 

 naturally-grown trees and those raised from seed. These cider 

 orchards are extremely beautiful, and the trees in them often take fine 

 natural forms. They have a charm, too, in the brightness of the fruit, 

 and also a peculiar one in the lateness of the blooms of some, many of 

 the cider Apples flowering later than the orchard Apples. In some 

 cider orchards near Rouen (Lyons-la-Foret) I saw the finest, tallest, 

 and cleanest trees were raised from seed. The owner, a far-famed 

 cider grower, told me they were his best trees, and raised from seed 

 of good cider Apples. If he found on their fruiting that they were 

 what he wanted as cider Apples he kept them and was glad of them ; 



