378 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



if not, he cut their heads off and regrafted them with sorts he wanted. 

 These were free and handsome trees with good grass below them, 

 just like the Cherry orchards in the best parts of Kent, where the 

 lambs pick the early grass. But however beautiful such an orchard, 

 clearly it will not give us the variety of form and beauty found in the 

 mixed orchard, in which Cherry, Apple, Plum, Pear, Medlar, Quince, 

 Walnut, and Mulberry take a place ; there also the various interesting 

 trees allied to our fruit trees might come in, such as the true and 

 common Service tree, Almond, Cornelian Cherry, Hickory, and Crab. 



GRAFTING. Where we make use of grafted trees and generally 

 there is no choice in the matter we should always in the orchard use 

 the most natural stock that can be obtained. It is much better, for 

 instance, to graft Pear trees on the wild Pear than on the Quince, a 

 union harmful to the Pear on many soils. If we could get the trees 

 on their own roots without any grafting it would often be much better, 

 but we are slaves to the routine of the trade, and in our day he who asks 

 for a fruit tree on its natural roots is regarded as a wandering lunatic. 

 The history of grafting is as old as the oldest civilisations its best 

 reason, the rapid increase of a given variety. In every country one 

 or two fruit trees predominate, and are usually natives of the country, 

 like the Apple in Northern Europe and the Olive in the South. 

 When men found a good variety of a native fruit they sought to 

 increase it in the quickest way, and so having learned the art of 

 grafting, they put the best varieties on wild stems in hedgerows, or 

 dug up young trees and grafted them in their gardens. The practice 

 eventually became stereotyped into the production of the nursery 

 practice of grafting many varieties of fruit trees on the same stock, 

 often without the least regard to the lasting health and duration of the 

 trees so grafted. In some cases when we use the wild form of the tree 

 as a stock for the orchard tree we succeed ; but grafting is the cause 

 of a great deal of the disease and barrenness of our orchards. It is 

 now possible to get some Apple trees on their own roots, and in 

 France, and here and there in England also, some kinds of Plums in 

 that way. Where we graft, it is well to graft low ; that is to say, in 

 the case of Cider Apples^ for example, it is much safer and better to 

 take a tree grafted close to the ground than grafted standard high, as 

 the high graft is more liable to accident and does not make so fine a 

 tree. In the orchard the good old practice of sowing the stone or pip 

 of a fine fruit now and then may also be followed with interest. 



STARVED ORCHARDS. Even in the good fruit counties like Kent 

 one may see in dry years orchards starved from want of water, and 

 the turf beneath almost brown as the desert. Where manure is plentiful 

 it is well to use it as a mulch for such trees, but where it is not, we may 

 employ various other materials for keeping the roots safe from the 



