42 THE MINIATURE FRUIT GARDEN. 



thick layer of concrete at bottom, to prevent the roots 

 striking downward ; or it would be good practice to 

 place, eighteen inches deep, tinder each tree, a flat 

 piece of stone, three feet in diameter this would 

 force the roots to take a horizontal direction, and 

 facilitate the operation of root-pruning. 



For fine specimens of wall pear trees grafted on the 

 quince, I may refer to those on the west wall of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society's Gardens at Chiswick. 

 These are now about forty years old, and are pictures 

 of health and fertility, thus at once settling the ques- 

 tion respecting the early decay of pear trees grafted 

 on the quince; for it has been often very often 

 urged as an objection to the use of the quince stock, 

 that pears grafted on it are, although prolific, but very 

 short-lived. I have seen trees in France more than 

 fifty years old, and those above referred to may be 

 adduced to confute this error. 



PEAK TREES TRAINED SINGLE AS VERTICAL CORDONS. 



The French gardeners have a curious yet interesting 

 mode of training pears on the quince stock, about 

 which a book was published in France a few years 

 since. The system, I have recently learnt from some 

 French cultivators, is now largely practiced in the 

 south of France with the peach apricot. It is called 

 training " en fuseau," or distaff training ; and is the 

 most simple of all modes. A young tree, one year 

 old from the bud, is planted, and every side shoot, as 

 soon as it has made four leaves, has its top pinched off, 

 leaving three. This is the first pinching early in 

 June. These pinched shoots all put forth young 



