260 SKETCHES OP BUBAL AFFAIRS. 



Autumn, and a vast quantity of "wholesome and grateful 

 fruit is supplied for present use, and for future store. 

 Besides the profitable employment of the apple and 

 pear in certain parts of the country called the cider 

 districts, where the crop is annually manufactured into 

 cider and perry, there is also an immense and constant 

 demand for the produce of orchards in all large towns ; 

 so that gardeners, cottagers, and others living within 

 a convenient distance of such towns, are sure of a ready 

 market for the fruit, and are well repaid for any labour 

 and care they may bestow on the management of 

 orchard trees. Sometimes, through neglect, injudicious 

 pruning, or other mismanagement, apple and pear-trees 

 do not yield half the produce they might reasonably 

 be expected to bear; but under experienced hands, and 

 in favourable seasons, the load of fruit obtained from 

 these trees is quite astonishing. In many cases the 

 weight of the crop would actually break down the 

 branches, were they not artificially supported on props. 

 A goodly sight it is to see a cottage -garden thus richly 

 decked : and it is not, happily, an unknown sight, 

 though more rare than it was formerly. In some parts 

 of Wiltshire and Hampshire, the little crowded cottage- 

 garden becomes a picture of beauty in the early Spring, 

 from the mass of pink-tinged blossoms that cover the 

 deformed and straggling branches of the fruit-trees ; 

 and later in the season, the same small enclosure may 

 be seen, rich in golden fruits, carefully propped xip 

 and tended by some white-haired peasant, now past 

 work. 



No doubt the industrious and good management of 

 the little plot of ground, generally attached to the 

 labourer's cottage in rural districts, might often renew 

 these pleasing scenes, and greatly add to the comforts 

 of cottagers. It has indeed been said that no labourer 

 who has a clever, cleanly, industrious wife, need be 

 without a little store of cider or perry, and a good 

 supply of wholesome fruit, the produce of his own 



