RECOVERY OF ILL TRAINED TREES. 71 



garden as of your house with walls unfurnished, 

 and had all to do after your own taste and fashion; 

 but the probability is that you succeed to a garden 

 not without trees, and that most of them will be 

 found in no small disorder. When your prede- 

 cessor was about to leave the world, he either had 

 the fruits of the upper paradise in view, and cared 

 less for the lower; or being unfit, through age or 

 lingering disease, for the over sight of his affairs, 

 the stewardship devolved upon his wife; and what 

 heart to the garden could she find amidst flowers 

 that seemed the ghosts of bygone summers, and 

 fruits that had a savour of widowhood? Children 

 half reared, the means reduced, the widow's loneli- 

 ness, and the flitting, were cares that could not well 

 accord with the training of trees. Be not rash to 

 blame, but think of the next flitting, and let the un- 

 known term lead the heart to higher things, whilst 

 the hand proceeds to the recovery of your trees, from 

 the effects of mismanagement or of long neglect. 



It will probably be found that your espaliers, 

 now become standards, have grown so high as to 

 cast your sunny wall into the shade, whilst the 

 wall-trees themselves have run as wild as willows 

 by the stream. For such inveterate rebellion of 

 either province, there can be no remedy without 

 some death; but proceed with mercy to the flexible, 

 and use policy to reduce the obstinate. A vener- 

 able pear must not be cut down, for it will be a 

 long time before those of your own planting will 

 yield much fruit ; and an old tree, however lost by 



