80 PARADISE STOCKS WALL-FRUIT BORDER. 



cient supply ready grafted, and a few years trained 

 on small stakes to that figure which they are after- 

 wards to maintain on the wall. The stocks cost 

 nothing; and if you apply your own hand to en- 

 grafting, you may have, at very little expence, and 

 even on the thinnest soil, a constant supply of fruit, 

 and that of no inferior quality. The paradise 

 stocks not being seedlings, but raised from layers, 

 are remarkable both for avoiding the thong-like 

 tap-root, and for sending out a great multitude of 

 small fibres, which nourish the tree, without travel- 

 ing fast arid far like those of the free-growing kinds. 

 This accounts for their early bearing, their short 

 life, and their adaptation to a low wall and a scanty 

 allowance of good mould. In other circumstances 

 they ought to have no preference: for at every re- 

 planting there is incurred a considerable vacancy 

 as to space, and consequently a loss both of time 

 and of fruit; whereas other trees set in good soil 

 will soon complete your design, and serve for the 

 period of your life, without leaving the bare face of 

 your wall to look idly at the sun. 



In giving scope to the roots, the next thing to 

 depth of soil is the breadth of your wall-fruit bor- 

 der. The technical rule, that it must equal the 

 height of the wall, may readily be discarded. If 

 you have a good height, there is no need of objec- 

 tion; but should your wall be only six feet, the 

 border will still be the earliest and most productive 

 portion of your garden ; but how little area for 

 cropping will the length give when multiplied by 



