CHOICE OF TREES FOR ESPALIERS. 99 



to attempt such as require the greater heat and 

 protection of a wall. The observations formerly 

 made with regard to elevation, local shelter, and 

 subsoil, will require to be noticed also here, that 

 you may not plant such trees as have no fair chance 

 of realising your expectations. It should be a 

 maxim for all climates that fruit, good of its kind, 

 though the kind be inferior, is preferable to that of 

 a better nature, but imperfectly produced. A good 

 crop of codlings is better than a bad crop of golden 

 pippins. I have seen a tree of the latter sort oc- 

 cupying a space large enough to have yielded a 

 bushel of fruit, but from, which it was thought 

 something considerable to reap three or four apples 

 in a favourable season; and when they were ga- 

 thered, I have no doubt that the little disfigured 

 crabs, being all seed and no pulp, were greatly 

 inferior, even in point of flavour, to the worst apple 

 in the orchard that grows to a full size. For it 

 seems to be a principle in nature, that if a tree be 

 such as rarely to produce an average quantity, there 

 must be something in the circumstances of the case 

 which will mar also the quality. Yet it is no un- 

 common thing, whether in the cultivation of farm 

 or garden, to aim rather at fineness of kind than 

 excellence of quality, although it is the latter which 

 chiefly repays the cultivator, and shows the supe- 

 riority of his discernment. The temptation lies 

 either in the more honourable name, or in the higher 

 price which is obtained for the commodity of a finer 

 kind: for there is a pride in saying, I grow wheat, 

 and 1 rear bred sheep on my farm; or I have golden 



