FRUIT BANK. 103 



possessed of unfailing toughness, and admitting of so 

 great despatch, is one of the pleasantest operations 

 of the garden. The appropriate knot, you will soon 

 discover, is a little different from that usually made 

 with twine; but this is the distinguishing property 

 of such ligatures, that they do not cut the bark by 

 contracting, when wetted, as hemp does : they 

 shrink with dryness, not as to length, but thick- 

 ness, and thus grow slacker in the summer's sun as 

 the branches they hold increase in the summer's 

 growth. 



Supplementary to both wall and espaliers is the 

 following device, which has proved eminently suc- 

 cessful. Supposing that you have more garden 

 ground than is necessary for the supply of vegeta- 

 bles, and that some part of it may be spared for a 

 green shady walk amidst shrubs mingled with 

 standard fruit trees ; on the south side of a row of 

 evergreens, impervious to the eye, let a dry stone 

 wall be raised to the height of four or five feet, and 

 coped with large stones, merely for strength and 

 durability. Plant this on the north side with ivy 

 to assist the screen of shrubs, and in a short time 

 not one stone will appear. From the south side 

 take away all the good soil to a depth of two feet, 

 a breadth of five feet, and a length equal to that of 

 the wall, which may be sixty or a hundred feet as 

 you find convenient. This excavation, it is to be 

 understood, runs close by the building, the founda- 

 tion of which must, of course, have been secured by 

 perhaps a foot of depth, and which will yet be un- 



