Espaliers and Pruning. 155 



" Take heed of cutting Trees, Hedges, r or Herbs with 

 a knife, but rather gather them with your Finger." 



But the truth is that the graphic portion of 

 the volume is merely a series of foreign 

 prints, Dutch or German, utilised to lend 

 an additional attraction to the English publi- 

 cation, though it is at the same time likely 

 enough that our own implements and those 

 of Germany and Holland were almost identi- 

 cal ; and in fact, not merely the illustrations, 

 but the text of Stevenson, are largely borrowed 

 from Breton's Fantastics (1626). 



From a fifteenth-century MS. of Bartholo- 

 meus De Proprietatibus Rerum, it is inferable 

 that some system was known and employed 

 of training fruit-trees in the espalier mode 

 now so familiar ; it was a word derived from 

 the old French espauk. 



A very fair general notion of the policy 

 and taste of our ancestors, a couple of cen- 

 turies since, in laying out their grounds 

 and gardens, according to their respective 

 means, is derivable from such works as Les 

 Delices de la Grande Bretagne, and from the 

 illustrations to some of the treatises on 



