FRUITS. CHAP. 



cially in garden ground : it rots off at the point where 

 it begins to touch the earth, and there is an everlasting 

 trouble and expense. To have espaliers, therefore, and 

 to have them in neat order, the old fashion was to have 

 stakes of spine-oak, an inch one way, and two inches the 

 other j such stakes would last ten or fifteen years^ ac- 

 cording to the wetness or dryness of the land. The best 

 stakes would be the trunks of young locust trees, planted 

 within two feet of each other, and suffered to grow to 

 the height of about twelve or fourteen feet. They 

 would do this, in good ground, in the course of four or five 

 years. Cut down in winter, and the branches trimmed off 

 close, they would make espalier stakes to last for a 

 good long life-time. While the limbs of espaliers are 

 small, they should be fastened to the stakes by good fresh 

 matting, or bass, as it is called, to be occasionally re- 

 newed : when the limbs get stout, I have seen brass wire 

 used j though, perhaps, the matting might still be suf- 

 ficient j for, when the limb has once got to be an inch or 

 two through, it wants little supporting except merely 

 towards its point, or when heavily laden with fruit. 

 Espaliers are to be planted in rows if there be a consi- 

 derable number of them in a garden ; and they should 

 not stand nearer, if intended to be permanent trees, than 

 at twenty feet from each other. That they should be 

 planted in straight line is obvious enough. The best 

 situation for them is along by the sides of walks and not 

 more than about three feet distant from the edge of the 

 walk. Their symmetry is very beautiful > and, what can 

 be more beautiful than an avenue of fruit-trees in bloom, 

 and trained in form so regular and neat? The crops they 

 bear are prodigious compared with those standard trees 





