TRAINING. 35 



able time to the subject, states that common salt and chloride of 

 lime contribute greatly to the flowering of most plants, to which, 

 however, they can only be applied, with safety, in small quanti- 

 ties. "Salts of lime," he continues, "appear to produce so 

 nearly the same effect as those of potash and soda, that it is only 

 necessary to place lime within their reach, if there is no defici- 

 ency of manure in the shape of general food. Lime will in the 

 main promote, in an astonishing degree, the fi'uit and floweiing 

 of most plants, because calcareous salts promote evaporation 

 and the concentration of sap." 



Although we cannot coincide wath many of Dr. Schultz's 

 views as expressed in this work, yet the remarks just quoted 

 agree so entirely w^ith facts that have come under our own ob- 

 servation, that we gladly place them before the cultivator of fruit 

 trees. One of the most productive fruit gardens in our know- 

 ledge is on a limestone soil, and another more than usually pro- 

 lific, in a neighbourhood not very fruitful, is every year treated 

 with a top dressing of coarse salt, at the rate of two bushels to the 

 acre. These facts are surely worth the attention of growers, and 

 should be the subject of more extended and careful experiments. 



Rendering trees more fruitful by dwarfing, and by adapting 

 them to soils naturally unft'uitful by growing them upon other 

 and better stocks, we have already placed before the reader 

 under the head of Grafting. 



CHAPTER ly. 



TRAINING. 



Training fruit trees is, thanks to our favourable climate, a 

 proceeding entirely unnecessary in the greater part of the United 

 States. Our fine dry summers, with the great abundance of 

 strong light and sun, are sufficient to ripen fully the fruits of 

 temperate climates, so that the whole art of training, at once the 

 trial and triumph of skill with English fruit gardeners, is quite 

 dispensed with : and in the place of long lines of brick wall 

 and espalier rails, surrounding and di^dding the fruit garden, 

 all covered with carefully trained trees, we are proud to show 

 the open orchard, and the borders in the fruit garden filled 

 with thrifty and productive standards. Nothing surprises a Bri- 

 tish gardener more, knowing the cold of our winter, than the 

 first sight of peaches, and other fine fruits, arriving at full per- 

 fection in the middle states, with so little care ; and he sees at 

 once that three fourths of the gi'eat expense of a fruit garden 

 here is rendered entirely needless. 



Training fruit trees, in this country, is therefore confined to 



