138 The Cordon System of Training Fruit Trees. 



return. Now it is clear that if we call a fan, or horizontally trained 

 tree, a "cordon," we not only misapply the term, but prevent the 

 inventor's very clear idea from being understood. To show how 

 erroneous is the impression that the term applies to any kind of tree 

 with the branches closely pinched in, I have merely to state that 

 the cordon peach trees in French gardens are never pinched in in 

 this way, but have the wood regularly "nailed in," as shown 

 by Fig. 33. However, the following figures will give a correct idea 

 of what the cordon system is. 



THE APPLE AS A CORDON. 



Fig. 24 shows the ordinary simple cordon of the French gardens, 

 and the mode of fixing its support. A simple galvanized wire is 

 attached to a strong oak post or bit of iron, so firmly fixed that the 

 strain of the wire may not disturb it. The wire is supported at a 



FIG. 24. The Simple Cordon. 



distance of one foot from the ground, and tightened by one of the 

 handy little implements described elsewhere in this volume. This 

 raidisseur will tighten several hundred feet of the wire, which need 

 not be thicker than strong twine, and of the same sort as that recom- 

 mended for walls and espaliers. At intervals a slender support is 

 placed under the wire in the form of a bit of slender iron with an 

 eye in it. 



The form shown above is used to a great extent in France, 

 and as I hear from M. A. Leroy of Angers, it is extending with 

 "extraordinary rapidity." This and the next are the kinds best 

 suited for making edgings around the squares in kitchen gardens, 

 &c. Cordons are trained against walls, espaliers, and in many ways, 



