The Cordon System of Training Fruit Trees. 139 



but the most popular form of all, and certainly one of the best and 

 most useful, is the little cordon apple trained to act as an edging to 

 the quarters in the kitchen and fruit garden. Fig. 25 represents the 

 Bilateral Cordon, useful for the same purposes as the simple one, 

 and especially adapted to the bottoms of walls, bare spaces between 

 the fruit trees, the fronts of pits, or any low naked wall with a 

 warm exposure. As in many cases the lower parts of walls in British 

 gardens are quite naked, this form of cordon offers an opportunity 

 for covering them with what will yield a certain and valuable return. 

 It is by this method that the finest-coloured and best apples, sold 

 in Covent-garden and in the Paris fruit shops at such high prices, 

 are grown. Why should we have to buy these from the French at 

 such a high rate ? Considering the enormous number of walled 

 gardens there are in this country, there can be no doubt whatever 



FIG. 25. The Bilateral Cordon. 



that by merely covering, by means of this plan, the lower parts of 

 walls now entirely naked and useless, we could supply half a dozen 

 markets like Covent-garden with the very choice fruit referred to, 

 and be entirely independent of the French. Doubtless many think 

 that these very fine fruit require a warmer climate than we have 

 for them. The French think so too, and therefore place them 

 against the bottoms of their walls. By doing the same we may pro- 

 duce as good or a better result, and may, in addition, grow tender 

 but fine apples, like the Calville Blanche, that do little good when 

 grown as standards. The climate in most parts of England will be 

 found to suit them quite as well as that of Paris, if not better, 

 because the sun in France is in some parts a little too strong for 

 the perfect development of the flesh and flavour of the apple. There 

 is no part of the country in which the low cordon will not be found 



