144 



Cordon System of Training Fruit Trees. 



the best and soundest of all forms of the cordon system (this opinion 

 is only given after having seen it afford a good result in very many 

 gardens), and that the day will yet come when this fact will be 

 patent to every British gardener. A fruit grower of great expe- 

 rience and repute has objected that it is only fit for small gardens, 

 and ridiculed it by pleasantly describing how the wire tripped one 

 over into the cabbages, &c. Well, if the cordon be no better de- 

 veloped than to be invisible, the less we have to do with it the 

 better ; but where it is thickly and regularly set with a stubby 

 spray of fruit buds, and a dense crop of noble fruit, as I have seen 

 it at Ferrieres, at Chartres, and at many other places, then it be- 

 comes a thing which catches the eye for its beauty and utility. If 

 I were making a garden to-morrow as large as Frogmore, I would 

 run a line of wire round every plot of it at a foot from the ground, 



FIG. 30. The Double Oblique Cordon. 



and on that train the best kind of apples, believing this cordon to be 

 much better, more useful, and more easily managed than either the 

 bush or pyramid on the same stock ! In numbers of gardens it 

 may be adopted to an extent sufficient to supply the fruit-room 

 with splendid apples without devoting a special quarter to them, or, 

 in fact, losing any space thereby. The wood, leaves, and fruit are 



