156 Improved Mode of Growing 



indeed in many parts of Britain, where the espalier support is the 

 most unworkmanlike and discreditable affair to be seen in the 

 place. Great rough uprights of wood, which soon rot and wabble 

 out of position, thick and costly bolt-like wire, cumbrous and 

 expensive construction, and, in a word, so many disadvantages as 

 would suffice to prevent the prudent cultivator from attempting 

 anything of the kind. The form or tree used, too, is such that 

 the lower branches become impoverished, and often nearly useless. 

 Now, to form the support for their espalier fruit trees the French 

 have largely adopted a system which is at once cheap, neat, and 

 almost everlasting. Instead of employing ugly and perishable 

 wooden supports they erect uprights of T-iron, and connect 

 these with slender galvanized wire instead of the bolt-like and 

 unmanageable things that we use. These they tighten with the 

 little raidisseurs before alluded to, and then there is an end of all 

 trouble. They manage to erect this seven feet to nine feet high for 

 less than a shilling a yard run. I have seen many English arrange- 

 ments of this kind, supported by beam-like wooden stakes, and 

 tottering so as to be intolerable in a garden. Then, instead of 

 adopting the common form of espalier tree, with horizontal 

 branches, they use more freely trees of which each branch ascends 

 towards the top of the trellis, and thus secure an equable flow of 

 sap through each branch. 



But perhaps the accompanying engraving will give a better idea 

 of both trellis and tree than any description. There is no more 

 important matter connected with our fruit culture than this very 

 point, and, therefore, I should be much obliged to all readers, both 

 amateur and professional, who give the subject attention, as I am 

 sure that by doing so they will be led to largely adopt it, and much 

 improve their fruit culture. The finest stores of pears I have ever 

 seen were in gardens with a good length of tree trained in this 

 manner. The form represented here is that adopted in the Imperial 

 Kitchen Garden at Versailles, and is not very common in France, 

 though very good and simple. It is much better than the cordon 

 or single-stemmed pear tree, because a more free and natural de- 



