The Palme tie Verrier. 163 



wall i o ft. or 12 ft. high, and 20 ft. or 24 ft. long, to be covered 

 with a tree of this shape, it would require fifteen or sixteen years 

 to form it. By adopting a more contracted form based upon the 

 same plan, we may cover the wall or trellis more quickly. 



The Palmette Verrier is named after the gardener at 1'EcoIe 

 Regionale de La Saulsaie, with whom it was first observed. To 

 form the tree, we have in the first instance to plant an ordinary 

 young plant of a desired kind, and of course that should be of the 

 primest quality both as to quality and constitution, as so much care 

 is about to be exercised to make it a handsome and long-lived orna- 

 ment to the garden and capital aid to the fruit room. It is quite 

 easy to buy trees a little more advanced to make the same form 

 more quickly j but they will cost the more money the further they 

 are advanced beyond what is called the " maiden" stage. Du Breuil, 

 the leading French professor of fruit culture, says the young trees 

 should be allowed to remain a year or so in their positions before 

 being cut, so that they may have rooted well. At the first pruning 

 the young tree is cut down to within a foot or so of the ground, 

 and just above three suitable eyes, one at each side to form the two 

 lowermost branches, the other a little above them and in front to 

 continue the erect axis. Of course all the eyes, except those that 

 are to send forth the three first shoots, must be suppressed in spring. 

 Now, although the tree in the figure looks so very exact and regular 

 in its lines, and the branches appear as if they had been " bent in 

 the way they should go" at a very early stage, it is not so; they 

 are at first allowed to grow almost erect, and afterwards are gra- 

 dually lowered to the horizontal position. During the first year of the 

 young tree possessing three shoots, care must be taken (as at all 

 times) to secure a perfect equilibrium between them. If one grows 

 stronger than the others, it must be loosened from its position on the 

 wall and lowered. That will divert the sap to strengthen the other 

 one or two. Nothing is more easily conducted than the sap when 

 we pay a little attention to it ; if not, it soon rushes towards the 

 higher points, and spoils the tree. 



After the fall of the leaf the little trees should have somewhat 



