152 Cottage Husbandry and Architecture. 



pears for a cottager's garden, trees should be preferred which grow in nar- 

 row, conical, erect forms, in order that they may shade the crops below as 

 little as possible, and the fruits of which are small in size, in order that they 

 may not be easily blown down with the wind. Apples, suitable for this pur- 

 pose, Mr. Ronalds of Brentford states to be, the Manks Codlin, Red Quar- 

 renden, Franklin's Golden Pippin, Striped Juneating, New Cluster, Golden 

 Pippin, King of the Pippins, Little Beauty, Pomegranate Pippin, Royal 

 Pearmain, Cockle Pippin, Kerry Pippin, New Lemon Pippin, and Carlisle 

 Codlin. Pears possessing similar qualities are, the Royal Bergamot, Yellow 

 Beurree, Red Catherine, Hampden's Bergamot, Red Auchan, Ashton 

 Town, Bishop's Thumb, Summer Portugal, Green Pear of Yair. The best 

 sorts of gooseberries for the cottager are, in like manner, those which have 

 upright shoots, and in which the bushes assume narrow conical forms ; such 

 as the Ironmonger, Warrington, and Manchester, Reds ; the Bright Venus, 

 Beaumont's Smiling Beauty, Broadman's Transparent, Cheshire Lass, 

 Whites ; Rumbullion, Golden Drop, Golden Eagle, Cayton's Venerable, 

 Goldsmith, Yellows ; and Green Donington, Warnman's Ocean, Parkinson's 

 Laurel, Perring's Evergreen, Biggs's Independent, Early Green Hairy, Greens. 



Of red, white, and black currants, there scarcely can be said to be more 

 than one sort of each. The Orleans, the Mussel, the Winesour, and the 

 Damson are among the most useful plums for baking, and are easily pre- 

 served ; and the leaves of the damson form as good an imitation of black tea 

 as those of the common sloe. The Green Gage and Orleans are two of the 

 best cottage table plums. 



Hedgesfor Cottage-Gardens. — In many parts of the country, all the plums, 

 and even all the apples and pears, which a cottager could require for drink- 

 making and culinary purposes, might be grown in his ring-fence ; by allowing 

 the plants to attain then" natural height, and by trimming the sides of the 

 fence to the height of 7 or 8 ft., allowing the shoots above that height to 

 spread out, either inwards only, or on both sides, according to the nature of 

 the adjoining surface. We have seen such hedges in Worcestershire and in 

 different parts of the Netherlands and Germany, 30 ft. high, 3 ft. wide at the 

 bottom, 2 ft. wide at the height of 8 ft., the space between forming an impe- 

 netrable fence, and 20 ft. wide immediately above. Where, from the nature 

 of the soil or climate, neither the apple, pear, nor plum, will make hedges of 

 this description, the sloethorn may be employed, the fruit of which may be 

 used for all the purposes of the damson ; and, bruised and fermented, makes 

 excellent wine ; or fermented with the stones broken and the kernels bruised, 

 and then distilled, it affords a brandy much used in Hungary, and, as we can 

 affirm from experience, of an excellent flavour. In good soil, the sloe will 

 grow 30 ft. high. The whitethorn should never be planted as a fence to the 

 cottager's garden when the blackthorn can be got : the latter forms as 

 good a fence, and has only one objection, an objection common to all the 

 genus Prunus, that of being prolific in suckers ; these, of course, the cottager 

 must take care to remove. A sloe hedge once established, on the sheltered 

 and warmest sides of it different varieties of plums may be grafted ; the more 

 hardy kinds on the east and west aspects, and the better kinds on the south 

 side of the northern boundary. A south wall, it is estimated, is equivalent 

 to the removal of the trees which are trained against it 7° farther to the south ; 

 (Perth Miscellany, vol. i. p. 42.) if we take the effects of the south side of a 

 hedge as equivalent to one third of the effects of a south wall, we shall find 

 no situation in Britain or Ireland in which the cottager may not grow apples, 

 pears, plums, and cherries. The principle is to form the hedge of a double 

 row of wildings ; and when it is grown 5 or 6 years, to cut down the inner 

 row, and graft it with the cultivated varieties of the species ; apples on a 

 crab hedge, on hawthorns, or quinces ; pears on wild pears, on hawthorns, 

 mountain ash, or service ; plums on sloes, and cherries on bird cherries or 

 geans. 



