144" Culture of Wall-Fruit Trees. 



On removing Wall Trees, and renewing the Soil for them. — 



1 would renew my borders, and remove my trees, every three or 

 four years. By removing part of the soil from the surface every 

 two or three years, and by cutting off the matted roots, about 



2 ft. from the confining wall, taking out soil and all, and filling 

 up the vacancy with fresh turfy soil, recently pared, and roughly 

 chopped, the trees will do well for thirty years. The removed 

 soil is excellent for most other horticultural purposes. Fine 

 training is of importance, as far as appearance goes ; but pro- 

 ductive trees and fine fruit can be produced without much 

 attention being paid to that part of the art, as I have very fre- 

 quently witnessed. By attention to cleaning and chambering, 

 these desirable results will be found to be effected with much 

 more certainty, and the processes recommended to be well worth 

 all the expense they may occasion. If I did not crop my bor- 

 ders, when of the above width, and conducted upon the above 

 principle, the sacrifice would not be of such consequence as the 

 loss of the whole of a border 12 ft. or 16 ft. wide, as there would 

 still be a fair space left for many of the most important culinary 

 vegetables ; but with such a mode of treatment as that which I 

 have recommended, there is no fear of impoverishing the trees by 

 light crops of any kind. 



The soil which I use for the most important purposes is the 

 turfy surface from the top of a high limestone rock of the brown 

 magnesian kind. It has been a confined sheepwalk time out of 

 mind. I like it best fresh, and only coarsely chopped for my 

 borders, so as to encourage a rapid fermentation about the 

 roots; this I take to be of far greater importance than time 

 thrown away by fine training in slow hands. 



Chambering of Borders. — It may be judged by many, that my 

 method of chambering borders for fruit trees is an expensive 

 one; but it is much better, where stone and lime are readily at 

 hand, to incur the attendant expense, than to sacrifice the whole 

 of a 12-ft. or 16-ft. border. Our cold wet bottom requires it; 

 but, even upon a more congenial subsoil, I should recommend 

 a secure and well-walled chambered bottom, and the frequent 

 removal of the trees, and renewing of the soil, to insure good 

 crops; but upon no occasion whatever should I mix rotten 

 dung with it as a manure : the chopped turf above mentioned 

 I consider at all times the best. I chambered last season a front- 

 age of my graperies of 200 ft.; and have admitted much of the 

 heat of the flues, and atmosphere of the houses, underneath the 

 borders. I have rafters and lights to put over these borders in 

 the early part of the season, and these can be connected with a 

 hollow wall round the vine roots, so as to admit a free circulation 

 between the heated air beneath the glass and that in the chamber 



