Chap. XXI.] THE PEACH GAEDBNS OF MONTEEUIL. 363 



a siagle season the desired strength was ohtained, and the shoot 

 went vigorously to the top of the wall. Not only are the pruner's 

 best precautions taken to secure abundance of vigour and sap in 

 the lower parts of the specimen, but slow-growing and not very 

 vigorous kinds are grafted a little above the middle of the tree, so 

 as to prevent in the completest manner the tendency which the 

 sap has to rush towards the higher points. To show the differ- 

 ence between cultivators, it is sufficient to mention that M. Lepere 

 considers this precaution indispensable; while another distin- 

 guished cultivator in the same neighbourhood does not practise 

 it at all, but pinches the upper shoots and deprives them of 

 leaves when too vigorous, and thus preserves the most perfect 



Disbuddwg of the Peach, secofid year. C and A Disbudding of th^ Peach, second year If no 

 are remcrved : B, B, furnish the wood for tJie fruit he borne on E, it is cut at F, leaving G 



following year. to furnish the fruiting wood for the following 



year. 



health in his trees. This repulsion of the sap to the lower parts 

 of the trees is also effected to some extent by the use of the wide 

 temporary coping, which guards against frost, and keeps the 

 growth down by partly excluding light from the upper part of the 

 wall. When it is removed, and when all danger of frost is past, 

 the sap has flowed so freely into the lower branches that but little 

 trouble is required to keep the tree in a perfectly equable state, all 

 parts of the wall doing a full amount of work. I noticed some 

 walls alongside a road at Montreuil made of blocks of plaster two 

 feet long, one foot high, and five inches thick, forming a strong 

 wall The blocks are sold at about fifty shillings per hundred. 



