New and Cheap Method of making Garden Walls. 209 



rally, and very much to its loss. This is perhaps one reason why, 

 with all our advances, a stock of really good winter pears is a thing 

 but rarely seen, even in large, expensive gardens ; and there can be 

 no greater loss to a fruit-garden than that. This want extends even 

 to our markets. In London, for instance, if you want a really good 

 pear in January, you can get it, it is true, at a very high price, and 

 in one spot or so in this enormous city ; in Paris you will probably 

 pay a high price for it too, but you may there obtain it in any part 

 of the town where there is a good restaurant. It may perhaps be 

 said that climate makes the difference, but no such thing. The 

 French, to have in highest perfection such fine pears as St. Germain, 

 Winter Nelis, Crassane, and Beurre d'Aremberg, grow them on 

 walls around Paris. We should do the same with these and others, 

 and could produce an equally good result by doing so. 



Let us pass by the important subject of winter pears for the 

 present, and just glance at the peach question. This fruit attains 

 the finest possible condition when well grown against walls in this 

 country. In others they may grow it freely as a standard tree; in 

 none can they produce better fruit than may be gathered from walls 

 in England and Ireland. France has very' diverse climates, some 

 in which the peach grows well as a standard ; but the best peaches 

 she grows are gathered from walls in those parts where the climate 

 is very like our own. There can be no doubt whatever about the 

 fact, that if we pay as much attention to the peach as the cultiva- 

 tors of Montreuil do, we can attain quite as good a result. It cannot 

 be too widely known that no fruit-tree nailed against walls furnishes 

 a more certain and regular crop than the peach when well treated. 

 Yet, what is the fact ? Why, that except a small place known as 

 Central-row, Covent Garden, where you pay from 8(f. to li. for 

 an eatable peach, and g^Z. and i^d. each for worse than are sold in 

 Paris for one halfpenny each, and fit for nothing but pig-feeding, 

 London may be said to be without this delicious fruit. And there 

 are thousands of private places very badly off for it also. Our good 

 gardeners understand its culture well enough, but of late years 

 public attention has, by various means which need not be detailed 



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