Fruit Tree Protection, Cordons, etc. 385 



want of protection than that of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 which ought to be an example to the country. The wall pears and 

 other fruits in the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society, and in 

 the majority of gardens, instead of being protected from the frost, are 

 perhaps more exposed to its influence than the flowers of a standard 

 tree. The tree allowed to assume its natural shape has its blossoms 

 arranged in so many ways — some low in the tree and protected by 

 upper branches, some well exposed to the sun, and others on the late 

 and shady side — that it has a good chance of setting a sufiiciericy of 

 fruit. The pear grown against a wall, and equally exposed to the 

 sun in all its parts, is, on the other hand, induced to expose its 

 blossoms more at one time ; and the spurs projecting beyond the 

 usually insignificant coping of the wall against which the tree is 

 placed for heat and protection, it is a mere chance if the blossoms 

 escape destruction. So it is with other fruits. " Peaches promise 

 well" at Chiswick and elsewhere — doubtless because the close way 

 in which the slender shoots of the peach are nailed to the wall 

 secures it some protection from sleet and frosts, no matter how in- 

 significant the coping. 



Compared to this system of half-doing, that of the London 

 market-gardeners growing standard trees and cropping all the 

 ground underneath with bush fruits and vegetables, so as to secure 

 a crop in any case, is excellent ; and if they generally took the 

 trouble to thin the branchlets, so as to obtain larger and more per- 

 fect fruit, would leave nothing to desire, so far as kinds that grow 

 well as standards are concerned. Of the present state of wall-fruit 

 culture in this country, and of the necessity for improvement, there 

 can be no doubt. The remedies are simple and certain. The 

 adoption of the wide temporary coping of tarpaulin, nailed over 

 light frames about eighteen inches wide, described elsewhere in this 

 book, and which was the best and simplest and neatest of the 

 various copings I saw in use in France, would alone result in a vast 

 improvement to our crops of wall fruit. It is so light, so easily 

 placed, and so effective. Fixed close under whatever permanent 

 coping the wall may possess, and sloping down with a roof-like 



