LOW SITUATIONS, HOW IMPEOVED. 201 



situations, with a cold bottom, the following operation, described 

 by Mr, W. BiUington the elder, may be advantageously imitated : — 

 "About the middle of June 1800, I arrived at Brocklesby, Lincoln- 

 shire, as gardener to the late Lord Yarborough. At that advanced 

 season I found the Peach-trees in a deplorable state, with scarcely any 

 leaves upon them, few branches, and very little fruit ; the few leaves 

 that remained were all curled or diseased, and soon after shrivelled up 

 and feU off. The trees were not very old— about thirty years, but had 

 extended over a, fine wall without flues. The site of the garden was 

 very unfavourable, a worse could not have been found near the mansion ; 

 for it was both low and wet. Previously to its being made into a 

 garden, the water used to stagnate and cover a great part of it through 

 the winter ; but it had been drained at a great expense, and fresh soU 

 had been brought in for the fruit-tree borders, &c. But after aU. the 

 situation could not be essentially improved, nor the ill effects upon 

 vegetables and tender fruit-trees entirely averted in an atmosphere so 

 damp from the exhalations that arise in such places in the autumn and 

 spring months, when sunny days and frosty nights are so prevalent. 

 The fruit-tree borders had been weU made and well drained ; the trees 

 had grown luxuriantly and covered the walls : but no fruit was pro- 

 duced of any consequence, and that was not well-ilavoured, either on 

 the walls or elsewhere. The Peaches and Apricots on walls would make 

 efforts in the spring of each year to produce wood and leaves, hut when 

 the cold weather prevailed, in April, May, and June, with easterly 

 winds and frost, the leaves became diseased and curled, and were either 

 pulled off or fell of themselves in June or July. Thus the trees became 

 inactive for want of healthy leaves, at the time when they should have 

 been making and perfecting the wood for the next year's crop. But 

 towards the end of summer, when the earth had become dry and warm 

 to a great <iepth, the trees would make fresh efforts and throw out 

 plenty of strong luxuriant shoots. Then the early autumnal frosts 

 would set in before such late wood was half matured, so that during 

 the winter and spring the greater part of these strong shoots was killed, 

 and the remainder had no time to make strong flower-buds. And thus, 

 season after season, there was nothing but disappointment, notwith- 

 standing an immense expense : the walls were bare, the trees naked 

 and unsightly, without fruit or with luxuriant or cankered wood. 

 Instead of rooting out these sickly trees and planting young ones in 

 their places that I might have the pleasure of planting and training my 

 own trees under my own management, knowing it would be several 

 years before there could be fruit from young trees, I was induced to 

 consider what I could do to bring the existing trees to bear a little fruit 

 till young trees could arrive at a bearing state, between the old ones ; 

 for nearly aU the old Peaches and Nectarines were destitute of young 

 wood half the height of the wall. Early in the autumn of the year 



