LOW SITUATIONS. 203 



" The first year after the operation I had the secret pleasure of seeing 



my trees make healthy shoots, from nine to fifteen inches long, withont 



any thick, curled leaves. The first shoots and leaves that were made 



were not injured as previously, but continued healthy all through the 



spring and summer, ripening their wood early in the autumn, and 



forming fine blossom-buds for the ensuing season; and what fruit 



appeared was earlier than usual by three weeks, with an excellent 



flavour, equal to any on a hot wall. The year after the operation we 



had plenty of fine fruit, early and well-flavoured. I did not think so 



much offimely-trained trees, pruned, and nailed according to the rules 



of the art, as of seeing a wall well covered in the season, when the 



proprietor expects to find something more substantial than a smart 



appearance ; I trained the young shoots in any direction I could lay 



them in, so as to cover the bare spaces. After the first years I had 



more Peaches and Apricots large and weU-flavoured than could be well 



consumed by the family. I tried the same experiment upon other kinds 



of fruit-trees, especially Pears, with the same success; and I also 



planted a great number of young fruit-trees of various kinds on 



' prepared bottoms,' to prevent the roots getting too deep in such an 



unfavourable situation, where nearly all the first-planted trees had 



failed, become cankered, and were rooted out, having never produced 



fruit fit to send to table. Had I continued ia his lordship's service, I 



intended, after the roots had extended over those prepared bottoms, and 



struck down into the damp ungenial subsoil, to have shortened and 



raised them again to the outsides of these prepared bottoms, which 



were from four to five feet iu diameter for the dwarf trees in the borders 



by the sides of the main walks, and about the same diameter for the 



trees against the walls. I prepared my young trees for such planting 



by haviag them for a year or two in the garden, so as to have long 



roots to spread horizontally, when I finally planted them out on the 



prepared bottoms, taking especial care afterwards not to dig deep over 



the roots. The materials of which the prepared bottoms were formed 



consisted chiefly of broken bricks, tUea, cinders, and slags from the 



hothouse furnaces or fire-places, with lime crops or riddlings over all, 



firmly rammed down hard, from eighteen to twenty-four inches thick, 



with about a foot of good soil over them, and elevated a little in the 



centre to plant them on." 



This experiment seems to have laid the foundation of the modern 

 system of root-pruning, and root-raising, when fruit-trees are doomed 

 to grow iu places unsuited to them. 



It has been said that, to obtain the most favourable con- 

 ditions of climate in this country, a garden should have a 

 south-eastern exposure. This, however, has been recom- 

 mended, I think, without full consideration. It is true that in 



