428 



VINES AT FONTAINEBLEAU. 



Grape at Bath, growing in a garden formerly belonging to 

 Mr. Farrant, the stem of which, owing to local circumstances, 

 is necessarily conveyed to a very considerable distance before 

 it is allowed to produce its beaiing branches, the quality 

 of whose fruit is of very unusual excellence. These facts seem 

 Capable of being applied to many important improvements, 

 in fruit management. 



Fig, ZCIII. — ^Vine-training at Fontainebleau. 



The foregoing are the principal advantages which arise from 

 training plants ; let us next consider what disadvantages there 

 may be. The only trees which at all approach in nature the 

 state of trained plants are climbers and creepers, whose stems, 

 unable to support themselves, cling for a prop upon whatever 

 they are near ; , some of them enclose the stem of another plant 

 in their convolutions; others simply attach themselves by 

 means of tendrils as the Vine, by hooks as the Combretum, or 

 by other contrivances; and some, like the Ivy, lay hold of 

 walls, rocks, or the trunks of trees, by their rootlets. To none 



