HOW ARE WE TO IMPROVE ? 329 



time; and it is sheer folly to bestow these on kinds which 

 will produce as good a result if grown as standard trees, 

 requiring hardly any attention, and actually permitting of 

 as good a crop of some things being gathered from under 

 them as if the trees did not exist. Perhaps there may be 

 a few espaliers in the garden ; but they are usually so very 

 few, and so very badly managed and ugly, that little fruit 

 is got from them. I look forward to the time when the 

 well trained espalier, on its cheap, neat, and permanent 

 trellis of galvanized wire, will run along within a few feet 

 of every garden walk ; but little can be reaped from such 

 as we have at present. It follows, then, that in private 

 grounds there is as a rule no source from which an abun- 

 dant stock of the better kinds of hardy fruit may be gathered. 

 Most of our fruits are wholesome and delicious food, or 

 capable of being made so. They should be much more 

 abundant than they are at present, and might form part of 

 the daily meal of every Briton. But if the country gentle- 

 man, to whom the production of these fruits should be a 

 matter of the greatest ease, does not lead the way, how are 

 we to improve ? The chief thing necessary is to plant an 

 orchard, carefully choosing the site, and, above all things, 

 selecting the very best kinds, all perfectly hardy, and such 

 as ripen their fruit every year, be the season what it may. 

 Such an orchard would be very convenient near the garden, 

 and in fact might form part and parcel of it ; but as the 

 care required is nearly none, except the pleasant one of 

 gathering the fruit, it would not matter much about its 

 position. The first consideration should be the selection of 

 the most suitable soil at the owner's disposal. Not an inch 

 of space of the whole need be lost. All the trees should be 

 allowed to grow as standards, and the crops to be gathered 

 from them would soon put to shame the few dozens that are 

 considered a wonderful crop on the wall or dwarf tree. All the 

 wall, dwarf, and espalier trees might then be exclu- 

 sively kinds that require some additional heat or atten- 

 tion, or that the shelter and support of the espalier and 

 the cordon are an advantage to. As protection of some 

 kind might be provided for most of these carefully trained 



