THE HARDY FRUIT GARDEN. 



123 



Size. — This may vary from a rod to an acre or 

 several acres. But apart from the orchard, which is 

 not included in our idea of a fruit garden, it seldom 

 may exceed a quarter or half an acre. Of course? 

 much depends on the size and hahits of the family, 

 and whether all the fruit is to he consumed at home 

 or part of it disposed of to others. 



Neither need fruit gardens be nearly so large as 

 formerly. For the last twenty years the chief im- 

 provements in fruit- culture have run in two direc- 

 tions—the forcing of the trees into earlier fruit- 

 fulness, and the gathering of more fruit from less 

 space. The huge trees of the olden times have 

 been cut down into pillars, pyramids, bushes, cor- 

 dons ; and these small trees have been forced into an 

 amount of fertility within a limit of time that would 

 have read like a fairy tale to the older cultivators. 

 Such wholesale reduction in the size of trees, and in 

 the intervening j)eriod between their starting and 

 maturity, have enabled the size of fruit gardens to be 

 cut down to the smallest limits, until it is hardly an 

 exaggeration to assert that every yard of earth may 

 grow a fruit-tree to perfection. When the general 

 public becomes thoroughly alive to the revolution 

 that has been effected in fruit- culture, through the 

 employment of dwarfing and fructifying stocks, the 

 practice of root-pruning, and the introduction of re- 

 pressive systems of treatment and ti-aining, fruit-trees 

 will find their way into every garden, and fi'uit gar- 

 dens become as plentiful and common as the never- 

 failing flower-bed and borders of dwarf trees or 

 shrubs. As already stated, the fruit garden might 

 readily be made as beautiful as either, while far more 

 profitable. The smaller it is, the more productive as 

 a rule, and thus more interesting, neither cultural 

 skill nor taste being necessarily associated with size. 



Plan. — ^The character of the fruit garden may 

 be infinitely varied. For example, it may be a 

 square, a parallelogram, an oval, or a circle, enclosed 

 with walls or hedges, or not enclosed at all. The 

 different fruits may be massed in blocks, or mai- 

 shalled in lines, each sort of fruit grown together, 

 or different sorts mixed, trees massed in one place, 

 bush fruit in another, or the two interlined. Again, 

 the surface may be on a dead level, even fall, or be 

 chosen or made as irregular as possible. For ex- 

 ample, one of the most successfiil fruit gardens ever 

 seen by the writer was thrown into a series of ridges 

 and furrows, the warmest sides of the ridges being 

 nine feet, and the cooler sides six. The character, 

 number, width, and direction of the walks introduce 

 an endless source of variety ; while not a ievi fruit 

 gardens are almost made or marred on the question of 

 walks or no walks.' The walks may also be raised 

 above, sunk below, or made even with the surface. 



It may also be remarked in passing that there seems 

 no particular reason why walks should be almost 

 invariably straight in fruit gardens. "Where they 

 are so, a good plan to furnish shade, and add to the 

 beauty, plenty, and enjoyment of the garden, is to 

 throw light wire or iron arches over the main 

 paths, and use them as trainers for Apple, Pear, 

 Cherry, or other fruit-trees. A marvellous amount 

 of variety may be thrown into fruit gardens by 

 furnishing them with trees of different character. 

 For example, the old-fashioned semi-forest-like fruit- 

 trees of the olden times, with which the more 

 primitive fruit gardens were chiefly furnished, have 

 almost disappeared before the trim pillars and. 

 pyramids, squat bushes, vases, and cordons, the 

 natural products jf dwarfing stocks and new me- 

 thods of root-pruning. 



Returning to our starting-point, few things give 

 greater variety to the fruit garden than the vital 

 difference involved between the two extremes oi 

 walls and no walls. Again, walls of differing 

 heights greatly alter the character of gardens. In 

 regard to this, it may be said that the age of high 

 walls from fourteen to sixteen feet has ]3assed away. 

 When well furnished, these were simply magnifi- 

 cent ; but, with all the help given by rich borders, 

 they took years to f ui'nish, and they cast a baleful 

 shade behind, thus giving a dark and sombre look 

 and feeling to many a fruit garden of the old school. 



But the use of walls not only im^mrts shelter and 

 conserves heat, but gi-eatly widens and extends the 

 area of cultivation by rendering the successful cul- 

 ture of such luscious fruits as Peaches, Nectarines, 

 Apricots, Plums, and the finer Pears in the open 

 air possible in our climate. By cutting down their 

 height to an average of ten or twelve feet, their 

 efficiency is increased, their thickness and conse- 

 quent cost greatly diminished. By adopting curvi- 

 linear, panelled, and pillared walls, a maximum 

 amount of stability and jDrotection may be obtained at 

 a minimum cost. These forms also introduce more 

 beauty into fruit gardens than the more common 

 straight walls. 



For mere purposes of shelter, living hedges of 

 Beech, Yew, Privet, Arborvitte, Box, Holly, or 

 other plants are quite as efficient as walls. Even 

 dead screens may be utilised for purposes of pro- 

 tection to fruit-trees ; and some of the finest fruit- 

 trees ever seen hy the writer were ripened on a 

 fence formed of furze, firmly fixed in position with 

 a rough line of strong stakes. 



In not a few situations fruit gardens are as well 

 or better without screens or shelter of any sort, 

 and excess of shelter is always injuiious. It often 

 attenuates and weakens fruit-trees so much, that they 

 suffer more from the indirect effects of the shelter 



