220 On the Culture of the Peach and Apricot. 



distance behind them; and between these stakes twisted 

 bands of Pea straw were interwoven. A mat was then 

 fixed to the top of these stakes, and thrown forward, over the 

 trees, to protect them during the night, and returned back to 

 the other side of the stakes during the day. The materials 

 here used, exclusive of the mat, are scarcely of any value, 

 and the time and trouble necessary, will be found very incon- 

 siderable ; and if I may be allowed to judge from the results 

 of a very few experiments, made under very unfavourable 

 circumstances, as to climate, I cannot doubt, but that abun- 

 dant crops of Peaches might certainly be obtained from 

 Espalier trees, in the vicinity of , London, and in all the 

 warmer parts of the island; for those I obtained, though 

 small, were not defective, either in maturity or flavour, and 

 became ripe within about a fortnight after those, which grew 

 upon a south wall. 



Every variety of the Apricot, even the Moor-park, might, I 

 am quite confident, be thus cultivated with the most perfect 

 success ; and the fruit, though smaller, would probably be 

 found better flavoured, than that obtained from walls. 



Less ample means of protection than those above detailed, 

 would, I conceive, be generally found adequate to protect 

 the blossoms of the Apricot, and of many of the less delicate 

 varieties of the Peach : for I recollect an instance, in which 

 a standard double-blossomed Peach tree, in the vicinity of 

 London, bore several successive, and rather abundant, crops 

 of fruit ; and if trees of any hardy variety of the Peach were 

 trained in rows, in the direction of north and south, and mats 

 were thrown over them at night, so secured as to descend on 

 each side, nearly in the angle of the ordinary roof of a build- 



