CARRIAGE FOR MOVING ORANGE TREES. 



561 



The apparatus costs a mere trifle^ as will be seen from 

 the following estimate. A press made of oak and beech^ 

 with the rope included^ only costs eighteen francs ; if it 

 were made of iron it would possibly cost less. For a ball 

 six or seven feet in circumference and eighteen to twenty 

 inches high, the boards, hoops, cask bottom, sheet of iron, 

 and nails would cost less than a couple of francs. If still 

 greater economy is desirable, what are known as Yankee flour 

 barrels may be used, if they are cut in two and taken to pieces. 

 "With these simple appliances two men can prepare five trees a 

 day ready for hoisting on to the cart intended to receive them. 



Carriage for transporting Orange Trees. — The fashion 

 of growing large Orange trees in tubs is so general in France 

 that some efficient means of moving them from place to 

 place becomes necessary. Many contrivances have been 

 tried, and several are in use, but the best and handiest is 

 that employed for the carriage of the large specimens in the 

 gardens of the Tuileries. For the following notice of it I 

 am indebted to my friend Mr. John Gibson, the able and 

 deservedly popular superintendent of Battersea Park, who has 

 long taken a deep interest in the public gardening of Paris : — 



" The machine used in the gardens of the Tuileries for 

 removing large Orange trees in tubs, of which a longitudinal 

 representation is given on the next page, is the most use- 

 ful contrivance I have seen in use for this purpose. Its 

 simplicity and the facility with which the tubs are lifted for 

 transit are its chief recommendations ; no taking to pieces 

 or removal of the side beams, prior to load- 

 ing, is necessary, beyond the removal of 

 the hind axle, which consists of a strong 

 wrought-iron bar with a hook at each end, g===a 

 the hooks fitting into an eye fixed on the in- 

 side of the stock of the hind wheels. They are made fast with a 

 pin through each hook; when this bar is removed the machine 

 is backed to the tub, one of the hind wheels passing it on 

 each side until the tub is midway between the fore and hind 

 wheels where the lifting apparatus is fixed. This being done 

 the axle bar is fixed and the machine is ready for loading. 



" The stirrups attached to the lower end of the upright 



o o 



