620 



NOTES OF A HORTICULTURAL TOUR. 



very poor and liglit and dry^ tlie tendency to over vigour would 

 be repressed^ and tlie Doucin prove tlie most desirable stock. 



What a happy thing it is that stocks which possess 

 such admirable qualities are known and easily procured ! 

 Your soil is rich deep loam_, wet_, cold_, or stiff. Use the 

 French Paradise, and you obtain large and beautiful fruit. 

 But plant the same on a very poor, dry, hungry, or cal- 

 careous soil, and it is almost useless. But then we have the 

 Doucin, which suits the poor soils to perfection, to fall back 

 upon, and thus the best results may be produced on soils of 

 very diverse and even very bad qualities. I measured some 

 of the larger Apples here, and found that many were as 

 much as ten, eleven, and eleven and a half inches in cir- 

 cumference on the morning of the 13th of July, though 

 they were still green and swelling, and not to be gathered 

 till October. Spring frosts occur here frequently, and my 

 guide mentioned the absence of frost during the month of 

 May of the past year as a very extraordinary occurrence. 

 Here, as in every garden, the cultivator remarks, the cordons 

 " are good and take up little space.'''' Of course, in a large 

 public nursery like this, little lines of trees under the eye 

 of numerous daily visitors, who may at times buy such of 

 them as they fancy, cannot be exhibited in the perfect state 

 I have seen them in private gardens ; besides, a number of 

 kinds are planted, and not those known to be best worth 

 growing, and yet sufficient proof of the excellence of the 

 system was here afforded. 



The Pear was not growing as a cordon, although the 

 Apple was so abundantly grown in that way, the Pear being 

 considered unsuitable ; and this I am strongly inclined to 

 think is the case, from having observed the results of nu- 

 merous plantations of horizontal cordon Pears. I have, 

 however, known excellent crops to be gathered off Louise 

 Bonne trained thus, and doubt not that a small and choice 

 selection would be worthy of planting, especially where they 

 could be safely protected in spring. One of the first things 

 that meet the eye of the ^dsitor is a nice crop of Beurre 

 Clairgeau on a hedge formed of that variety. Several similar 

 hedges are formed beside it, and arranged rather closely 



