84 



lent peaches than Montreuil, in the vicinity of Paris. 

 Some notice of this has heen taken in the first section 

 of this volume ; but the success which attends the 

 practice there adopted requires that it should be 

 more particularly noticed. We give such notice more 

 readily because we have it detailed by Mr. J. Smith, 

 gardener at Hopetown House, accompanied by his 

 excellent comments. 



The training of fruit-trees on walls, though an arti- 

 ficial operation, is not the work of arbitrary caprice. 

 There are some limits which cannot be passed with- 

 out nullifying the purpose of all training, viz., the 

 production of fruit. These arise from the peculiar 

 growth of the tree, its duration, the mode in which 

 the fruit is produced, and other circumstances con- 

 nected with the theory of vegetation. Thus, in the 

 peach, the tendency to fork, and the growth of the 

 fruit, not on spurs, but on the young wood, has in- 

 troduced the semi-stellular or fan-training ; at least in 

 all cases in which its culture has been most skilfully 

 practised. Other limits, such as the equilibrium of 

 the sap, and the greatest possible facility of reproduc- 

 ing fruit-branches, have restricted the French to cer- 

 tain varieties of what has been called the open fan- 

 training. All these modifications proceed upon a 

 principle which is much insisted on, viz., the suppres- 

 sion of the direct channel of the sap. Most fruit- 

 trees, when left to themselves, form an upright stem 



