WALL FRUIT-TREES. 



423 



Esperioiie, S. ably well on the open wall in the 



Black Hamburgh, S. climate of London in fine seasons. 



Grizzly Frontignan, S. 



The Mulbeny is sometimes planted 

 The last two grapes ripen remark- ; against a west wall. 



889. Of all these different kinds of fruits, with the exception of the fig and 

 the grape, both short-stemmed and long-stemmed trees are to be procured in 

 the nurseries. The former, that is, the dwarfs, are for filling up the lower 

 parts of the wall, and ultimately also the upper part ; and the latter, the 

 standards or riders, are for filling up the upper part till the dwarfs are so far 

 advanced as to take their place, when the riders are taken up and thrown 

 away. Riders therefore should always be of early-bearing sorts. The plants 

 may be procured either one year grafted, or one, two, or three years trained, 

 the latter trees being double or treble the price of the former, but filling the 

 wall much sooner. As riders are but of temporary duration, it is customary 

 to procure them three or more years trained, that they may bear fruit imme- 

 diately. When the walls are under twelve feet high it is scarcely necessary 

 to plant riders ; for if three years trained trees are planted, the wall will be 

 covered to the top in seven years. 



890. The distance from each other at which the trees should be planted de- 

 pends on the species of tree, the climate, the height of the wall, and to a certain 

 extent also on the width of the border. The following distances are calcu- 

 lated for the dwarfs on a wall twelve feet high, with a border twelve feet 

 wide, in the climate of London : — Peaches, nectarines, and figs, fifteen feet 

 to twenty feet ; apricots, fifteen feet for the early sorts, and eighteen feet to 

 twenty-four feet for the late strong-growing sorts, as apricots and plums do 

 not bear pruning so well as other wall-trees ; cherries and plums, fifteen feet to 

 twenty feet, or the stronger-growing plums, such as the Washington, twenty- 

 four feet ; apples on dwarfing stocks, fifteen feet — if on free stocks, from 

 twenty-five feet to thirty feet ; mulberrieS;, from fifteen feet to twenty feet. 

 Vines may be planted among the other trees at thirty feet or forty feet dis- 

 tance, and a single stem from each plant trained up to the coping of the wall, 

 and then horizontally close under it, where if pruned in the spurring-in 

 manner (797) it will bear abundantly, and produce more saccharine fruit 

 than if it had been treated like a fruit-tree. If however the situation is 

 favourable for vines, they may be planted from ten feet to fifteen feet apart, 

 and trained either in the perpendicular manner (808), or horizontally with 

 upright laterals, or in the fan manner ; or several plants may be introduced 

 together, and trained in Mr. Hoare's manner, or in the Thomery system, to 

 be afterwards described. One rider, peach, cherry, or plum, may be intro- 

 duced between every dwaif, if the latter should be maiden plants ; but if 

 they are dwarfs three or four years trained, riders are unnecessary excepting 

 on walls above twelve feet high. 



891. For low walls the distances above given may be increased one-fourth, 

 when the height of the wall is only nine feet, and one-half when it is six 

 feet. The mode of training for walls under nine feet should generally be 

 the half-fan manner, shown in fig. 318 in p. 375. The intervals between 

 the trees may be filled up for three or four years with gooseberries or cur- 

 rants ; each plant trained to a single upright stem, and spurred in. By thus 

 having only one shoot from a plant, the top of the wall will be reached by 



