xxviii 



INTRODUCTION. 



desirable where the soil is too light and poor for the health 

 and full development of large wide-spreading trees. In the 

 last edition of the book of our most popular English teacher of 

 Iruit culture are these words : — A wall covered with healthy- 

 Peach or Nectarine trees of a good ripe age is rarely to be 

 seen ; failing crops and blighted trees are the rule, healthy 

 and fertile trees the exception \" We can alter this by the 

 adoption of the compact cordon, U or double U forms 

 figured in this book, by a better system of pruning, and by 

 thoroughly protecting the trees in spring. 



Fifthly, by adopting for every kind of fruit tree grown 

 against walls a more efficient and simple mode of protection 

 than we now use. In speaking of fruit culture, nothing is 

 more common than to hear our climate spoken of as the 

 cause of all our deficiencies — the fine climate of northern 

 France being supposed to do everything for the cultivator. 

 The value of this view of the case is well illustrated by the 

 fact that all good practical fruit growers about Paris take 

 care to protect their fruit walls in spring by means of wide 

 temporary copings. In this country I have never anywhere 

 seen a really efficient temporary coping, though endless time is 

 wasted in placing on boughs, nets, &c., none of which are in 

 the least efiective in protecting the trees from the cold 

 sleety rains, which, if they do not destroy or enfeeble the 

 fertilizing power of the blossoms, prepare them to become 

 an easy prey to the frost. 



Sixthly, by the acquirement and difi'usion among every 

 class of gardeners and even garden-labourers of a know- 

 ledge of budding, grafting, pruning, and training equal 

 to that now possessed by the French. Many of the illu- 

 strations in this book show the mastery they possess over 

 each detail of training — the branches of every kind of 

 tree being conducted in any way the trainer may desire, 

 and with the greatest ease. This knowledge is quite com- 

 mon amongst small amateurs and workmen whose fellows 

 in this country would not know where to put a knife in 

 a tree. There are numerous professors who teach it in 

 France ; it is not taught at all or in the most imperfect 

 manner in this country, where it is really of far greater 



