xxvi 



INTRODUCTION. 



not write to praise the Prencli;, but to point out in what 

 way we may learn from them. That they^ too, may learn 

 from us will be apparent when I state that intelligent 

 frenchmen have pointed doubtfully at plants of Rhubarb 

 and Seakale — two of our most excellent vegetable products — 

 and asked if it were true that we eat them in England ! 

 The general introduction into France of these two vegetables, 

 with constitutions as vigorous as the most rampant weeds, 

 and never failing to furnish abundant yields, would not 

 merely be a gain to the gardens and markets of a great 

 vegetable and fruit-eating people like the French, but a 

 material addition to the true riches and food supplies of the 

 country. 



Of the practices which we may with advantage, and 

 which indeed we must adopt from the French — for the 

 fittest win the day, no matter how long the struggle — those 

 of fruit culture command our first attention, because good 

 fruit culture combines the beautiful and the useful in a very 

 high degree. 



There are at least six important ways in which we may 

 highly improve and enrich our fruit gardens and fruit stores. 



First, by planting against walls, with a warm southern 

 exposure and a white surface, the very finest kinds of 

 winter Pears — the Pears that keep, the Pears that bring 

 a return, the Pears that cost the consumer a shilling or 

 more eacri in the London markets after Christmas — the 

 Pears of which the French now send us thousands of pounds 

 worth annually. By doing this we shall in less than 

 ten years have a magnificent stock of these noble fruits 

 all over the country, and be able to export the fruit we now 

 import so largely. Varieties of winter Pears are frequently 

 planted in the open, in all parts of these islands, that an 

 experienced fruit grower in the neighbourhood of Paris or 

 even further south would never plant away from a warm 

 sunny wall, knowing well that it would be wasteful ignorance 

 " to do so. 



Secondly, by the general adoption of the cordon system 

 of apple growing in gardens. This will enable us to produce 

 a finer class of fruit than that grown in orchards. It may 



