348 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



berry, Cones of all sorts, Glazed Pine, Bostock, Chili, and a 

 great number of the Hautbois and Alpine varieties. 



British Queen was in commerce in 1840, and President about 

 1850. The 1842 catalogue of the Royal Horticultural Society 

 gives a list of twenty-six useful varieties and about 300 others 

 of no value, or synonymous. These were divided into classes by 

 Mr. Robert Thompson, the Curator, viz. — Class 1, Scarlets ; 2, 

 Blacks ; 3, Pines ; 4, Chili ; 5, Hautbois ; 6, Green ; 7, Alpine. 



So much for the autumn aspect of the garden. We must, 

 however, injustice to our forefathers, say that they took intense 

 pains and trouble to train their trees : the Peaches, Nectarines, 

 and Apricots were taken away from the walls annually ; the 

 walls washed with a dressing of soot, lime, and sulphur, with 

 soft soap and clay ; while the gathered-up boughs, carefully 

 secured to poles away from the wall, would be cleansed by 

 the snows and rains of winter and the free current of air. 

 After Christmas they would be carefully looked over and 

 pruned ; each bough and twig correctly trained, by a plumb line 

 tied to the main trunk, would be replaced on the wall with geo- 

 metrical precision. Such care would be followed by a timely 

 finger-and-thuinb practice on the fore-right shoots in April. It 

 beiug considered sacrilege to " knife " Peaches, in the early 

 summer, a few leaves would be taken away to assist the fruit to 

 colour. Later on a careful thinning of the fruit, judicious lay- 

 ing in of the finer shoots, and the removal of wood that had 

 fruited would ensure a crop for the following season. 



Such care is seldom exercised, we fear, on wall fruit in these 

 days, the gardener depending more on his crops from heated and 

 cool glass-houses. 



About this time Messrs. R. Thompson, at the Society's 

 Gardens ; Ronalds, of Brentford ; Wilmot & Chaundy, of 

 Lewisham ; Thomas Rivers, of Sawbridgeworth ; Osborn, of 

 Fulham ; Lee, of Hammersmith ; Pearson, of Chilwell ; and 

 Chandler, of Vauxhall, were the giants in fruit-tree culture. 

 Probably also our landed gentry had more frequent intercourse 

 with the Continent, which led to an awakened interest in fruit 

 growing ; and from what we can learn and have observed, any 

 fruit with a French name was then thought to be worthy of 

 culture, and Britain was flooded with varieties which time and 

 experience have proved to be worthless for our climate. In fact 



