318 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



peach does not yet appear to be localised in this country, the 

 cultivation must, therefore, be highly artificial. I daresay most 

 amateurs will agree with me that it is difficult to comprehend 

 the mysteries of peach-training on walls as described by numer- 

 ous authors ; the success obtained seems to be always dubious 

 and uncertain, arising, of course, from vicissitudes of the climate. 

 My own knowledge of the peach is derived exclusively from 

 culture under glass, and there ought to be no uncertainty with 

 this protection. I cannot help, however, thinking that the ordi- 

 nary system of wall training is altogether wrong ; it is quite 

 contrary to the physical well-being of a tree to place half of the 

 stem in the shade and expose the other half to the sun. A very 

 slight examination of the subject will be sufficient to convince 

 any observer of the error which has been perpetrated by closely 

 nailing a tree to a wall. A familiar instance is the condition of 

 the cucumber lying on the ground ; the part of the fruit which is 

 in the shade is yellow and unhealthy, and the part exposed to 

 the sun green and healthy. This is precisely the condition 

 of the peach tree fastened to a wall. Another source of mischief 

 and disease to the tree is the practice of using shreds for nailing. 

 Every part of the bark covered by shreds and shrouded from 

 the sun is rendered unhealthy and weak; and, consequently, 

 the entire system is affected, producing quite as much as the 

 climate the diseases peculiar to the peach — blister, curled 

 leaves, aphis green, brown, and black, red spider, &c. ; the 

 tree not only being injured by the ligatures, by which its 

 growth is restricted, but suffering from the refraction of heat 

 from the wall, to which one side only of its surface is exposed in 

 summer, and also from the continuous cold of the winter. Some 

 years since, when at Montreuil, I noticed that the trees were not 

 fastened to the wall but trained at some inches distant, and that 

 the walls were whitewashed and surmounted in every case by a 

 coping. I think this system should always be followed in Eng- 

 land where glass culture is not used. For my own part I believe, 

 to ensure success, that trees should be grown under glass, and 

 that if the tree can be planted so that both sides are exposed to 

 the sun, the results would be better than those gained by the 

 ordinary trellis training, in which one side only is exposed ; 

 although, of course, this is not such a vicious system as that 

 carried on by wall training without trellises. As there are many 



