215 
As regards the space required for each tree, when subjected 
to root pruning, planted in squares, or in rows by the sides of 
garden walks, six feet, tree from tree, will be found sufficient. 
For the form of the tree, the conical is indubitably the most 
agreeable, and generally convenient ; but for facility of protec- 
tion from spring frosts, or from birds by the cheap netting now 
so much used, trees trained as spreading bushes, the branches 
kept near the ground by hooked pegs, either of wood or iron 
ought to be tried. I feel confident the size and flavour of the 
fruit would be improved from being near such a radiating sur- 
face as the earth. 
Apples grafted on the Paradise stock, are astonishingly fruit- 
ful when root pruned, but in dry and poor soils, I should 
recommend the crab as a preferable stock. From the expe- 
rience of the last season, I can now confidently state, that Plums 
become equally prolific with other fruit trees when root pruned j 
and such esteemed Nuts, as the Cosford, the Frizzled Filbert, 
and the Dwarf Prolific Nut, may be made objects of much 
garden interest by being root pruned; the common Filbert 
might also be experimented on. The best form that can be 
given all the varieties of Nuts is tlie dwarf standard, with clear 
stems, two or three feet in height, and close compact heads, yet 
their shoots not too much crowded. Jt will not perhaps be out 
of place to enumerate here a few oftlie advantages of systematic 
root pruning. 
1st. The facility of thinning, and in some varieties, of set- 
ting the blossoms of shy bearing sorts, and of thinning and 
gathering the fruit. 
•2nd. It will make the gardener independent of the natural 
soil of his garden, as a few barrows-full of rich mould will sup- 
port a tree for a lengthened period, thus placing bad soils 
nearly on a level with those the most favourable. 
3rd. The capability of removing trees of fifteen or twenty 
years’ growth, with as much facility as furniture. To tenants 
tliis w ill indeed be a boon, for perhaps one of the greatest annoy- 
ances a tenant is subjected to, is, that of being obliged to leave 
behind him trees that he has nurtured with the utmost care. 
4th. The possibility of netting over a complete miniature 
Orchard, so as to protect it from the nipping frosts of spring, 
and the depredations of birds in summer. 
208 , ADCTABICU. 
