TRAINING. 
35 
able time to the subject, states that common salt and chloride of 
lime contribute greatly to the flowering of most plants, to which, 
however, they can only be applied, with safety, in small quanti- 
ties. “Salts of lime,” he continues, “appear to produce so 
nearly the same effect as those of potash and soda, that it is only 
necessary to place lime within their reach, if there is no defici- 
ency of manure in the shape of general food. Lime will in the 
main promote, in an astonishing degree, the fruit and flowering 
of most plants, because calcareous salts promote evaporation 
and the concentration of sap.” 
Although we cannot coincide with many of Dr. Schultz’s 
views as expressed in this work, yet the remarks just quoted 
agree so entirely with facts that have come under our own ob- 
servation, that we gladly place them before the cultivator of fruit 
trees. One of the most productive fruit gardens in our know- 
ledge is on a limestone soil, and another more than usually pro- 
lific, in a neighbourhood not very fruitful, is every year treated 
with a top dressing of coarse salt, at the rate of two bushels to the 
acre. These facts are surely worth the attention of growers, and 
should be the subject of more extended and careful experiments. 
Rendering trees more fruitful by dwarfing , and by adapting 
them to soils naturally unfruitful by growing them upon other 
and better stocks, we have already placed before the reader 
under the head of Grafting . _ 
CHAPTER IV. 
TRAINING. 
Training fruit trees is, thanks to our favourable climate, a 
proceeding entirely unnecessary in the greater part of the United 
States. Our fine dry summers, with the great abundance of 
strong light and sun, are sufficient to ripen fully the fruits of 
temperate climates, so that the whole art of training, at once the 
trial and triumph of skill with English fruit gardeners, is quite 
dispensed with : and in the place of long lines of brick wall 
and espalier rails, surrounding and dividing the fruit garden, 
all covered with carefully trained trees, we are proud to show 
the open orchard, and the borders in the fruit garden filled 
with thrifty and productive standards. Nothing surprises a Bri- 
tish gardener more, knowing the cold of our winter, than the 
first sight of peaches, and other fine fruits, arriving at full per- 
fection in the middle states, with so little care ; and he sees at 
once that three fourths of the great expense of a fruit garden 
here is rendered entirely needless. 
Training fruit trees, in this country, is therefore confined to 
