September 58, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
281 
T O many of the younger generation the meeting of the veterans, so 
pleasantly recorded in the pages of the Journal three weeks 
ago (page 236), must have been highly interesting, and if a young 
man’s record of a young man’s work may be allowed to follow the 
sketch of the veteran's longer experience I should like to give it. I 
felt tempted to ask at first for a special gathering of younger men round 
the council fire to whom to address my story, but after all it may be 
gratifying to the old chiefs of the gardening tribe to hear of those 
of the younger generation growing up around them who are 
animated by the same ideals, and endowed with the same sterling 
qualities. The time will come when the old workers must lay aside 
the spade and the pen, and it can hardly be other than gratifying 
to them to think that when that time comes their teaching will 
live on, and be developed to the common good as others have been 
before them. 
High cultivation has but a vague meaning to many minds. 
Mention of it is usually received in a tolerative spirit as a something 
which, although devoid of practical shape, still merits respect as an 
admirable abstract jrinciple. It is not looked upon as actually 
implying the production of good crops of fruit on trees which 
formerly yielded bad ones, or heavy crops of vegetables where the 
land originally gave light and unsatisfactory returns. But it is my 
present purpose to show that it has a tangible force and value, and 
that far from being an abstract theory it is a principle pregnant 
with practical results. It has been my good fortune to enter many 
■well managed gardens this season, and the latest affords a splendid 
instance of what high culture can do. It is a Sussex garden, 
entered through handsome lodge gates about two miles past 
Crawley on the main Brighton road. The proprietor, Philip 
Saillard, Esq., is a wealthy merchant, who has made himself the 
owner of a vast estate, and has devoted time, money, and intelli¬ 
gence to improving it. The gardens are admirably laid out, the 
houses handsome and substantial, exhibiting excellence of materia^, 
workmanship, and design. Indeed, the whole place is such as the 
proprietor may well look upon with pride and satisfaction. 
I turn now to the gardener’s part, and so get at last to my story. 
The fruit at Buchan Hill, for that is the name of Mr, Saillard's 
splendid place, is a great object lesson to those who are unable to 
form any definite conception of the meaning of the term “ high 
•ulture.” The large, walled-in kitchen garden contains a collection 
of trees, which for skilful management, healthy condition, and 
productiveness, are not to be excelled in any garden which I have 
yet seen, and are equalled by very few. They are a remarkable 
example of the results which follow an intelligent prosecution of a 
few leading principles. As models of pruning and training, of 
health and cleanliness, and of fruitfulness, they are equally striking, 
and in whatever aspect they are considered they constitute an 
eloquent testimony to the advantages of culture. 
The gardener, a young man named Martin, went to the place 
as foreman, and took full charge between four and five years ago. 
In that time outside witnesses, well capable of judging, tell me that 
he has effected an extraordinary transformation. For my own part 
I can only speak of the present, not of the past. Peaches and 
Nectarines on a wall facing due east are now in magnificent order, 
whatever they may have been a few years ago. They are huge trees 
splendidly trained, with healthy, well-developed, clean foliage, and 
No, 692. —VoL. XXVII., Third Series. 
have carried good crops of fruit. Walburton Admirable, Eoyal 
George, Noblesse, and Dymond are four of the leading sorts. The trees 
were lifted last year, and are now well furnished with bearing wood. 
Lifting is the young gardener’s prescription for barrenness. He 
practises it with all kinds. The labour must be great, but the results 
are unmistakeahle. 
A long si retch of cordons on the same wall as the Peaches have 
been recently planted. The quality of the material, as well as the 
nearness to Cheal’s, suggests their birthplace. The espaliers, which 
run nearly all round the garden, are in first-rate order. They are 
well established trees, and have filled their allotted space. Enormous 
quantities of fruit are yielded by them. There is grand fruit of the 
two stewers, Uvedale’s St. Germains and Catillac. Beurre 
Capiaumont is heavily laden, in fact the tree is brown with fruit, and 
almost the same might be said of Brown Beurre and Easter Beurrd, 
while Beurre Sterckmans, Beurre Diel, Beurre Superfin, Pitmaston 
Duchess, and Beurre Hardy are bearing exceptional crops. So heavy 
is the burden of fruit that it is natural to express a doubt if the trees 
are not overcropped. But the growth, it is observed, is of the right 
sort, and by no means points to a debilitated condition. The secret 
is in the condition of the roots and the soil. Lifting and re-lifting, 
with the concomitant shortening of coarse “ prongs,” has resulted in 
the production of a network of feeding fibres, and the medium in 
which they ramify has been consistently enriched. 
Even more noteworthy than the espaliers and wall trees are the 
pyramids. It would be difficult to produce a more perfectly healthy 
and fruitful type. Though termed pyramids, they are not so formal 
as the average tree of that class, and might almost be described as 
intermediate between the pure pyramid and the open bush favoured 
by many cultivators. The course of training pursued has evidently 
been conducted with a view to securing neatness and shapeliness 
without excessive formality. The bushes are open through the thin 
disposal of the main branches, which are 15 to 18 inches apart, and 
they bear magnificent fruit, which is of great size, and as smooth and 
clean as indoor Nectarines. The moderate extension that is permitted 
affords a natural outlet for the inherent energies of the trees, and 
their open character favours complete solidification and maturation. 
Root management is again advanced as one of the great factors in 
successful management. “ Use the knife less and the spade more ” 
is this young gardener’s creed. Numbers of trees which never bore 
a good crop, the roots being in an unsatisfactory state, the soil 
exhausted, and the branches in a tangled mass, crossing and 
re-crossing each other, so that, as my companion put it, “ you 
couldn’t see half through them,” are now bearing splendid crops. 
You can see all the way through them now, and a fine display of 
fruit is included in the survey. 
This affords one side of the practical aspect which I have claimed 
for the term “ high cultivation.” In this garden, where the trees 
once gave but a poor return, they now yi Id produce that would shine 
prominently at any exhibition. I might pass for a moment from 
the type to a variety. Some of the finest pyramids are Pitmaston 
Duchess, and with these notes I hand the Editor two Pears from one 
of the trees. One is a large, clean, shapely example, weighing 
15 ozs. It was not selected, as there were many larger, but 
taken off at random. The other is a wrinkled, distorted, worthless 
fruit weighing 5 ozs. Four years ago the latter represented the 
crop, for the trees bore no other, now there is only one here and 
there, an ugly duckling amongst a full crop of large, handsome 
specimens, such as might have come off one of Mr. Thomas s famous 
Sittingbourne trees. The ugly ducklings would bo laughed oat of 
the market, the normal fruits would probably bring half a crown a 
dozen. There have been no my’^sterious processes brought to bear on 
the trees. They are the same specimens, and occupy the same places 
as when they were worthless ; cultivation alone has brought about 
the change. They have been thinned, judiciously trained, root- 
pruned, and liberally fed, nothing more. The plain truth is that 
practical work and common sense have transformed them from 
No. 2348.—VoL. LXXXIX., Old Series. 
