AND TRELLISES. 
253 
not carry on the war, and the return to a dead plant carrying a 
live one would be equally certain. To this state of things no¬ 
thing material can be objected when once the trainer is covered, 
provided its outline is appropriate, and every portion of it clothed; 
but when a form so strictly formal as that of a fir tree is adopted, 
and the points of the dead branches are visible in all directions, 
we really should prefer to have the acknowledged artificial wire 
to behold than the apparent termination of a death struggle. 
For fast-growing, extensive, or large-leaved climbers, a support 
of this kind is decidedly preferable, because they are quickly and 
effectually made to cover every part; but for smaller-growing, 
fine-leaved kinds, which from their nature are incapable^ of 
thoroughly concealing their means of support, we are yet inclined, 
for the reasons above stated, to continue an adherence to the 
wire frame. We remember two very ugly objects which had 
nearly shaken our faith of the natural supporters from its foun¬ 
dation altogether, in the instance of a Tropseolum and a Zichya 
made to scramble over and among the dead branches of a spruce, 
in no part concealing, but rather throwing more conspicuously 
forward, by the power of contrast, the very dead figure of their 
supports, the brown hue of whose branches seeming actually to 
extend to the foliage of the climbers themselves, though they 
were in the best possible health ; the beauty of those plants was 
unquestionably destroyed by the means used to train them. It 
is, after all, quite certain that the same number of flowers dis¬ 
tributed over a sphere will not make the appearance they do when 
collected upon a plane surface, nor will the leaves or any other 
part of a plant; and it therefore resolves itself into a question 
of time as well as taste, to create an equal display on the two 
forms; the plant on a spheroid will require three times as long as 
that upon a flat trellis, and all these things require to be thought 
of when determining in what way any particular subject shall be 
treated. That there are gross errors committed in the employ¬ 
ment of all kinds of trainers, and in wire frames especially, is 
too evident to require the least confirmation; we sometimes see 
them as though the wire-work and not the plant was the object 
to be admired, and as frequently it happens that some great dis¬ 
proportion exists either between the plant and the frame, or 
in the filling of the latter and its circumference; thus a small 
