98 
THE FLORIST. 
possible, and to keep it in this state; stringent rules are laid down to 
prevent any walking over it; in fact, everything which would tend 
to assist consolidation is strictly prohibited, as likely to cause unheard- of 
mischief to the trees. 
I confess to having had a pretty sharp touch of this mania of practical 
gardening myself. But two or three failures having, as I think, brought 
about a lucid interval , I have been looking out for some time for a 
publication wherein I might ask the question, being somewhat diffident 
of my own opinion, more especially as it happens to run counter to that 
of so many eminent men ; and this induces me to trouble the Florist 
with the query which heads this article. 
Since the time that this question has been hung up in my rtrind for 
discussion, when the opportunity presented itself, I have looked round 
me for information on the subject in every garden I have since visited; 
I have also paid some attention to those natural soils in which fruit- 
trees luxuriate the most: and my researches lead me to the conviction 
that open porous borders are not the things for adding to the productive¬ 
ness or longevity of fruit-trees; and that as many mistakes are being 
made in planting fruit-trees in such spongy masses of materials as 
modern authorities affirm are necessary, as occurred under the older, 
but in my opinion more rational way of making borders varying but 
little in their composition from natural soils. 
During the autumn of last year I paid a visit to that garden of all 
gardens—Frogmore. My object was information ; and with my mind 
in the transition state from one theory to the other,“ Surely, ” thought I— 
when waiting at the lodge, while the porter conveyed my passport to be 
vised at the office of Her Majesty’s head gardener—“ surely here, where 
quantity and quality are so universally linked together in every pro¬ 
duction raised, I shall see something to satisfy my cravings one way or 
the other ; more particularly as the trees have had time to develop the 
soundness, or not, of the system on which they were planted.” Instead 
of borders beautifully porous, I was, I confess, agreeably surprised to 
find no appearance of it; nor did I see any indications of planks or 
machinery, to prevent their being ruined by being trod upon. On the 
contrary, as the Vineries and Peach-house borders are partly inside the 
house as well as out, they appear to be treated as common garden borders 
by the gardeners when dressing the trees, and on examining their 
condition myself, I found them as compact as the ordinary soil of the 
garden outside—indeed, rather more so. I looked, too, as narrowly as 
I could, when pacing the broad terrace in the front of the houses, and to 
which the outside borders extend, and could see that no particular care 
was taken to keep them open ; and my conductor said that there was 
no unnecessary passing over them, but that the soil was now become 
firm, and that the surface only was moved when the winter covering of 
Fern was removed in the spring. 
The wall-tree borders are all, I believe, cropped with vegetables, 
excepting a space of five or six feet from the wall, which is reserved for 
attending to the trees, and this space appeared hard enough, from the 
constant passing backward and forward of the gardeners in their duties. 
The soil appeared to me a rather heavy loam, with small flints in it, 
