LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
87 
rightly-placed shoots to be trained to the trellis, to bear the next crop, 
and at the same time displaces every redundant or useless shoot. -By 
this means the shoots which are left acquire the necessary strength, and 
the fruit then on the tree its full size and flavour. 
The apparent health and strength of the trees is the criterion by 
which the manager judges of the number of fruit they should be 
allowed to ripen. A couple of fruit on every square foot cf the trellis 
is a fair crop; and to this number they are reduced as soon as the crop 
is fairly set. More or less, however, may occasionally be considered a 
proper burden to be matured, according to the state of the tree, or 
to what the crop was in the year before. 
The trees occupying the middle are trained as standards with the 
natural form of head. The stems are about two feet high, with 
branches extending all round. The heads are kept rather thin, and 
much care is bestowed in reserving the most conveniently placed 
bearing wood, and supporting or keeping them in due position by 
slender props stuck in the ground, or tying the shoots to each other by 
strands of matting. 
All the trees are healthy, and seldom fail to yield fair crops. The 
house is never forced very early, nor immoderately ; the object being to 
have a good, rather than an early, crop. The temperature from fire- 
heat begins with about fifty degrees, and is raised gradually till the fruit 
are stoned, and ripened off with about seventy or seventy-five degrees 
of heat. Fresh air is daily admitted, and the trees are frequently and 
forcibly sprinkled with water, or steamed, by pouring it upon the flues. 
If the green fly appear the house is fumigated with tobacco; and, 
if mildew assail, strong soap-lather is applied. 
The soil in which the trees are planted is a fine mellow loam, and is 
kept in heart by additions of the same occasionally, and with always a 
surface covering of decayed dung all the autumn, when the trees are 
exposed to the open air. 
Fig-trees, and vines in pots, are set in all the houses; together with 
Frencli-beans and strawberries regularly. Cucumber plants raised in 
September are planted in a set of boxes placed on the back flues of the 
pinery; their shoots are trained on the back wall, and they seldom fail 
to yield a fruit, now and then, throughout the winter. 
The business of all the houses is so systematically arranged, and duly 
performed, that it seldom happens there is any disappointment either in 
the expected amount of crops, or from loss of health in the plants. 
One very material thing which tends to secure this success, is the 
steady character, the long service, and happy situation of the old 
gardener, who neither fears nor wishes a change. He considers himself 
