THIS COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION.— September 9, 185C. 491 
to this style of trellis, not to mention its unity of character, 
and consequent strength, having no ends, being a broad- 
based cylinder or low column. In explanation of this, the 
straight lines from the bole of a tree easily run into the 
circular form as in ground plan, Fig. l,n, and the barren 
part, at the bole end of the shoot, is by the circular trellis 
covered by the fruitful part, so that, without any doubling 
back, the whole is covered with foliage and fruit; for every¬ 
body knows that fruits are scanty near the bole end of the 
branch and fruitful at the tips generally. 
To show the practical value of small cylinders as compared . 
with large ones, let us take one with a circumference of 1 
thirty feet instead of fifteen, and in round numbers try it 
thus :— 
Diameter 5 x 5 x ’7854 = 10'035 
Diameter 10 * 10 x •7854 = 78-54 
[19-035 x 4 = 78-54.] 
Diameter 10 is only twice diameter 5, but area 78-54 is 
four times area 19-035, showing an economy of space and I 
materials equal to cent, per cent, liy using trellises of 5 feet : 
diameter instead of 10. 
Here it will be seen that a trellis nr cylinder of circum¬ 
ference double does not take just double the area, but no 
more than four times the area to stand upon, and four 1 
times the amount of faggots to fill it. I have borrowed the 
evergreen foliage of the gorse plant, and built a column of 
it within the circular iron trellis alluded to, in order that 
the early blossoms of our fruit-trees may not any longer be 
borne upon naked twigs. 
Trellises similar to the foregoing existed in the. gardens 
of the late Sir John Stanley, in Cheshire, in 1837, when I 
was gardener there, and the only alteration that I have 
made in my late respected employer’s plan is the adding a 
body to his skeleton trellis. 
I have shown in the accompanying plan how different 
Ground Level. | 
Fig 2. ] 
ELEVATION OF FRUIT C7LINDER, WITH TilE IRON UPRIGHT AND 
RODS. I 
Scale £ inch to 1 foot. Scale i inch to 1 foot. 1 
lengths may he accommodated with one or more cylinders, 
and I may here state that any moderately young tree now 
growing against a straight trellis may be wound round one 
of these cylinders with ease, and without transplanting. 
As compared with other appliances for protection, these 
cylinders, although not handsome, are decidedly not un¬ 
sightly at first, and, as the gorse begins to get brown and 
weathered, the young foliage of the tree expands and 
clothes the whole in fair colours for the summer, so that j 
the gorse is completely thrown into the shade. 
I have named gorse as the best material, but heath, or, ; 
indeed, any leafy l'aggots will do, and even those without j 
leaves may have straw added to close the chinks, and thus 
give the necessary shelter. 
The trellis is made of the same materials ns ordinary 
strained wire sheep-fencing, the four uprights being one 
and a quarter inches by three-eighths of an inch, and five i 
* Fig:. 2. Elevation of a fruit cylinder whose circumference is 15 feet 
and height 5 feet, showing 5 wires and 5 tiers of fruit-bearing shoots, 
1 foot apart. 
feet high without the claws, and they have no holes in them 
like sheep-fencing. The rods are of round iron one quarter 
of au inch in diameter, and are first made into rings, and 
attached to the uprights by means of copper wire, the up¬ 
rights being notched on their outer edges about one-eighth 
of an inch deep with a round file, to receive the rods; by 
this arrangement the whole can be untied and shifted ns 
required. The cost at this time (the iron being usually 
dear) is 10s. each trellis put up aud painted. 
Every plant upon a plane surface, as a fruit-tree upon a 
garden wall, is fully exposed to violent action all at once : 
hence we see sun strokes from the supplies being unequal 
to the demand. Not so in the natural form of the tree, 
which is a globular, and therefore a solid form, whereas the 
trained wall-tree is hut a skeleton, and that, too, backed by a 
reflector. The natural tree shades itself considerably, and 
owes much of its health to the action of leaves labouring in 
the shade. The present cylindrical form is, therefore, less 
artificial than the skeleton shape used on walls and espaliers, 
having all the good properties of the skeleton, aud free 
from many of its defects. 
It must be evident from the practical examples just re¬ 
ferred to, that, notwithstanding our variable climate, we 
really do succeed with very little artificial aid, and that little 
only used for a very short time, in getting fruits and flowers 
in great perfection. Sometimes the successful fruit-ground 
is only a sheltered flat at the sea level, as the Carse of 
Gowrie, and the celebrated cider grounds in this county 
(Devon). The projecting eaves of a thatched cottage will 
enable a tree to flower and perfect fruit that elsewhere would 
not thrive. The Fig wants but a very little to make it a 
hardy fruit-tree, for we see it at Hedsor Lodge, on the 
banks of the Thames, fruiting freely as a standard. Certain 
sheltered spots, again, are famous for Plums, as Dittisham 
parish, on the Dart, where the noted Dittisham Plum (a 
very superior Plum, after the fashion of an Orleans), is 
cultivated for preserving ; and again, in Staffordshire, on the 
Chur-net, below Alton, there is another Plum ground, where 
shelter and dryness appear to be the only good properties 
of the locality. 
It is, therefore, evident that a wholesale system of fruit¬ 
growing might he established in well-selected spots with 
evident advantage to the community, but fruit walls for this 
purpose could not be built without an unreasonable outlay ; 
besides, they are not moveable, and in the case of a tree 
failing on a wall, a tree has to be torn rrp by the roots and 
put there to replace it, but here you leave the tree in the 
earth and transplant the sheltering trellis to it. 
No other system ever offered to horticulture possessed 
the means of protection which this does, for there is now 
only one side of the tree exposed, and any protection laid 
on the tops of the columns will be so elevated that a person 
may walk under to gather fruit, Ac., and it must be admitted 
that all fruits want a further protection than that from frost 
upon their blossoms. Cherries and Plums require netting 
from birds. Gooseberries and Currants the same. To cul¬ 
tivate Raspberries and Strawberries without protection 
would only be labour lost, for the birds would take all; even 
Apples and Pears are pilfered when exposed, and in the 
case of keeping such as Gooseberries and Currants on the 
trees till late in the season for dessert, they can now be 
snugly housed. I need only name one further advantage, 
and it is this, that the ripening of the wood depends mainly 
upon the amount of dryness, not only in the air but in the 
earth, and any one now, by regulating the communication 
between his tarpaulin overhead, and his drain tiles under¬ 
ground, may lessen foul weather amazingly ; and, whatever 
the farmer may say of the fertilising effects of rain, I should 
prefer the great, bulk of our winter storms to pass over 
fruit-tree grounds without wetting them. It is the swelter¬ 
ing hollows, coombs, or valleys that yield the best fruits, 
where the staple is good, and the sun pours in, and the 
storms blow over; therefore whatever is most convenient 
should be used for shelter all round, and in the orchard 
these cylinders will maintain their ground to shelter one 
another, for they will be a thick wood, aud an orchard of 
this nature can he got up in half the time that one of 
standard trees could be reared. 
This principle is capable of further extension by means 
of hollow wooden cylinders of one-inch boards on end, and 
| 
I 
