280 
THE COTTAGE GAllDENEK. 
jAKl'ArvV 15. 
T would recomraeiul tlie following as worth a trial in 
i tlie“ cool house ; — E nhilmti, E. ccilochiluiii, E. covhle- 
; iifiiin. E. Niinhnriiy and E. mavrockiliiin. 1 have no 
i iloubt they would grow well ttieve. T. Appleby. 
(2'o he continued.) 
ERUIT-TKEES PLANTED OUT versus IN POTS. 
T WOULD he the last man that would occupy the pages i 
i of a public journal with a personal controversy, con- j 
I sequeutly, J would not have replied to a late attack, ! 
! ill The Cottage Gardener, on my paper condemning i 
j Orchard-houses in the general sense they were intro- 1 
1 duced to the world some two or three years ago; but, as 
: some misconception may have arisen on the matter, J 
j again resume the subject; and, following “Pyrus Mollis” 
; througii such parts of his paper as the public will derive ! 
information I'rom, beg here to say, that my condemna- 1 
tiou of Orchard-houses, or, rather, the keejiiug and forcing I 
large quantities of fruit-trees in pots, does not arise ‘ 
entirely from what ! have seen in Kent; neither do »ny 
of my observations relate to this county alone, except i 
j when I say so. Having bad a fair share of experience 
I ill five other counties besides, and these mostly widely 
' ajiart, I speak not altogether from theory. True, 1 have 
not seen the Orchard-houses in llussia your correspon¬ 
dent speaks about, neither do I wish to do so, at pre¬ 
sent. I am, also, a stranger to those in Germany and 
the Pyrenees, except what I learn by reading ; but I 
have some little knowdedge of the dwarf fruit-trees 
ill France, which, certainly, did not improve my opinion ' 
of potted fruit-trees in general. Certainly, the Orange- ; 
trees at Versailles, and some other of the Palace Gardens, j 
w'ere remarkable objects, but more by their numbers, ! 
size, and general resemblance to each other, than by any j 
other feature wortli copying. But what of that? 1 | 
did not see any fruit on them; and though the quaint 
cut Yew and Lilac-trees are certainly remarkable ob- j 
jects, as examples of a certain style of gardening, I ! 
did not see anything in the way of cultivating fruits 
that w'as worth copying; and, w’ith the exception of 
j Greengage Plums and Melons, I did not see any fruit 
1 in the Paris markets of last August that were equal to 
I that of Covent Garden. This is, perhaps, foreign to the 
I suhji-'ct; only, as “ Pyrus Mollis” may have been there j 
more recently, perhaps he will tell us where the fine | 
potted fruit trees were. There were plenty of Oleanders, j 
Oranges, Myrtles, and sundry other flowering plants, I 
especially Asters, many of which were objects of excellent i 
cultivation; but I fell disapjioiuted at the quality of 
the fruit in general, 
Tlie first Peach-trees in pots I remember to have had | 
anything to do with were in 18.33; but these had been 
in that condition some years, and the system, even in a 
remote district, might be traced back, 1 believe, to the 
last century. Consequently, it is not a recent idea. The 
trees I allude to were, in every respect, treated the same 
j as those of the present day, and with much the same 
j result. A tree in a pot large enough for two men to 
; lift was thought to do w'ell if it produced a dozen fruit, 
j and these were rarely more than three-fourths of the 
I size of those growui in the ordinary way. I may add, 
that the pots were bound round in hay-bands to keep 
them moist, they being much pot-bound. Liquid- 
manure was also given pretty often, and the other 
modes of keeping down insects, thinning the shoots, 
&c., as is now practised, were all duly attended to, but 
the produce fell short of that from trees planted out in¬ 
side a glass-house in the usual way. 
As some of the advocates for Orchard-houses advise 
the trees, in some cases, to be planted out, 1 here beg to 
say, that in so doing they give up every claim to a new 
invention, as Peach-houses have existed from time im¬ 
memorial. One of the first I ever saw was some¬ 
what like the so-called Orchard-houses, only it was a 
lean-to, and the trees on the back wall were trained in 
the usual way, but those in the front were kept low, 
but had no other training than pruning and disbud¬ 
ding. The trees assumed a low, spreading bush-like 
form, and bore very well, though not better than those 
trained upon a low trellis in a similar situation; and two 
houses of that description, whicii existed prior to 1820, 
were afterwards supplied with wire or wooden trellis ; 
and I only here allude to the matter as showing that 
trees in a bush-headed form existed long ago. 
With the Orchard-planting on the ordinary plan, 
as ]irop)Osed by your correspondent, tliere is little to 
find fault, because there is little but what has been 
repeatedly advocated in these pages. One thing, how'- 
ever, might puzzle many—myself for one—namely, 
where to find five hundred or a thousand good sorts 
adapted to the district; as I have, over and oyer 
again, stated that even where I write froin, which 
your corresjioudent styles “the Garden of England,” 
some of the most common varieties of Apples will 
scarcely grow, let alone thrive. For instance, the Haw- 
thorndeans, and many others, scarcely produce a fruit 
that is not spotted or otherwise deformed ; and kinds 
knowHi here to thrive tolerably well do not do so five 
miles off, and vice versa. Where, then, are our thou¬ 
sand kinds to come from? Trials are being made 
with new kinds, but fruit-growers of long standing 
are not, like “ Pyrus Mollis,” satisfied with an “ eight 
months” exjieriment. They know, from sad experience, 
tliat adverse seasons mar all their hopes; and, however 
true to rule a tree may be planted or pruned, a per¬ 
nicious easterly wind. May frost, or some other atmo- 
sjiheric cause, will annihilate all their hopes. 
As Mr. Ferguson has entered very fully into the 
various points of Orchard-house structure, as well as 
potted trees in general, I need add no more, believing 
that Orchard houses, like glass walls, will be resolving 
themselves into something else. At tlie same time, be it 
remembered, I do not condemn the enthusiastic horti¬ 
culturist from having one or two trees in pots; for they 
will not only be interesting objects while in flower, but, 
supposing he has no other mode of obtaining Peaches 
of his own growth, one so grown will be worth a dozen 
obtained elsewhere, in his estimation. But to those 
who put up a house expressly for that ifuit, and for 
Nectarines, which are much the same, trees )ihinted 
inside, on well-made borders, will yield double the 
quantity of fruit of better quality, and at less than 
half the trouble, than a liouse full ol potted plants w'ould 
do. And if be is ambitious of having variety in their 
fruits, budding^ or grafiiug will easily accomplish that 
end; and the appearance of trees in full vigour is 
always more agreeable to look upon than the pot-bound 
objects recommended by the very few advocates of so- 
called Orchard-houses. In fact, I think that novelty is 
all that the latter has to recommend it, and novelty, 
though of some importance in floriculture, has little 
weight in fruit-growing. 
In discarding pots for stpne fruits, T by no means 
condemn them in all other cases. Fines, in jiots or 
boxes, are exceedingly useful and beneficial. Fines, 
too, may be occasionally well grown that way. In fact, 
until the last few years they have been universally 
grown so. Ekjs, too, I have seen do tolerably well in 
pots, they being, like the first-named, gross feeders; but 
I fear none of us will live to see Coveut Garden supplied 
with sieves of early Flutns, Cherries, and Fears from 
pot-grown trees. The million will, I think, derive but 
little advantage from that source; and the few ardent 
spirits who have taken it up will, like those of the 
Polmaise-heating school, make few disciples; and, 
I 
i 
I 
j 
i 
i 
I 
I 
