16 MAY 1931, Page 12

* * * * This tree, now coming into leaf

on some grafts but not all, is a supreme example of a habit that grows and will grow more common. Since the discovery that many, indeed most, sorts of apple and pear, are in sonic degree self-sterile (that is fruit less well if fertilized from themselves than from the pollen of some other variety) the principle that juxta-position is great has been much advanced. We plant side by side the sorts that most fruitfully fertilize one another ; and the sim- plest method is to grow two or more of these congenial varieties on the same tree. The idea is particularly well worth the attention of the small private gardener. The fewer the trees, the more necessary the provision of a fertilizing neighbour. We should all practice the ingenious, amusing and not difficult art of grafting and budding. Like the countryman whose ideals are written in a sonnet that decorates the walls of many a country house, it should be the gardener's ambition : Cultiver ses entes.