28 SEPTEMBER 1951, Page 18

The Espalier

About two-thirds of my apple and pear trees are now cordons and espaliers, and in a bounteous year what an overwhelming vantage they possess over standard trees! Their superiority in the picking season is obvious ; a ticklish drudgery becomes a nonchalant pleasure. Summer pruning, too, is as comfortable and exposing the fruit to the sunbeams far less exacting. Again, a line of such trees is open all the year round toinspection for signs of aphis, caterpillar, or sawfly, and takes little room. As Euclid says of any line (quite erroneously, by the way), it is

length without breadth. If there bc apple-drop and the ground Is mulched, there is no bruising, while the danger of fracture along a richly studded branch is, of course, eliminated.