to get rid of all this, in order that we may settle
down somewhere else!"

"Just as you like," said Pecuchet; and the next moment: "The authors
recommend us to suppress every direct passage. In this way the sap is
counteracted, and the tree necessarily suffers thereby. In order to be
in good health, it would be necessary for it to have no fruit! However,
those which we prune and which we never manure produce them not so big,
it is true, but more luscious. I require them to give me a reason for
this! And not only each kind demands its particular attentions, but
still more each individual tree, according to climate, temperature, and
a heap of things! Where, then, is the rule? and what hope have we of
any success or profit?"

Bouvard replied to him, "You will see in Gasparin that the profit cannot
exceed the tenth of the capital. Therefore, we should be doing better by
investing this capital in a banking-house. At the end of fifteen years,
by the accumulation of interest, we'd have it doubled, without having
our constitutions ground down."

Pecuchet hung down his head.

"Arboriculture may be a humbug!"

"Like agriculture!" replied Bouvard.

Then they blamed themselves for having been too ambitious, and they
resolved to husband thenceforth their labour and their money. An
occasional pruning would suffice for the orchard. The counter-espaliers
were forbidden, and dead or fallen trees should not be replaced; but he
was going to do a nasty job--nothing less than to destroy all the others
which remained standing. How was he to set about the work?

Pecuchet made several diagrams, while using his mathematical case.
Bouvard gave him advice. They arrived at no satisfactory result.
Fortunately, they discovered amongst their collection of books Boitard's
work entitled _L'Architecte des Jardins_.

The author divides them into a great number of styles. First there is
the melancholy and romantic style, which is distinguished by
immortelles, ruins, tombs, and "a votive offering to the Virgin,
indicating the place where a lord has fallen under the blade of an
assassin." The terrible style is composed of overhanging rocks,
shattered trees, burning huts; the exotic style, by planting Peruvian
torch-thistles, "in order to arouse memories in a colonist or a
traveller." The grave style should, like Ermenonville, offer a temple to
philosophy. The majestic style is characterised by obelisks and
triumphal arches; the mysterious style by