Mr Walpole† observes, was probably one of the first arts that succeeded to that of building housetops, and naturally attended property and individual possession. Culinary, and afterwards medicinal herbs, were the objects of every head of a family: it became convenient to have them within reach, without seeking them at random in woods, in meadows, and on mountains, as often as they were wanted. When the earth ceased to furnish spontaneously all those primitive luxuries, and culture became requisite, separate enclosures for rearing herbs grew expedient. Fruits were in the same predicament; and those most in use or that demand attention must have entered into and extended the domestic enclosure. The good man Noah, we are told, planted a vineyard, drank of the wine, and was drunken; and every body knows the consequences. Thus we acquired kitchen gardens, orchards, and vineyards. No doubt the prototype of all these forts was the garden of Eden; but as that Paradise was a good deal larger than any we read of afterwards, being enclosed by the rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates; as every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food grew in it; and as two other trees were likewise found there, of which not a slip or sucker remains; it does not belong to the present discussion. After the fall, no man living was suffered to enter into the garden; and the poverty and necessities of our first ancestors hardly allowed them time to make improvements in their estates in imitation of it, supposing any plan had been preserved. A cottage and a slip of ground for a cabbage and a gooseberry bush, such as we see by the side of a common, were in all probability the earliest seats and gardens; a well and bucket succeeded to the Pison and Euphrates. As settlements increased, the orchard and the vineyard followed; and the earliest princes of tribes possessed just the necessaries of a modern farmer.

Matters, we may well believe, remained long in this situation; and we have reason to think that for many centuries the term garden implied no more than a kitchen garden or orchard.

The garden of Alcinous, in the Odyssey, is the most renowned in the heroic times. Is there an admirer of Homer who can read his description without rapture? or who does not form to his imagination a scene of delights more picturesque than the landscapes of Tinian or Juan Fernandez? "Yet (continues our author) what was that boasted Paradise with which

the gods ordain'd

To grace Alcinous and his happy land?

Why, divested of harmonious Greek and bewitching poetry, it was a small orchard and vineyard, with some beds of herbs and two fountains that watered them, enclosed within a quickset hedge. The whole compass of this pompous garden enclosed—four acres:

Four acres was th' allotted space of ground, Fenc'd with a green enclosure all around.

The trees were apples, figs, pomegranates, pears, olives, and vines.

Tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful mold; The red'ning apple ripens into gold. Here the blue fig with lucious juice o'erflows, With deeper red the full pomegranate glows; The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, And verdant olives flourish round the year.

* * * * * * *

Beds of all various herbs, for ever green, In beauteous order terminate the scene.

Alcinous's garden was planted by the poet, enriched by him with the fairy gift of eternal summer, and no doubt an effort of imagination surpassing any thing he had ever seen. As he has bestowed on the fame happy prince a palace with brazen walls and columns of silver, he certainly intended that the garden should be proportionably magnificent. We are sure, therefore, that, as late as Homer's age, an enclosure of four acres, comprehending orchard, vineyard, and kitchen garden, was a stretch of luxury the world at that time had never beheld."

Previous to this, however, we have in the sacred writings hints of a garden still more luxuriously furnished. We allude to the Song of Solomon, part of the scene of which is undoubtedly laid in a garden *. Chap. ii. Flowers and fruits are particularly spoken of as the ornaments and the produce of it; and besides these, aromatic vegetables formed a considerable part of the gratification it afforded. The camphor and the cinnamon tree, with all trees of frankincense, and all the chief spices, flourished there †. Solomon tells us in another place ‡, That he made him great works;—gardens and orchards, and planted in them trees of every kind. Indeed we must suppose his gardens to have been both amply and curiously furnished, seeing the kinds, nature, and properties of the vegetable tribes, seem to have been a favourite study with the royal philosopher, and to have been deemed a subject worthy of his pen: for we are told, that he wrote of plants, from the great cedar of Lebanon down to the hyssop of the wall §. Kings iv. Fountains and streams of water appear also to have had a share in the composition, and probably for ornament as well as use.

The hanging gardens of Babylon, mentioned in a preceding preceding article, were a still greater prodigy. But as they are supposed to have been formed on terraces and the walls of the palace, whither foil was conveyed on purpose, Mr Walpole concludes, "they were what sumptuous gardens have been in all ages till the present, unnatural, enriched by art, possibly with fountains, ita- tues, balustrades, and summer houses, and were any thing but verdant and rural."

Others, however, have allowed them greater praise. They seem, in many respects to have been laid out with good taste. Their elevation not only produced a variety and extent of view, but was also useful in moderating the heat. Such a situation would likewise suit a greater variety of trees and plants than a plain surface, and would contain a larger as well as a more diversified extent.

The suiting of the situation to the nature of the trees seems, from the account given by Josephus, to have been one view † in the erecting the building in such a manner. And the success seems to have been answerable, as the trees are said to have flourished extremely well ‡, and to have grown as tall as in their native situations. On the whole, then, however different these may appear from modern gardens, they seem to have been formed with judgment and taste, and well adapted to the situation and circumstances.

It seems probable, from several circumstances, that the eastern gardens were adjoining to the house or palace to which they belonged. Thus, King Ahaeuerus goes immediately from the banquet of wine to walk in the garden of the palace §. The garden of Cyrus, at Sardis, mentioned by Xenophon*, was probably contiguous to the palace : as was that of Attalus, mentioned by Justin||. The hanging gardens at Babylon, were not so much adjacent to the palace, as a part of the palace itself, since several of the royal apartments were beneath them †.

It is not clear what the taste for gardening was among the Greeks. The Academus, we know, was a wooded shady place; and the trees appear to have been of the olive species. It was situated beyond the limits of the woods, and adjacent to the tombs of the heroes; and though we are nowhere informed of the particular manner in which this grove was disposed or laid out, it may be gathered from Pausanias, in his Attica, that it was an elegant ornamented place. At the entrance was an altar dedicated to Love, which was said to be the first erected to that deity. Within the Academus, were the altars of Prometheus, of the Mules, of Mercury, of Minerva, and Hercules; and at a small distance was the tomb of Plato. So that in all probability, it was highly adapted by art, as well as nature, to philosophic reflection and contemplation.

We are told by Plutarch, that before the time of Cimon, the Academus was a rude and uncultivated spot: but that it was planted by that general, and had water conveyed to it; whether this water was brought merely for use to refresh the trees, or for ornament, does not appear. It was divided into gymnasia, or places of exercise, and philosophic walks, shaded with trees. These are said to have flourished very well, until destroyed by Sylla (when he besieged Athens), as well as those in the Lyceum.

Near the academy were the gardens of the philosophers, of Plato and of Epicurus; which, however, were probably but small. The scene of Plato's Dialogue concerning Beauty is elegantly described as being on the banks of the river Ilissus, and under the shade of the plantain; but no artificial arrangement of objects is mentioned, nor any thing which will lead us to imagine the propect to be any other than merely natural.

Among the Romans, a taste of gardening, any otherwise than as a matter of utility, seems not to have prevailed till a very late period; at least the writers on husbandry, Cato, Varro, Columella, and Palladius, make not the least mention of a garden as an object of pleasure, but solely with respect to its productions of herbs and fruits. The Lucullan gardens are the first we find mentioned of remarkable magnificence; though probably from the extravagance to which these were arrived, they were not the first. Plutarch speaks of them as incredibly expensive, and equal to the magnificence of kings. They contained artificial elevations of ground to a surprising height, of buildings projected into the sea, and vast pieces of water made upon land. In short his extravagance and expense were so great, that he acquired thence the appellation of the Roman Xerxes. It is not improbable, from the above account, and from the consideration of Lucullus having spent much time in Asia, in a situation wherein he had an opportunity of observing the most splendid constructions of this kind, that these gardens might be laid out in the Asiatic style. The vast mazes of building said to have been erected, might have borne some resemblance, in the arrangement and style, to the Babylonian gardens; and the epithet of the Roman Xerxes might be applicable to the taste, as well as to the size and expense of his works.

The Tufculan villa of Cicero, though often mentioned, is not anywhere described in his works, so as to give an adequate idea of the style in which his gardens or grounds were disposed.

There is but little to be traced in Virgil relative to this subject. Pines ‡, it seems probable, were a favourite ornament in gardens; and flowers §, roses ‡, &c., especially, were much esteemed, perfumes indeed having been always highly valued in warm climates. Virgil places Anchises in Elysium, in a grove of bays: and is careful to remark, that they were of the sweet-scented kind. The Paean roses were chiefly valued for their excellent odour; and the same quality appears to be the cause why they were placed by Tibulus as ornaments to the Elyian fields. There appears also to have prevailed among the Romans a piece of luxury relative to gardens, which is equally prevalent at present among us, namely the forcing of flowers at seasons of the year not suited to their natural blowing: and roses were then, as at present, the principal flowers upon which these experiments were tried, as appears from Martial † and others.

When Roman authors (Mr Walpole remarks), Epigr. lib. whose climate infilled a with for cool retreats, speak vi. ep. 82. of their enjoyments in that kind, they sigh for grottoes, lib. xiv. ep. caves, and the refreshing hollows of mountains, near in 127. and rigorous and shady founts; or boast of their porticoes, Lemprius walks of planes, canals, baths, and breezes from the gab. vii. out. Elefsea. Their gardens are never mentioned as affording shade and shelter from the rage of the dog star. Pliny has left us descriptions of two of his villas. As he used his Laurentine villa for his winter retreat, it is not surprising surprising that the garden makes no considerable part of the account. All he says of it is, that the gestatio or place of exercise, which surrounded the garden (the latter consequently not being very large), was bounded by a hedge of box, and, where that was perished, with rosemary; that there was a walk of vines; and that most of the trees were fig and mulberry, the soil not being proper for any other sorts. On his Tuscan villa he is more diffuse; the garden makes a considerable part of the description:—and what was the principal beauty of that pleasure ground? Exactly what was the admiration of this country about three-score years ago; box trees cut into monsters, animals, letters, and the names of the master and the artificer. In an age when architecture displayed all its grandeur, all its purity, and all its taste; when arose Vespasian's amphitheatre, the temple of Peace, Trajan's forum, Domitian's baths, and Adrian's villa, the ruins and vestiges of which still excite our astonishment and curiosity; a Roman consul, a polished emperor's friend, and a man of elegant literature and taste, delighted in what the mob now scarce admire in a college garden. All the ingredients of Pliny's corresponded exactly with those laid out by London and Wile on Dutch principles. He talks of flopes, terraces, a wilderness, thrubs methodically trimmed, a marble bason, pipes spouting water, a cascade falling into the bason, bay trees alternately planted with planes, and a straight walk from whence issued others parted off by hedges of box and apple trees, with obelisks placed between every two. There wants nothing but the embroidery of a parterre, to make a garden in the reign of Trajan serve for a description of one in that of King William. In one passage above, Pliny seems to have conceived that natural irregularity might be a beauty; in operae urbanissimo, says he, habita velut illati ruris imitatio. Something like a rural view was contrived amidst so much polished composition. But the idea soon vanished, lineal walks immediately enveloped the flight scene, and names and inscriptions in box again succeeded to compensate for the daring introduction of nature.

In the paintings found at Herculaneum are a few traces of gardens, as may be seen in the second volume of the prints. They are small square enclosures, formed by trellis-work and espaliers, and regularly ornamented with vases, fountains, and caretades, elegantly symmetrical, and proper for the narrow spaces allotted to the garden of a house in a capital city.

From what has been laid, it appears how naturally and infensibly the idea of a kitchen garden filled into that which has for so many ages been peculiarly termed a garden, and by our ancestors in this country distinguished by the name of a pleasure garden. A square piece of ground was originally parted off in early ages for the use of the family:—to exclude cattle, and ascertain the property, it was separated from the fields by a hedge. As pride and desire of privacy increased, the enclosure was dignified by walls; and in climes where fruits were not lavihed by the ripening glow of nature and soil, fruit trees were affixed and sheltered from surrounding winds by the like expedient: for the inundation of luxuries, which have swelled into general necessities, have almost all taken their source from the simple fountain of reason.

When the custom of making square gardens enclosed with walls was thus established to the exclusion of nature and prospect, pomp and latitude combined to call for something that might enrich and enliven the insipid and unanimated partition. Fountains, first invented for use, which grandeur loves to disguise and throw out of the question, received embellishments from costly marbles, and at last, to contradict utility, tossed their waste of waters into the air in spouting columns. Art, in the hands of rude man, had at first been made a succedaneum to nature; in the hands of ostentatious wealth, it became the means of opposing nature; and the more it traversed the march of the latter, the more nobility thought its power was demonstrated. Canals measured by the line were introduced in lieu of meandering streams, and terraces were hoisted aloft in opposition to the facile slopes that imperceptibly unite the valley to the hill. Balustrades defended these precipitate and dangerous elevations, and flights of steps rejoined them to the subjacent flat from which the terrace had been dug. Vases and sculpture were added to these unnecessary balconies, and statues furnished the lifeless spot with mimic representations of the excluded sons of men. Thus difficulty and expense were the constituent parts of those sumptuous and selfish follies; and every improvement that was made, was but a step farther from nature. The tricks of waterworks to wet the unwary, not to refresh the panting spectator; and parterres embroidered in patterns like a petticoat, were but the childish endeavours of fashion and novelty to reconcile greatness to what it had forfeited on. To crown these impotent displays of false taste, the flowers were applied to the lovely wildness of form with which nature has distinguished each various species of tree and shrub. The venerable oak, the romantic beech, the useful elm, even the aspiring circuit of the lime, the regular round of the chestnut, and the almost moulded orange tree, were corrected by such fantastic admirers of symmetry. The compass and square were of more use in plantations than the nurseryman. The measured walk, the quincunx, and the eotice, implored their unsatisfying famefens on every royal and noble garden. Trees were headed, and their sides pared away; many French groves seem green chiefs set upon poles. Seats of marble, arbours, and summer houses, terminated every vista; and symmetry, even where the space was too large to permit its being remarked at one view, was so essential, that, as Pope observed,

———each alley has a brother, And half the garden just reflects the other.

Knots of flowers were more defensibly subjected to the same regularity. Leisure, as Milton expressed it,

—in trim gardens took his pleasure.

In the garden of Marshal de Biron at Paris, consisting of 14 acres, every walk is buttoned on each side by lines of flower pots, which succeed in their seasons.

It does not precisely appear what our ancestors meant by a bower: it was probably an arbour; sometimes it meant the whole frittered enclosure, and in one instance it certainly included a labyrinth. Roland's bower was indisputably of that kind; though whether composed of walls or hedges, we cannot determine. A square and a round labyrinth were so capital ingredients of of a garden formerly, that in Du Cerceau's architecture, who lived in the time of Charles IX. and Henry III. there is scarce a ground plot without one of each.

In Kip's Views of the Seats of our Nobility and Gentry, we see the same tiresome and returning uniformity. Every house is approached by two or three gardens, consisting perhaps of a gravel walk and two grass plots or borders of flowers. Each rises above the other by two or three steps, and as many walls and terraces, and so many iron gates, that we recollect those ancient romances in which every entrance was guarded by nymphs or dragons. Yet though these and such preposterous inconveniences prevailed from age to age, good sense in this country had perceived the want of something at once more grand and more natural. These reflections, and the bounds set to the waste made by royal spoilers, gave origin to Parks. They were contracted forests, and extended gardens. Hentzner says, that, according to Rous of Warwick, the first park was that at Woodstock. If so, it might be the foundation of a legend that Henry II. secured his mistress in a labyrinth: it was no doubt more difficult to find her in a park than in a palace, where the intricacy of the woods and various lodges buried in covert might conceal her actual habitation.

It is more extraordinary that, having so long ago stumbled on the principle of modern gardening, we should have persisted in retaining its reverse, symmetrical and unnatural gardens. That parks were rare in other countries, Hentzner, who travelled over great part of Europe, leads us to suppose, by observing that they were common in England. In France they retain the name, but nothing is more different both in compass and disposition. Their parks are usually square or oblong enclosures, regularly planted with walks of chestnuts or limes, and generally every large town has one for its public recreation.

"One man, one great man we had (continues Mr Walpole), on whom nor education nor custom could impose their prejudices; who, 'on evil days though fallen, and with darkness and solitude compassed round,' judged that the mistaken and fantastic ornaments he had seen in gardens, were unworthy of the Almighty hand that planted the delights of Paradise. He seems with the prophetic eye of taste to have conceived, to have foreseen modern gardening; as Lord Bacon announced the discoveries since made by experimental philosophy. The description of Eden is a warmer and more just picture of the present style than Claud Lorraine could have painted from Hagley or Stourhead. The first lines we shall quote exhibit Stourhead on a more magnificent scale:

Thro' Eden went a river large, Nor chang'd his course, but thro' the shaggy hill, Pasp'd underneath ingulph'd: for God had thrown That mountain as his garden mound, high rais'd Upon the rapid current.

Hagley seems pictured in what follows:

Which thro' veins Of porous earth with kindly thirst updrawn, Role a fresh fountain, and with many a rill Water'd the garden—

What colouring, what freedom of pencil, what landscape in these lines!

—from that sapphire fount the crispèd brooks, Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold, With mazy error under pendant shades, Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed Flow'r's worthy of Paradise, which not nice art In beds and curious knots, but nature boon, Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain, Both where the morning sun first warmly smote The open field, and where the unpierc'd shade Imbrownd the noon tide bow'r's—Thus was this place A happy rural seat of various view.

Read this transporting description, paint to your mind the scenes that follow, contrast them with the savage but respectable terror with which the poet guards the bounds of his paradise, fenced

—with the champaign head Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, Access denied; and over head up grew Insuperable height of loftiest shade, Cedar and pine, and fir, and branching palm, A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend, Shade above shade, a woody theatre, Of stateliest view—

and then recollect, that the author of this sublime vision had never seen a glimpse of any thing like what he has imagined; that his favourite ancients had dropped not a hint of such divine scenery; and that the conceits in Italian gardens, and Theobalds and Nonfuch, were the brightest originals that his memory could furnish. His intellectual eye saw a nobler plan, so little did he suffer by the loss of sight. It sufficed him to have seen the materials with which he could work. The vigour of a boundless imagination told him how a plan might be disposed, that would embellish nature, and restore art to its proper office, the just improvement or imitation of it.

"Now let us return to an admired writer, posterior to Milton, and see how cold, how insipid, how tasteless, is his account of what he pronounced a perfect garden. We speak not of his style, which it was not necessary for him to animate with the colouring and glow of poetry. It is his want of ideas, of imagination, of taste, that deserve censure, when he dictated on a subject which is capable of all the graces that a knowledge of beautiful nature can bestow. Sir William Temple was an excellent man; Milton, a genius of the first order.

"We cannot wonder that Sir William declares in favour of parterres, fountains, and statues, as necessary to break the lameness of large grass plots, which he thinks have an ill effect upon the eye, when he acknowledges that he discovers fancy in the gardens of Alcinous. Milton studied the ancients with equal enthusiasm, but no bigotry; and had judgment to distinguish between the want of invention and the beauties of poetry. Compare his paradise with Homer's garden, both ascribed to a celestial design. For Sir William, it is just to observe, that his ideas centered in a fruit garden. He had the honour of giving to his country many delicate fruits, fruits, and he thought of little else than disposing them to the best advantage.

"The best figure of a garden (fays he) is either a square or an oblong, and either upon a flat or a decent: they have all their beauties, but the best I esteem an oblong upon a decent. The beauty, the air, the view make amends for the expence, which is very great in finishing and supporting the terrace walks, in levelling the parterres, and in he stone stairs that are necessary from one to the other. The perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, either at home or abroad, was that of Moor Park in Hertfordshire, when I knew it about 30 years ago. It was made by the countess of Bedford, esteemed among the greatest wits of her time, and celebrated by Dr Donne; and with very great care, excellent contrivance, and much cost; but greater sums may be thrown away without effect or honour, if there want fence in proportion to money, or 'if nature be not followed;' which I take to be the great rule in this, and perhaps in every thing else, as far as the conduct not only of our lives but our governments.' [We shall see how natural that admired garden was]. 'Because I take the garden I have named to have been in all kinds the most beautiful and perfect, at least in the figure and disposition, that I ever have seen, I will describe it for a model to those that meet with such a situation, and are above the regards of common expence. It lies on the side of a hill, upon which the house stands, but not very steep. The length of the house, where the best rooms and of most use or pleasure are, lies upon the breadth of the garden; the great parlour opens into the middle of a terrace gravel walk that lies even with it, and which may be, as I remember, about 320 paces long, and broad in proportion; the border set with standard laurels and at large distances, which have the beauty of orange trees out of flower and fruit. From this walk are three descents by many stone steps, in the middle and at each end, into a very large parterre. This is divided into quarters by gravel walks, and adorned with two fountains and eight statues in the several quarters. At the end of the terrace walk are two summer houses, and the sides of the parterre are ranged with two large cloisters open to the garden, upon arches of stone, and ending with two other summer houses even with the cloisters, which are paved with stone, and designed for walks of shade, there being none other in the whole parterre. Over these two cloisters are two terraces covered with lead and fenced with balusters; and the passage into these airy walks is out of the two summer houses at the end of the first terrace walk. The cloister facing the south is covered with vines, and would have been proper for an orange house, and the other for myrtles or other more common greens, and had, I doubt not, been cast for that purpose, if this piece of gardening had been then in as much vogue as it is now. From the middle of this parterre is a descent by many steps flying on each side of a grotto, that lies between them, covered with lead and flat, into the lower garden, which is all fruit trees ranged about the several quarters of a wilderness, which is very shady; the walks here are all green, the grotto embellished with figures of shell rock work, fountains, and water works. If the hill had not ended with the lower garden, and the wall were not bounded by a common way that goes through the park, they might have added a third quarter of all greens; but this want is supplied by a garden on the other side the house, which is all of that sort, very wild, shady, and adorned with rough rock-work and fountains. This was Moor Park when I was acquainted with it, and the sweetest place, I think, that I have seen in my life, either before or since, at home or abroad.'

"It is unnecessary to add any remarks on this description. Any man might design and build as sweet a garden, who had been born in and never stirred out of Holborn. It was not, however, peculiar to Sir William Temple to think in that manner. How many Frenchmen are there who have seen our gardens, and still prefer natural sights of steps and shady cloisters covered with lead! Le Nautre, the architect of the groves and grottoes at Versailles, came hither on a mission to improve our taste. He planted St James's and Greenwich Parks—no great monuments of his invention.

"To do farther justice to Sir William Temple, we must not omit what he adds. 'What I have said of the best forms of gardens is meant only of such as are in some fort regular; for there may be other forms wholly irregular, that may, for ought I know, have more beauty than any of the others; but they must owe it to some extraordinary dispositions of nature in the seat, or some great race of fancy or judgment in the contrivance, which may reduce many disagreeing parts into some figure, which shall yet, upon the whole, be very agreeable. Something of this I have seen in some places, but heard more of it from others who have lived much among the Chinese, a people whose way of thinking seems to lie as wide of ours in Europe as their country does. Their greatest reach of imagination is employed in contriving figures, where the beauty shall be great and strike the eye, but without any order or disposition of parts, that shall be commonly or easily observed. And though we have hardly any notion of this sort of beauty, yet they have a particular word to express it: and when they find it hit their eye at first sight, they say the Sharaawagi is fine or is admirable, or any such expression of esteem: but I should hardly advise any of these attempts in the figure of gardens among us; they are adventures of too hard achievement for any common hands; and though there may be more honour if they succeed well, yet there is more dishonour if they fail, and it is twenty to one they will; whereas in regular figures it is hard to make any great and remarkable faults.'

'Fortunately Kent and a few others were not quite so timid, or we might still be going up and down stairs in the open air. It is true, we have heard much lately, as Sir William Temple did, of irregularity and imitations of nature in the gardens or grounds of the Chinese. The former is certainly true: they are as whimsically irregular, as European gardens are formally uniform and unvaried—but with regard to nature, it seems as much avoided, as in the squares and oblongs and straight lines of our ancestors. An artificial perpendicular rock starting out of a flat plain, and connected with nothing, often pierced through in various places with oval hollows, has no more pretension to be deemed natural than a linear terrace or a parterre. The late Mr Joseph Spence, who had both taste and zeal for the present style, was so persuaded of the Chinese emperor's pleasure ground being laid out on principles resembling ours, that he translated and published, under the name of Sir Harry Beaumont, a particular account of that enclosure from the collection of the letters of the Jesuits. But except a determined irregularity, one can find nothing in it that gives any idea of attention being paid to nature. It is of vast circumference, and contains 200 palaces, besides as many contiguous for the eunuchs, all gilt, painted, and varnished. There are raised hills from 20 to 60 feet high, streams and lakes, and one of the latter five miles round. These waters are passed by bridges—but even their bridges must not be straight—they serpentine as much as the rivulets, and are sometimes so long as to be furnished with resting places, and begin and end with triumphal arches. The colonnades undulate in the same manner. In short, this pretty gaudy scene is the work of caprice and whim, and, when we reflect on their buildings, presents no image but that of unsubstantial tawdriness. Nor is this all. Within this fantastic paradise is a square town, each side a mile long. Here the eunuchs of the court, to entertain his imperial majesty with the bustle and business of the capital in which he resides, but which it is not of his dignity ever to see, act merchants and all sorts of trades, and even deignedly exercise for his royal amusement every art of knavery that is practised under his auspicious government. Methinks this is the childish folace and repose of grandeur; not a retirement from affairs to the delights of rural life. Here too his majesty plays at agriculture: there is a quarter set apart for that purpose; the eunuchs sow, reap, and carry in their harvest, in the imperial presence; and his majesty returns to Pekin, persuaded that he has been in the country.

"Having thus cleared our way by ascertaining what have been the ideas on gardening in all ages as far as we have materials to judge by, it remains to show to what degree Mr Kent invented the new style, and what hints he had received to suggest and conduct his undertaking.

"We have seen what Moor Park was, when pronounced a standard. But as no succeeding generation in an opulent and luxurious country contents itself with the perfection established by its ancestors, more perfect perfection was still sought; and improvements had gone on, till London and Wise had stocked all our gardens with giants, animals, monsters, coats of arms, and mottoes, in yew, box, and holly. Absurdity could go no farther, and the tide turned. Bridgman, the next fashionable designer of gardens, was far more chaste; and whether from good sense, or that the nation had been struck and reformed by the admirable paper in the Guardian, No 173, he banished verdant sculpture, and did not even revert to the square precision of the foregoing age. He enlarged his plans, disdained to make every division tally to its opposite; and though he still adhered much to straight walks with high clipped hedges, they were only his great lines; the rest he diversified by wilderness, and with loose groves of oak, though still within surrounding hedges. As his reform gained footing, he ventured, in the royal garden at Richmond, to introduce cultivated fields, and even morsels of a forest appearance, by the sides of those endless and tiresome walks that stretched out of one into another without intermission. But this was not till other innovators had broke loose too from rigid symmetry.

"But the capital stroke, the leading step to all that has followed, was the destruction of walls for boundaries, and the invention of seats—an attempt then deemed so astonishing, that the common people called them Ha! Ha's! to express their surprize at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walk.

"A funk fence may be called the leading step, for these reasons. No sooner was this simple enchantment made, than levelling, mowing, and rolling, followed. The contiguous ground of the park without the sunk fence was to be harmonized with the lawn within; and the garden in its turn was to be set free from its prime regularity, that it might afford with the wilder country without. The funk fence ascertained the specific garden; but that it might not draw too obvious a line of distinction between the neat and the rude, the contiguous out-lying parts came to be included in a kind of general design; and when nature was taken into the plan, under improvements, every step that was made pointed out new beauties, and inspired new ideas. At that moment appeared Kent, painter enough to taste the charms of landscape, bold, and opinionative enough to dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped the fence, and saw that all nature was a garden. He felt the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing imperceptibly into each other, tasted the beauty of the gentle swell or concave scoop, and remarked how loose groves crowned an easy eminence with happy ornament; and while they called in the distant view between their graceful stems, removed and extended the perspective by delusive comparison.

"Thus the pencil of his imagination bestowed all the arts of landscape on the scenes he handled. The great principles on which he worked were perspective, and light and shade. Groups of trees broke too uniform or too extensive a lawn; evergreens and woods were opposed to the glare of the champaign; and where the view was less fortunate, or so much exposed as to be beheld at once, he blotted out some parts by thick shades, to divide it into variety, or to make the richest scene more enchanting by referring it to a farther advance of the spectator's step. Thus, selecting favourite objects, and veiling deformities by screens of plantation; sometimes allowing the rudest waste to add its foil to the richest theatre; he realized the compositions of the greatest masters in painting. Where objects were wanting to animate his horizon, his taste as an architect could bestow immediate termination. His buildings, his seats, his temples, were more the works of his pencil than of his compasses. We owe the restoration of Greece and the diffusion of architecture to his skill in landscape.

"But of all the beauties he added to the face of this beautiful country, none surpassed his management of water. Adieu to canals, circular basins, and cascades tumbling down marble steps, that last absurd magnificence of Italian and French villas. The forced elevation of cataracts was no more. The gentle stream was taught to serpentine seemingly at its pleasure; and where discontinued by different levels, its course appeared to be concealed by thickets properly interperfed, and glittered again at a distance, where it might be supposed naturally to arrive. Its borders were smoothed, but preserved their waving irregularity. A few trees scattered here and there on its edges sprinkled the tame bank that accompanied its meanders; and when it disappeared among the hills, shades descending from the heights leaned towards its progres, and framed the distant point of light under which it was lost, as it turned aside to either hand of the blue horizon.

"Thus, dealing in none but the colours of nature, and catching its most favourable features, men saw a new creation opening before their eyes. The living landscape was chaffened or polished, not transformed. Freedom was given to the forms of trees: they extended their branches unrestricted; and where any eminent oak, or mallet beech, had escaped maiming and survived the forest, bush and bramble was removed, and all its honours were restored to distinguish and shade the plain. Where the united plumage of an ancient wood extended wide its undulating canopy, and flood venerable in its darkness, Kent thinned the forest ranks, and left but so many detached and scattered trees, as softened the approach of gloom, and blended a chequered light with the thus lengthened shadows of the remaining columns.

"Succeeding artists have added new master strokes to these touches; perhaps improved or brought to perfection some that have been named. The introduction of foreign trees and plants, which we owe principally to Archibald duke of Argyle, contributed essentially to the richness of colouring so peculiar to our modern landscape. The mixture of various greens, the contrast of forms between our forest trees and the northern and West Indian firs and pines, are improvements more recent than Kent, or but little known to him. The weeping willow, and every florid shrub, each tree of delicate or bold leaf, are new tints in the composition of our gardens.

"But just as the encomiums are that have been bestowed on Kent's discoveries, he was neither without assistance or faults. Mr Pope undoubtedly contributed to form his taste. The design of the prince of Wales's garden at Carlton house was evidently borrowed from the poet's at Twickenham. There was a little of affected modesty in the latter, when he said, of all his works he was most proud of his garden. And yet it was a singular effort of art and taste to impress so much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres. The passing through the gloom from the grotto to the opening day, the retiring and again assembling shades, the dusky groves, the larger lawn, and the solemnity of the termination at the cypresses that lead up to his mother's tomb, are managed with exquisite judgment; and though Lord Peterborough alluded him.

"To form his quincunx and to rank his vines, those were not the most pleasing ingredients of his little perspective.

"Having routed professed art (for the modern gardener excels his talents to conceal his art), Kent, like other reformers, knew not how to stop at the just limits. He had followed Nature, and imitated her so happily, that he began to think all her works were equally proper for imitation. In Kensington garden he planted dead trees to give a greater air of truth to the scene—but he was soon laughed out of this excess. His ruling principle was, that nature abhors a straight line. His mimics (for every genius has his apes), seemed to think that she could love nothing but what was crooked. Yet so many men of taste of all ranks devoted themselves to the new improvements, that it is surprising how much beauty has been struck out, with how few absurdities. Still in some lights the reformation seems to have been pushed too far. Though an avenue crossing a park or separating a lawn, and intercepting views from the seat to which it leads, are capital faults; yet a great avenue cut through woods, perhaps before entering a park, has a noble air, and,

Like footmen running before coaches To tell the inn what lord approaches,

announces the habitation of some man of distinction. In other places the total banishment of all particular neatness immediately about a house, which is frequently left gazing by itself in the middle of a park, is a defect. Sheltered and even close walks, in so very uncertain a climate as ours, are comforts ill exchanged for the few picturesque days that we enjoy; and whenever a family can purloin a warm and even something of an old-fashioned garden from the landscape designed for them by the undertaker in fashion, without interfering with the picture, they will find satisfactions in those days that do not invite strangers to come and see their improvements."

PART I. PRINCIPLES OF GARDENING.

in the perfection to which it has been lately brought in Britain, is entitled to a place of considerable rank among the liberal arts. It is (says Mr Wheatley) as superior to landscape painting as a reality to a representation: it is an exertion of fancy; a subject for taste; and being released now from the restraints of regularity, and enlarged beyond the purposes of domestic convenience, the most beautiful, the most simple, the most noble scenes of nature, are all within its province. For it is no longer confined to the spots from which it takes its name; but, as already observed, regulates also the disposition and embellishment of a park, a farm, a forest, &c.; and the business of a gardener is to select and apply whatever is great, elegant, or characteristic in any of them; to discover, and to show all the advantages of the place upon which he is employed; to supply its defects, to correct its faults, and to improve its beauties.

SECT. I. Materials of Gardening.

These may be divided into two general classes; Natural and Fictitious.

§ 1. Of the Natural Materials.

These, according to Mr Wheatley's enumeration, are—Ground, Wood, Water, and Rocks.

I. GROUND. By this is meant that portion of naked surface which is included within the place to be improved; whether that surface be swamp, lawn, roughed, or broken ground; and whether it be a height, a valley, a plain, or a composition of swells, dents, and levels.

The following passage has been quoted from Mr Gilpin's observations on the Wye*, as affording a sublime idea of what ground ought to be.—" Nothing (says he) gives so just an idea of the beautiful swellings of ground as those of water, where it has sufficient room to undulate and expand. In ground which is composed of very refractory materials, you are presented often with harsh lines, angular inflections, and disagreeable abruptnesses. In water, whether in gentle or in agitated motion, all is easy, all is softened into itself; and the hills and valleys play into each other in a variety of the most beautiful forms. In agitated water, abruptnesses indeed there are, but yet they are such abruptnesses as in some part or other unite properly with the surface around them; and are on the whole peculiarly harmonious. Now, if the ocean in any of these swellings and agitations could be arrested and fixed, it would produce that pleasing variety which we admire in ground. Hence it is common to fetch our images from water, and apply them to land: we talk of an undulating line, a playing lawn, and a billowy surface; and give a much stronger and more adequate idea by such imagery, than plain language could possibly present."

The exertions of art, however, are here inadequate; and the artist ought not to attempt to create a mountain, a valley, or a plain: he should but rarely meddle even with the smaller inequalities of grounds. Roughed and broken ground may generally be reduced to lawn, or hid with wood; and a swamp may be drained or covered with water; whilst lawn may be variegated at pleasure by wood, and sometimes by water.

II. WOOD, as a general term, comprehends all trees and shrubs in whatever disposition; but it is specifically applied in a more limited sense, and in that sense we shall now use it.

Every plantation must be either a wood, a grove, or clump. A wood is composed both of trees and underwood, covering a considerable space. A grove consists of trees without underwood. A clump differs from either only in extent: it may be either close or open; when close, it is sometimes called a thicket; when open, a group of trees; but both are equally clumps, whatever may be the shape or situation.

1. One of the noblest objects in nature (Mr Wheatley observes) is the surface of a large thick wood, commanded from an eminence, or seen from below hanging on the side of a hill. The latter is generally the more interesting object. Its aspiring situation gives it an air of greatness; its termination is commonly the horizon; and, indeed, if it is deprived of that splendid boundary if the brow appears above it (unless some very peculiar effect characterizes that brow), it loses much of its magnificence: it is inferior to a wood which covers a lot hill from the top to the bottom; for a whole space filled is seldom little. But a wood commanded from an eminence is generally no more than a part of the scene below; and its boundary is often inadequate to its greatness. To continue it, therefore, till it winds out of sight, or loses itself in the horizon, is generally desirable: but then the varieties of its surface grow confused as it retires; while those of a hanging wood are all distinct, the further parts are held up to the eye, and none are at a distance though the whole be extensive.

The varieties of a surface are essential to the beauty of it: a continued smooth level of foliage is neither agreeable nor natural; the different growths of trees commonly break it in reality, and their shadows still more in appearance. These shades are so many tints, which, undulating about the surface, are its greatest embellishment; and such tints may be produced with more effect, and more certainty, by a judicious mixture of greens; at the same time an additional variety may be introduced, by grouping and contralting trees very different in shape from each other; and whether variety in the greens or in the forms be the design, the execution is often easy, and seldom to a certain degree impossible. In raising a young wood, it may be perfect. In old woods, there are many spots which may be either thinned or thickened: and there the characteristic distinctions should determine what to plant, or which to leave; at the least will often point out those which, as blemishes, ought to be taken away; and the removal of two or three trees will sometimes accomplish the design. The number of beautiful forms and agreeable masses, which may decorate the surface, is so great, that where the place will not admit of one, another is always ready; and as no delicacy of finishing is required, no minute exactness is worth regarding; great effects will not be disconcerted by small obtrusions and little disappointments.

The contrasts, however, of masses and of groups must not be too strong, where greatness is the character of the wood; for unity is essential to greatness: and if direct opposites be placed close together, the wood is no longer one object; it is only a confused collection of several separate plantations. But if the progress be gradual from the one to the other, shapes and tints widely different may assemble on the same surface; and each should occupy a considerable space: a single tree, or a small cluster of trees, in the midst of an extensive wood, is in size but a speck, and in colour but a spot; the groups and the masses must be large to produce any sensible variety.

When, in a romantic situation, very broken ground is overspread with wood, it may be proper on the surface of the wood to mark the inequalities of the ground. Rudeness, not greatness, is the prevailing idea; and a choice directly the reverse of that which is productive of unity will produce it. Strong contrasts, even oppositions, sitions, may be eligible; the aim is rather to disjoin than to connect: a deep hollow may sink into dark greens; an abrupt bank may be thrown by a rising flage of alpiring trees, a sharp ridge by a narrow line of conical shapes: firs are of great use upon such occasions; their tint, their form, their singularity, recommend them.

A hanging wood of thin forest trees, and seen from below is seldom pleasing: these few trees are by the perspective brought nearer together; it loses the beauty of a thin wood, and is defective as a thick one: the most obvious improvement, therefore is to thicken it. But, when seen from an eminence, a thin wood is often a lively and elegant circumstance in a view; it is full of objects; and every separate tree shows its beauty. To increase that vivacity which is the peculiar excellence of a thin wood, the trees should be characteristically distinguished both in their tints and their shapes; and such as for their airiness have been proscribed in a thick wood, are frequently the most eligible here. Differences also in their growths are a farther source of variety; each should be considered as a distinct object, unless where a small number are grouped together; and then all that compose the little cluster must agree: but the groups themselves, for the same reason as the separate trees, should be strongly contrasted; the continued underwood is their only connexion, and that is not affected by their variety.

Though the surface of a wood, when commanded, deserves all these attentions, yet the outline more frequently calls for our regard: it is also more in our power; it may sometimes be great, and may always be beautiful. The first requisite is irregularity. That a mixture of trees and underwood should form a long straight line, can never be natural; and a succession of easy sweeps and gentle rounds, each a portion of a greater or less circle, composing all together a line literally serpentine, is, if possible, worse. It is but a number of regularities put together in a disorderly manner, and equally distant from the beautiful both of art and of nature. The true beauty of an outline consists more in breaks than in sweeps; rather in angles than in rounds; in variety, not in succession.

Every variety in the outline of a wood must be a prominence or a recess. Breadth in either is not so important as length to the one and depth to the other. If the former ends in an angle, the latter diminishes to a point; they have more force than a shallow dent, or a dwarf excrecence, how wide ever. They are greater deviations from the continued line which they are intended to break; and their effect is to enlarge the wood itself, which seems to stretch from the most advanced point, back beyond the most distant to which it retires. The extent of a large wood on a flat, not commanded, can by no circumstance be so manifestly shewn as by a deep recess; especially if that recess wind so as to conceal the extremity, and leave the imagination to pursue it. On the other hand, the poverty of a shallow wood might sometimes be relieved by here and there a prominence, or clumps which by their apparent junction should seem to be prominences from it. A deeper wood with a continued outline, except when commanded, would not appear so considerable.

An inlet into a wood seems to have been cut, if the opposite points of the entrance tally; and that show of art depreciates its merit; but a difference only in the situation of those points, by bringing one more forward than the other, prevents the appearance, though their forms be similar. Other points, which distinguish the great parts, should in general be strongly marked: a short turn has more spirit in it than a tedious circuitry; and a line broken by angles has a precision and firmness, which in an undulated line are wanting; the angles should indeed commonly be a little softened; the rotundity of the plant which forms them is sometimes sufficient for the purpose; but if they are mellowed down too much, they lose all meaning. Three or four large parts thus boldly distinguished, will break a very long outline. When two woods are opposed on the sides of a narrow glade, neither has so much occasion for variety in itself as if it were single; if they are very different from each other, the contrast supplies the deficiency to each, and the interval between them is full of variety. The form of that interval is indeed of as much consequence as their own: though the outlines of both the woods be separately beautiful, yet if together they do not cast the open space into an agreeable figure, the whole scene is not pleasing; and a figure is never agreeable, when the sides too closely correspond: whether they are exactly the same, or exactly the reverse of each other, they equally appear artificial.

Every variety of outline hitherto mentioned may be traced by the underwood alone; but frequently the same effects may be produced with more ease, and with much more beauty, by a few trees standing out from the thicket, and belonging, or seeming to belong, to the wood, so as to make a part of its figure. Even where they are not wanted for that purpose, detached trees are such agreeable objects, so distinct, so light, when compared to the covert about them, that skirting along it in some parts, and breaking it in others, they give an unaffected grace, which can no otherwise be given to the out-of-a-grove line. They have a still further effect, when they stretch across the whole breadth of an inlet, or before part of a recess into the wood; they are themselves shown to advantage by the space behind them; and that space, seen between their stems, they in return throw into an agreeable perspective.

2. The prevailing character of a wood is generally grandeur: the principal attention therefore which it requires, is to prevent the excesses of that character, to verify the uniformity of its extent, to lighten the unwieldiness of its bulk, and to blend graces with greatness. The character of a grove is beauty. Fine trees are lovely objects: a grove is an assemblage of them; in which every individual retains much of its own peculiar elegance, and whatever it loses is transferred to the superior beauty of the whole. To a grove, therefore, which admits of endless variety in the disposition of the trees, differences in their shapes and their greens are seldom very important, and sometimes they are detrimental. Strong contrasts scatter trees which are thinly planted, and which have not the connection of underwood; they no longer form one plantation; they are a number of single trees. A thick grove is not indeed exposed to this mischief, and certain situations may recommend different shapes and different greens for their effects upon the surface; but in the outline they are seldom much regarded. The eye attracted into the depth of the grove, passes by little circumstances at the entrance; even varieties in the form of the line do not always engage the attention; they are not so apparent as in a continued thicket, and are scarcely seen if they are not considerable.

But the surface and the outline are not the only circumstances to be attended to. Though a grove be beautiful as an object, it is besides delightful as a spot to walk or to sit in; and the choice and the disposition of the trees for effects within, are therefore a principal consideration. Mere irregularity alone will not please; strict order is there more agreeable than absolute confusion; and some meaning better than none. A regular plantation has a degree of beauty; but it gives no satisfaction, because we know that the same number of trees might be more beautifully arranged. A disposition, however, in which the lines only are broken, without varying the distances, is equally improper. The trees should gather into groups, or stand in various irregular lines, and describe various figures; the intervals between them should be contrasted both in shape and in dimensions: a large space should in some places be quite open; in others the trees should be so close together, as hardly to leave a passage between them; and in others as far apart as the connexion will allow. In the forms and the varieties of these groups, these lines, and these openings, principally consists the interior beauty of a grove.

The force of them is most strongly illustrated at Claremont†, where the walk to the cottage, though deficiente of many natural advantages, and eminent for none; though it commands no prospect; though the water below it is a trifling pond; though it has nothing, in short, but inequality of ground to recommend it; is yet the finest part of the garden: for a grove is there planted in a gently curved direction, all along the side of a hill, and on the edge of a wood, which rises above it. Large recesses break it into several clumps, which hang down the declivity: some of them approaching, but none reaching quite to the bottom. These recesses are so deep as to form great openings in the midst of the grove; they penetrate almost to the covert: but the clumps being all equally fupplied from the wood; and a line of open plantation, though sometimes narrow, running constantly along the top; a continuation of grove is preserved, and the connexion between the parts is never broken. Even a group, which near one of the extremities stands out quite detached, is fill in style so similar to the rest as not to lose all relation. Each of these clumps is composed of several others fill more intimately united; each is full of groups, sometimes of no more than two trees, sometimes of four or five, and now and then in larger clusters; an irregular waving line, issuing from some little crowd, loles itself in the next; or a few scattered trees drop in a more distant succession from the one to the other. The intervals, winding here like a glade, and widening there into broader openings, differ in extent, in figure, and direction; but all the groups, the lines, and the intervals, are collected together into large general clumps, each of which is at the same time both compact and free, identical and various. The whole is a place wherein to tarry with secure delight, or saunter with perpetual amusement.

The grove at Ether place was planted by the same masterly hand; but the necessity of accommodating the young plantation to some large trees which grew there before, has confined its variety. The groups are few and small; there was not room for larger or for more; there were no opportunities to form continued narrow glades between opposite lines; the vacant spaces are therefore chiefly irregular openings, spreading every way, and great differences of distance between the trees are the principal variety; but the grove winds along the bank of a large river, on the side and at the foot of a very sudden ascent, the upper part of which is covered with wood. In one place, it preludes close to the covert; retires from it in another; and stretches in a third across a bold recess, which runs up high into the thicket. The trees sometimes overspread the flat below; sometimes leave an open space to the river; at other times crown the brow of a large knoll, climb up a steep, or hang on a gentle declivity. These varieties in the situation more than compensate for the want of variety in the disposition of the trees; and the many happy circumstances which concur,

In Esther's peaceful grove, Where Kent and nature vie for Pelham's love, render this little spot more agreeable than any at Claremont. But though it was right to preserve the trees already standing, and not to sacrifice great present beauties to still greater in futurity; yet this attention has been a restraint; and the grove at Claremont, considered merely as a plantation, is in delicacy of taste, and fertility of invention, superior to that at Esther.

It is, however, possible to secure both a present and a future effect, by fixing first on a disposition which will be beautiful when the trees are large, and then intermingling another which is agreeable while they are small. These occasional trees are hereafter to be taken away; and must be removed in time, before they become prejudicial to the others.

The consequence of variety in the disposition, is variety in the light and shade of the grove; which may be improved by the choice of the trees. Some are impenetrable to the fiercest sunbeam; others let in here and there a ray between the large masses of their foliage; and others, than both of boughs and of leaves, only chequer the around. Every degree of light and shade, from a glare to obscurity, may be managed, partly by the number, and partly by the texture, of the trees. Differences only in the manner of their growths have also corresponding effects: there is a closeness under those whose branches descend low, and spread wide; a space and liberty where the arch above is high; and frequent transitions from the one to the other are very pleasing. These fill are not all the varieties of which the interior of a grove is capable; trees, indeed, whose branches nearly reach the ground, being each a sort of thicket, are inconsistent with an open plantation: but though some of the characteristic distinctions are thereby excluded, other varieties more minute succeed in their place; for the freedom of passage throughout brings every tree in its turn near to the eye, and subjects even differences in foliage to observation. These, flight as they may seem, are agreeable when they occur; it is true, they are not regretted when wanting; but a defect of ornament is not necessarily a blemish.

3. It has been already observed, that clumps differ Of Clumps only

only in extent from woods, if they are close; or from groves, if they are open: they are small woods, and small groves, governed by the same principles as the larger, after allowances made for their dimensions. But besides the properties they may have in common with woods or with groves, they have others peculiar to themselves which require examination.

They are either independent or relative: when independent, their beauty, as single objects, is solely to be attended to; when relative, the beauty of the individuals must be sacrificed to the effect of the whole, which is the greater consideration.

The occasions on which independent clumps may be applied, are many. They are often desirable as beautiful objects in themselves; they are sometimes necessary to break an extent of lawn, or a continued line whether of ground or of plantation; but on all occasions a jealousy of art constantly attends them, which irregularity in their figure will not always alone remove. Though elevations show them to advantage, yet a hillock evidently thrown up on purpose to be crowned with a clump, is artificial to a degree of disgust: some of the trees should therefore be planted on the sides, to take off that appearance. The same expedient may be applied to clumps placed on the brow of a hill, to interrupt its sameness: they will have less ostentation of design, if they are in part carried down either declivity. The objection already made to planting many along such a brow, is on the same principle: a single clump is less suspected of art; if it be an open one, there can be no finer situation for it, than just at the point of an abrupt hill, or on a promontory into a lake or a river. It is in either a beautiful termination, distinct by its position, and enlivened by an expanse of sky or of water about and beyond it. Such advantages may balance little defects in its form: but they are lost if other clumps are planted near it; art then intrudes, and the whole is displeasing.

But though a multiplicity of clumps, when each is an independent object, seldom seems natural; yet a number of them may, without any appearance of art, be admitted into the same scene, if they bear a relation to each other: if by their juxtaposition they diversify a continued outline of wood, if between them they form beautiful glades, if altogether, they cast an extensive lawn into an agreeable shape, the effect prevents any scrutiny into the means of producing it. But when the reliance on that effect is so great, every other consideration must give way to the beauty of the whole. The figure of the glade, of the lawn, or of the wood, are principally to be attended to: the finest clumps, if they do not fall easily into the great lines, are blemishes; their connexions, their contrasts, are more important than their forms.

III. WATER. All inland water is either running or stagnated. When stagnated, it forms a lake or a pool, which differ only in extent; and a pool and a pond are the fame. Running waters are either a rivulet, a river, or a rill; and these differ only in breadth: a rivulet and a brook are synonymous terms; a stream and a current are general names for all.

1. Space or expansion is essential to a lake. It cannot be too large as a subject of description or of contemplation; but the eye receives little satisfaction when it has not a form on which to rest: the ocean itself hardly attones by all its grandeur for its infinity; and a prospect of it is, therefore, always most agreeable, when in some part, at no great distance, a reach of shore, a promontory, or an island, reduces the immensity into shape. An artificial lake, again, may be comparatively extravagant in its dimensions. It may be so out of proportion to its appendages, as to seem a waste of water; for all size is in some respects relative: if this exceeds its due dimensions, and if a flatness of shore beyond it, adds still to the dreariness of the scene; wood to raise the banks, and objects to distinguish them, are the remedies to be employed. If the length of a piece of water be too great for its breadth, so as to destroy all idea of circuitry, the extremities should be considered as too far off, and made important to give them proximity; while at the same time the breadth may be favoured, by keeping down the banks on the sides. On the same principle, if the lake be too small, a low shore will, in appearance, increase the extent.

But it is not necessary that the whole scene be bounded: if form be impressed on a considerable part, the eye can, without disgust, permit a large reach to stretch beyond its ken; it can even be pleated to observe a tremulous motion in the horizon, which shows that the water has not there yet attained its termination. Still short of this, the extent may be kept in uncertainty; a hill or a wood may conceal one of the extremities, and the country beyond it, in such a manner as to leave room for the supposed continuation of too large a body of water. Opportunities to choose this shape are frequent, and it is the most perfect of any: the scene is closed, but the extent of the lake is undetermined; a complete form is exhibited to the eye, while a boundless range is left open to the imagination.

But mere form will only give content, not delight: that depends upon the outline, which is capable of exquisite beauty; and the bays, the creeks, and the promontories, which are ordinary parts of that outline, together with the accidents of islands, of inlets, and of outlets to rivers, are in their shapes and their combinations an inexhaustible fund of variety.

Bays, creeks, and promontories, however, though extremely beautiful, should not be very numerous: for a shore broken into little points and hollows has no certainty of outline; it is only ragged, not diversified; and the distinctness and simplicity of the great parts are hurt by the multiplicity of subdivisions. But islands, though the channels between them be narrow, do not so often derogate from greatness: they intimate a space beyond them whose boundaries do not appear; and remove to a distance the shore which is seen in perspective between them. Such partial interruptions of the sight suggest ideas of extent to the imagination.

2. Though the windings of a river are proverbially descriptive of its course; yet without being perpetually wreathed, it may be natural. Nor is the character expressed only by the turnings. On the contrary, if they are too frequent and sudden, the current is reduced into a number of separate pools, and the idea of progress is obscured by the difficulty of tracing it. Length is the strongest symptom of continuation: long reaches are therefore characteristic of a river, and they conduce much to its beauty; each is a considerable piece of water, and variety of beautiful forms may be given to their outlines.

A river requires a number of accompaniments. The changes in its course furnish a variety of situations; while the fertility, convenience, and amenity, which attend it, account for all appearances of inhabitants and improvement. Profusion of ornament on a fictitious river, is a just imitation of cultivated nature. Every species of building, every style of plantation, may abound on the banks; and whatever be their characters, their proximity to the water is commonly the happiest circumstance in their situation. A lustre is from thence diffused on all around; each derives an importance from its relation to this capital feature; those which are near enough to be reflected, immediately belong to it; those at a greater distance still share in the animation of the scene; and objects totally detached from each other, being all attracted towards the same interesting connexion, are united into one composition.

In the front of Blenheim was a deep broad valley, which abruptly separated the castle from the lawn and the plantations before it; even a direct approach could not be made without building a monstros bridge over the vast hollow; but this forced communication was only a subject of raillery; and the scene continued broken into two parts, absolutely distinct from each other. This valley has been lately flooded: it is not filled; the bottom only is covered with water; the sides are still very high; but they are no longer the steep of a chasm, they are the bold shores of a noble river. The same bridge is standing without alteration: but no extravagance remains; the water gives it propriety. Above it the river first appears, winding from behind a small thick wood in the valley; and soon taking a determined course, it then broad enough to admit an island filled with the finest trees; others corresponding to them in growth and disposition, stand in groups on the banks, intermixed with younger plantations. Immediately belong the bridge, the river spreads into a large expanse: the fides are open lawn. On that further from the house formerly stood the palace of Henry II. celebrated in many an ancient ditty by the name of Fair Rofamond's Bower. A little clear spring, which rises there, is by the country people still called Fair Rofamond's Well. The spot is now marked by a single willow. Near it is a fine collateral stream, of a beautiful form, retaining its breadth as far as it is seen, and retiring at last behind a hill from the view. The main river, having received this accession, makes a gentle bend: then continues for a considerable length in one wide direct reach; and, just as it disappears, throws itself down a high cascade, which is the present termination. On one of the banks of this reach is the garden: the steep is there diversified with thickets and with glades; but the covert prevails, and the top is crowned with lofty trees. On the other side is a noble hanging wood in the park: it was deprecated when it sunk into a hollow, and was poorly lost in the bottom; but it is now a rich appendage to the river, falling down an easy slope quite to the water's edge, where, with overshadowing, it is reflected on the surface. Another face of the same wood borders the collateral stream, with an outline more indented and various: while a very large irregular clump adorns the opposite declivity. This clump is at a considerable distance from the principal river: but the stream it belongs to brings it down to connect with the rest; and the other objects, which were before dispersed, are now, by the interest of each in a relation, which is common to all, collected into one illustrious scene. The cattle itself is a prodigious pile of building; which, with all the faults in its architecture, will never seem less than a truly princely habitation; and the confined spot where it was placed, on the edge of an abyss, is converted into a proud situation, commanding a beautiful prospect of water, and open to an extensive lawn, adequate to the mansion, and an emblem of its domain. In the midst of this lawn stands a column, a stately trophy, recording the exploits of the duke of Marlborough and the gratitude of Britain. Between this pillar and the cattle is the bridge, which now, applied to a subject worthy of it, is established in all the importance due to its greatness. The middle arch is wider than the Rialto, but not too wide for the occasion; and yet that is the narrowest part of the river; but the length of the reaches is everywhere proportioned to their breadth. Each of them is alone a noble piece of water; and the last, the finest of all, loses itself gradually in a wood, which on that side is also the boundary of the lawn, and rises into the horizon. All is great in the front of Blenheim: but in that vast space no void appears; so important are the parts, so magnificent the object. The plain is extensive, the valley is broad, the wood is deep. Though the intervals between the buildings are large, they are filled with the grandeur which buildings of such dimensions and so much pomp diffuse all around them; and the river in its long varied course, approaching to every object, and touching upon every part, spreads its influence over the whole.

In the composition of this scene, the river, both as a part itself, and as uniting the other parts, has a principal share. But water is not lost though it be in so confined or so concealed a spot as to enter into no view; it may render that spot delightful. It is capable of the most exquisite beauty in its form; and though not in space, may yet in disposition have pretensions to greatness; for it may be divided into several branches, which will form a cluster of islands all connected together, make the whole place irriguous, and, in the stead of extent, supply a quantity of water. Such a sequestered scene usually owes its retirement to the trees and the thickets with which it abounds; but, in the disposition of them, one distinction should be constantly attended to. A river flowing through a wood which overpreads one continued surface of ground, and a river between two woods, are in very different circumstances. In the latter case, the woods are separate; they may be contrasted in their forms and their characters, and the outline of each should be forcibly marked. In the former no outline ought to be discernible; for the river passes between trees, not between boundaries; and though in the progress of its course, the style of the plantations may be often changed, yet on the opposite banks a similarity would constantly prevail, that the identity of the wood may never be doubtful. A river between two woods may enter into a view; and then it must be governed by the principles which regulate the conduct and the accompaniments of a river in an open exposal. But when it runs through a wood, it is never to be seen in a prospect; the place is naturally full of obstructions; and a continued opening, large enough to receive a long reach, would seem an artificial cut. The river must therefore necessarily wind more than in crossing a lawn where the passage is entirely free. But its influence will never extend so far on the sides: the buildings must be near the banks: and, if numerous, will seem crowded, being all in one track, and in situations nearly alike. The scene, however, does not want variety: on the contrary, none is capable of more. The objects are not indeed so different from each other as in an open view; but they are very different, and in much greater abundance; for this is the interior of a wood, where every tree is an object, every combination of trees a variety, and no large intervals are requisite to distinguish the several dispositions; the grove, the thicket or the groups, may prevail, and their forms and their relations may be constantly changed without restraint of fancy, or limitation of number.

Water is so universally and so deservedly admired in a prospect, that the most obvious thought in the management of it, is to lay it as open as possible; and purposely to conceal it would generally seem a severe self-denial: yet so many beauties may attend its passage through a wood, that larger portions of it might be allowed to such retired scenes than are commonly spared from the view, and the different parts in different styles would be fine contrasts to each other. If the water at Wotton* were all exposed, a walk of near two miles along the banks would be of a tedious length, from the want of those changes of the scene which now supply through the whole extent a succession of perpetual variety. The extent is so large as to admit of a division into four principal parts, all of them great in style and in dimensions, and differing from each other both in character and situation. The two first are the least. The one is a reach of a river, about the third of a mile in length, and of a competent breadth, flowing through a lovely mead, open in some places to views of beautiful hills in the country, and adorned in others with clumps of trees, so large, that their branches stretch quite across, and form a high arch over the water. The next seems to have been once a formal basin encompassed with plantations, and the appendages on either side still retain some traces of regularity; but the shape of the water is free from them; the size is about 14 acres; and out of it issue two broad collateral streams, winding towards a large river, which they are seen to approach, and supposed to join. A real junction is however impossible, from the difference of the levels; but the terminations are so artfully concealed, that the deception is never suspected, and when known is not easily explained. The river is the third great division of the water; a lake into which it falls, is the fourth. These two do actually join; but their characters are directly opposite; the scenes they belong to are totally distinct; and the transition from the one to the other is very gradual; for an island near the conflux, dividing the breadth, and concealing the end of the lake, mode-

rates for some way the space; and permitting it to expand but by degrees, raises an idea of greatness, from uncertainty accompanied with increase. The reality does not disappoint the expectation; and the island, which is the point of view, is itself equal to the scene: it is large, and high above the lake; the ground is irregularly broken; thickets hang on the sides; and towards the top is placed an Ionic portico, which commands a noble extent of water, not less than a mile in circumference, bounded on one side with wood, and open on the other to two sloping lawns, the leaf of an hundred acres, diversified with clumps, and bordered by plantations. Yet this lake, when full in view, and with all the importance which space, form, and situation can give, is not more interesting than the sequestered river, which has been mentioned as the third great division of the water. It is just within the verge of a wood, three quarters of a mile long, everywhere broad, and its course is such as to admit of infinite variety without any confusion. The banks are cleared of underwood; but a few thickets still remain, and on one side an impenetrable covert soon begins: the interval is a beautiful grove of oaks, scattered over a green sward of extraordinary verdure. Between these trees and these thickets the river seems to glide gently along, constantly winding, without one short turn or one extended reach in the whole length of the way. This even temper in the stream suits the scenes through which it passes; they are in general of a very sober cast, not melancholy, but grave; never exposed to a glare; never darkened with gloom; nor, by strong contrasts of light and shade, exhibiting the excess of either. Undisturbed by an extent of prospect without, or a multiplicity of objects within, they retain at all times a mildness of character; which is still more forcibly felt when the shadows grow faint as they lengthen, when a little ruffling of birds in the spray, the leaping of the fish, and the fragrance of the woodbine, denote the approach of evening; while the setting sun shoots its last gleams on a Tuscan portico, which is close to the great basin, but which from a seat near this river is seen at a distance, through all the obscurity of the wood, glowing on the banks, and reflected on the surface of the water. In another still more distinguished spot is built an elegant bridge, with a colonnade upon it, which not only adorns the place where it stands, but is also a picturesque object to an octagon building near the lake, where it is shown in a singular situation, overarched, encompassed, and backed with wood, without any appearance of the water beneath. This building in return is also an object from the bridge; and a Chinese room, in a little island just by, is another: neither of them are considerable, and the others which are visible are at a distance; but more or greater adventitious ornaments are not required in a spot so rich as this in beauties peculiar to its character. A profusion of water pours in from all sides round upon the view; the opening of the lake appears; a glimpse is caught of the large basin: one of the collateral streams is full in sight, and the bridge itself is in the midst of the finest part of the river: all seem to communicate the one with the other. Though thickets often intercept, and groups perplex the view, yet they never break the connexion between the several pieces of water; each may still be traced along large branches or little catches; which in some places are overshadowed and dim; in others glitten through a glade, or glimmer between the boles of trees in a distant perspective; and in one, where they are quite lost to the view, some arches of the stone bridge, but partially seen among the wood, preserve their connexion.

3. If a large river may sometimes, a smaller current undoubtedly may often, be conducted through a wood: it seldom adorns, it frequently disfigures, a prospect, where its course is marked, not by any appearance of water, but by a confused line of clotted grass, which disagrees with the general verdure. A Rivulet may, indeed, have consideration enough for a house scene, though it be open; but a Rill is always most agreeable when most retired from public view. Its characteristic excellencies are vivacity and variety, which require attention, leisure, and silence, that the eye may pore upon the little beauties, and the ear listen to the low murmurs of the stream without interruption. To such indulgence a confined spot only is favourable; a close copse is therefore often more acceptable than a high wood, and a sequestered valley at all times preferable to any open exposure: a single rill at a very little distance is a mere water course; it looses all its charms; it has no importance in itself, and bears no proportion to the scene. A number of little streams have indeed an effect in any situation, but not as objects; they are interesting only on account of the character they express, the irriguous appearance which they give to the whole.

The full tide of a large river has more force than activity, and seems too unwieldy to allow of very quick transitions. But in a rill, the agility of its motion accounts for every caprice; frequent windings disguise its insignificance; short turnings show its vivacity; sudden changes in the breadth are a species of its variety; and however fantastically the channel may be wreathed, contracted, and widened, it still appears to be natural. We find an amusement in tracing the little stream through all the intricacies of its course, and in seeing it force a passage through a narrow strait, expatiate on every opportunity, struggle with obstructions, and puzzle out its way. A rivulet, which is the mean betwixt a river and a rill, partakes of the character of both: it is not licensed to the extravagance of the one, nor under the same restraints as the other: it may have more frequent bends than the river, longer reaches than a rill: the breadth of a stream determines whether the principal beauty results from extent or from variety.

The murmurs of a rill are amongst the most pleasing circumstances which attend it. If the bed of the stream be rough, mere declivity will occasion a constant rippling noise: when the current drops down a descent, though but of a few inches, or forcibly bubbles up from a little hollow, it has a deep gurgling tone, not uniformly continued, but incessantly repeated, and therefore, more engaging than any. The flattest of all, is that found rather of the splashing than the fall of water, which an even gentle slope, or a tame obstruction, will produce: this is less pleasing than the others; but none should be entirely excluded: all in their turns are agreeable; and the choice of them is much in our power. By observing their causes, we may often find the means to strengthen, to weaken, or to change them; and the addition or removal of a single stone, or a few pebbles, will sometimes be sufficient for the purpose.

A rill cannot pretend to any found beyond that of a little water fall: the roar of a cascade belongs only to a larger stream; but it may be produced by a rivulet to a considerable degree, and attempts to do more have generally been unsuccessful. A vain ambition to imitate nature in her great extravagancies betrays the weakness of art. Though a noble river, throwing itself headlong down a precipice, be an object truly magnificent, it must however be confessed, that in a single sheet of water there is a formality which its vastness alone can cure. But the height, not the breadth, is the wonder: when it falls no more than a few feet, the regularity prevails; and its extent only serves to expose the vanity of affecting the style of a cataract in an artificial cascade. It is less exceptionable if divided into several parts: for then each separate part may be wide enough for its depth; and in the whole, variety, not greatness, will be the predominant character. But a structure of rough, large, detached stones, cannot easily be contrived of strength sufficient to support a great weight of water: it is sometimes from necessity almost smooth and uniform, and then it looses much of its effects. Several little falls in succession are preferable to one great cascade which in figure or in motion approaches to regularity.

When greatness is thus reduced to number, and length becomes of more importance than breadth, a rivulet vies with a river: and it more frequently runs in a continued declivity, which is very favourable to such a succession of falls. Half the expense and labour which are sometimes bestowed on a river, to give it at the best a forced precipitancy in one spot only, would animate a rivulet through the whole of its course. And, after all, the most interesting circumstance in falling waters is their animation. A great cascade fills us with surprise: but all surpise must cease; and the motion, the agitation, the rage, the froth, and the variety of the water, are finally the objects which engage the attention: for these a rivulet is sufficient; and they may there be produced without that appearance of effort which raises a suspicion of art.

To obviate such a suspicion, it may be sometimes expedient to begin the descent out of sight; for the beginning is the difficulty: if that be concealed, the subsequent falls seem but a consequence of the agitation which characterizes the water at its first appearance; and the imagination is, at the same time, let loose to give ideal extent to the cascades. When a stream issues from a wood, such management will have a great effect: the bends of its course in an open exposure may afford frequent opportunities for it; and sometimes a low broad bridge may furnish the occasion: a little fall hid under the arch will create a disorder; in consequence of which, a greater cascade below will appear very natural.

IV. ROCKS. Rocks are themselves too vast and too stubborn to submit to our control; by the addition or removal of appendages which we can command, parts may be shewn or concealed, and the characters with their impressions may be weakened or enforced: forced: to adopt the accompaniments accordingly, is the utmost ambition of art when rocks are the subject.

Their most distinguished characters are, dignity, terror, and fancy: the expressions of all are constantly wild: and sometimes a rocky scene is only wild, without pretensions to any particular character.

Rills, rivulets, and cascades, abound among rocks: they are natural to the scene; and such scenes commonly require every accompaniment which can be procured for them. Mere rocks, unless they are particularly adapted to certain impressions, though they may surprise, cannot be long engaging, if the rigour of their character be not softened by circumstances which may belong either to thee or to more cultivated spots: and when the dreariness is extreme, little streams and waterfalls are of themselves insufficient for the purpose; an intermixture of vegetation is also necessary, and on some occasions even marks of inhabitants are proper.

Large clefts, sloping or precipitous, with a dale at bottom, furnish scenes of the wildest nature. In such spots, verdure alone will give some relief to the dreariness of the scene; and shrubs or bushes, without trees, are a sufficiency of wood: the thickets may also be extended by the creeping plants, such as pyracantha, vines, and ivy, to wind up the sides or clutter on the tops of the rocks. And to this vegetation may be added some symptoms of inhabitants, but they must be flight and few; the use of them is only to cheer, not to destroy, the solitude of the place; and such therefore should be chosen as are sometimes found in situations retired from public resort; a cottage may be lonely, but it must not here seem ruinous and neglected; it should be tight and warm, with every mark of comfort about it, to which its position in some sheltered recess may greatly contribute. A cavity also in the rocks, rendered easy of access, improved to a degree of convenience, and maintained in a certain state of preservation, will suggest similar ideas of protection from the bitterest inclemencies of the sky, and even of occasional refreshment and repose. But we may venture still further; a mill is of necessity often built at some distance from the town which it supplies; and here it would at the same time apply the water to a use, and increase its agitation. The dale may besides be made the haunt of those animals, such as goats, which are sometimes wild, and sometimes domestic; and which accidentally appearing, will divert the mind from the sensations natural to the scene, but not agreeable if continued long without interruption. These and such other expedients will approximate the feverish retreat to the habitations of men, and convert the appearance of a perpetual banishment into that of a temporary retirement from society.

But too strong a force on the nature of the place always fails. A winding path, which appears to be worn, not cut, has more effect than a high road, all artificial and level, which is too weak to overbear, and yet contradicts, the general idea. The objects therefore to be introduced must be those which hold a mean between solitude and population; and the inclination of that choice towards either extreme, should be directed by the degree of wildness which prevails; for though that runs sometimes to an excess which requires correction, at other times it wants encouragement, and at all times it ought to be preserved: it is the predominant character of rocks, which mixes with every other, and to which all the appendages must be accommodated; and they may be applied so as greatly to increase it: a licentious irregularity of wood and of ground, and a fantastic conduct of the streams, neither of which would be tolerated in the midst of cultivation, become and improve romantic rocky spots; even buildings, partly by their style, but still more by their position, in strange, difficult, or dangerous situations, distinguish and aggravate the native extravagancies of the scene.

Greatness is a chief ingredient in the character of dignity, with less of wildness than in any other. The effect here depends more upon amplitude of surface, than variety of forms. The parts, therefore, must be large: if the rocks are only high, they are but splendid, not majestic: breadth is equally essential to their greatness; and every slender, every grotesque shape, is excluded. Art may interpose to show these large parts to the eye, and magnify them to the imagination, by taking away thickets which stretch quite across the rocks, so as to diligate their dimensions; or by filling with wood the small intervals between them, and thus, by concealing the want, preserving the appearance of continuation. When rocks retire from the eye down a gradual declivity, we can, by raising the upper ground, deepen the fall, lengthen the perspective, and give both height and extent to those at a distance: this effect may be still increased by covering that upper ground with a thicket, which shall cease, or be lowered, as it descends. A thicket, on other occasions, makes the rocks which rise out of it seem larger than they are. If they stand upon a bank overspread with shrubs, their beginning is at the least uncertain; and the presumption is, that they start from the bottom. Another use of this brushy underwood is to conceal the fragments and rubbish which have fallen from the sides and the brow, and which are often untidy. Rocks are seldom remarkable for the elegance of their forms; they are too vast, and too rude, to pretend to delicacy: but their shapes are often agreeable: and we can affect those glimpses to a certain degree, at least we can cover many blemishes in them, by conducting the growth of shrubby and creeping plants about them.

For all these purposes mere underwood suffices: but for greater effects larger trees are requisite: they are worthy of the scene; and not only improvements, but accessions to its grandeur: we are used to rank them among the noblest objects of nature; and when we see that they cannot aspire to the midway of the heights around them, the rocks are raised by the comparison. A single tree is, therefore, often preferable to a clump: the size, though really less, is more remarkable; and clumps are besides generally exceptionable in a very wild spot, from the suspicion of art which attends them; but a wood is free from that suspicion, and its own character of greatness recommends it to every scene of magnificence.

On the same principle all possible consideration should be given to the streams. No number of little rills are equal to one broad river; and in the principal current, some varieties may be sacrificed to importance: but a degree of strength should always be preserved: the water, though it needs not be furious, should not be Rocks, dull; for dignity, when most serene, is not languid; and space will hardly atone for want of animation.

This character does not exclude marks of inhabitants, though it never requires them to tame its wilderness: and without invading, it occasionally admits an intermixture of vegetation. It even allows of buildings intended only to decorate the scene: but they must be adequate to it, both in size and in character. And if cultivation is introduced, that too should be conformable to the rest; not a single narrow patch cribbed out of the waste; but the confines of a country shelving into the vale, and suggesting the idea of extent: nothing trivial ought to find admittance. But, on the other hand, no extravagance is required to support it; strange shapes in extraordinary positions, enormous weights unaccountably sustained, trees rooted in the sides, and torrents raging at the foot of the rocks, are at the best needless excesses. There is a temperance in dignity, which is rather hurt by a wanton violence on the common order of nature.

The terrors of a scene in nature are like those of a dramatic representation: they give an alarm; but the sensations are agreeable, so long as they are kept to such as are allied only to terror, unmixed with any that are horrible and disgusting. Art may therefore be used to heighten them, to display the objects which are distinguished by greatness, to improve the circumstances which denote force, to mark those which intimate danger, and to blend withal here and there a cast of melancholy.

Greatness is as essential to the character of terror as to that of dignity: vaft efforts in little objects are but ridiculous; nor can force be supposed upon trifles incapable of resistance. On the other hand, it must be allowed, that exertion and violence supply some want of space. A rock wonderfully supported, or threatening to fall, acquires a greatness from its situation, which it has not in dimensions; so circumstanced, the size appears to be monstrous: a torrent has a consequence which a placid river of equal breadth cannot pretend to; and a tree, which would be inconsiderable in the natural foil, becomes important when it burfts forth from a rock.

Such circumstances should be always industriously fought for. It may be worth while to cut down several trees, in order to exhibit one apparently rooted in the stone. By the removal perhaps of only a little brushwood, the alarming disposition of a rock, strangely undermined, riveted, or suspended, may be shewn; and if there be any foil above its brow, some trees planted there, and impending over it, will make the object till more extraordinary. As to the streams, great alterations may generally be made in them: and therefore it is of use to ascertain the species proper to each scene, because it is in our power to enlarge or contract their dimensions; to accelerate or retard their rapidity; to form, increase, or take away obstructions; and always to improve, often to change, their characters.

Inhabitants furnish frequent opportunities to strengthen the appearances of force, by giving intimations of danger. A house placed at the edge of a precipice, any building on the pinnacle of a crag, makes that situation seem formidable, which might otherwise have been unnoticed: a steep, in itself not very remarkable, becomes alarming, when a path is carried aflat up the side: a rail on the brow of a perpendicular fall, shows that the height is frequented and dangerous: and a common foot bridge thrown over a cleft between rocks has a still stronger effect. In all these instances, the imagination immediately transports the spectator to the spot, and suggests the idea of looking down such a depth; in the last, that depth is a chasm, and the situation is directly over it.

In other instances, exertion and danger seem to attend the occupations of the inhabitants:

———Half way down

Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!

is a circumstance chosen by the great poet of nature, to aggravate the terror of the scene he describes.

The different species of rocks often meet in the same place, and compose a noble scene, which is not distinguished by any particular character; it is only when one eminently prevails, that it deserves such a preference as to exclude every other. Sometimes a spot, remarkable for nothing but its wildness, is highly romantic: and when this wildness rises to fancy; when the most singular, the most opposite forms and combinations are thrown together; then a mixture also of several characters adds to the number of instances which there concur to display the inexhaustible variety of nature.

So much variety, so much fancy, are seldom found within the same extent as in Dovedale*. It is about *Near Ash two miles in length, a deep, narrow, hollow valley: bounded both the sides are of rock; and the Dove in its passage between them is perpetually changing its course, its motion, and appearance. It is never less than ten, nor so much as twenty, yards wide, and generally about four feet deep; but transparent to the bottom, except when it is covered with a foam of the purest white, under waterfalls, which are perfectly lucid. These are very numerous, but very different. In some places they stretch straight across, or aflat the stream: in others, they are only partial; and the water either dashes against the stones, and leaps over them; or, pouring along a steep, rebounds upon those below; sometimes it rushes through the several openings between them; sometimes it drops gently down; and at other times it is driven back by the obstruction, and turns into an eddy. In one particular spot, the valley, almost closing, leaves hardly a passage for the river, which, pent up, and struggling for a vent, rages, and roars, and foams, till it has extricated itself from the confinement. In other parts, the stream, though never languid, is often gentle; flows round a little desert island, glides between bits of bulrushes, disperses itself among tufts of grass or of moss, bubbles about a water dock, or plays with the slender threads of aquatic plants which float upon the surface. The rocks all along the dale vary as often in their structure as the stream in its motion. In one place, an extended surface gradually diminishes from a broad base almost to an edge: in another, a heavy top hanging forwards, overshadows all beneath: sometimes many different shapes are confusedly tumbled together; and sometimes they are broken into slender sharp pinnacles, which are upright, often two or three together, and often in more numerous clusters. On this side of the dale, they are universally bare; on the other, they are intermixed with wood; and the vault height of both the fides, with the narrowness of the interval between them, produces a further variety: for whenever the sun shines from behind the one, the form of it is distinctly and completely cast upon the other; the rugged surface on which it falls diversifies the tints; and a strong reflected light often glares on the edge of the deepest shadow. The rocks never continue long in the same figure or situation, and are very much separated from each other: sometimes they form the sides of the valley, in precipices, in steeps, or in stages; sometimes they seem to rise in the bottom, and lean back against the hill; and sometimes they stand out quite detached, heaving up in cumbrous piles, or startling into conical shapes, like vast spars, 100 feet high; some are firm and solid throughout; some are cracked; and some, split and undermined, are wonderfully upheld by fragments apparently unequal to the weight they sustain. One is placed before, one over another, and one fills at some distance behind an interval between two. The changes in their disposition are infinite; every step produces some new combination; they are continually crofting, advancing, and retiring; the breadth of the valley is never the same 40 yards together: at the narrow pass which has been mentioned, the rocks almost meet at the top, and the sky is seen as through a chink between them: just by this gloomy abyss, is a wider opening, more light, more verdure, more cheerfulness than anywhere else in the dale. Nor are the forms and the situations of the rocks their only variety: many of them are perforated by large natural cavities, some of which open to the sky, some terminate in dark recesses, and through some are to be seen several more uncoth arches, and rude pillars, all detached, and retiring beyond each other, with the light shining in between them, till a rock far behind them closes the perspective: the noise of the cascades in the river echoes amongst them; the water may often be heard at the same time gurgling near, and roaring at a distance; but no other sounds disturb the silence of the spot: the only trace of men is a blind path, but lightly and but seldom trodden, by those whom curiosity leads to see the wonders they have been told of Dovedale. It seems indeed a fitter haunt for mere ideal beings: the whole has the air of enchantment. The perpetual shifting of the scenes; the quick transitions, the total changes, then the forms all around, grotesque as chance can call, wild as nature can produce, and various as imagination can invent; the force which seems to have been exerted to place some of the rocks where they are now fixed immovable, the magic by which others appear fill to be suspended; the dark caverns, the illuminated recesses, the fleeting shadows, and the gleams of light glancing on the fides, or trembling on the stream; and the loneliness and the stillness of the place, all crowding together on the mind, almost realize the ideas which naturally present themselves in this region of romance and of fancy.

The solitude of such a scene is agreeable, on account of the endless entertainment which its variety affords, and in the contemplation of which both the eye and the mind are delighted to indulge: marks of inhabitants and cultivation would disturb that solitude; and ornamental buildings are too artificial in a place fence, &c., absolutely free from restraint. The only accompaniments proper for it are wood and water; and by these sometimes improvements may be made. When two rocks similar in shape and position are near together, by skirting one of them with wood, while the other is left bare, a material distinction is established between them: if the streams be throughout of one character, it is in our power, and should be our aim, to introduce another. Variety is the peculiar property of the spot, and every accession to it is a valuable acquisition. On the same principle, endeavours should be used not only to multiply, but to aggravate differences, and to increase distinctions into contrasts: but the subject will impose a caution against attempting too much. Art must almost despair of improving a scene, where nature seems to have exerted her invention.

§ 2. Of Factitious Accompaniments.

These consist of Fences, Walks, Roads, Bridges, Practical Seats, and Buildings.

Treatise on Planting and Gardening, p. 593, &c.

"I. The FENCE, where the place is large, becomes necessary; yet the eye dislikes constraint. Our ideas of liberty carry us beyond our own species: the imagination feels a dislike in seeing even the brute creation in a state of confinement. The birds wafting themselves from wood to grove are objects of delight; and the hare appears to enjoy a degree of happiness unknown to the barrier'd flock. Besides, a tall fence frequently hides from the sight objects the most pleasing; not only the flocks and herds themselves, but the surface they graze upon. These considerations have brought the unseen fence into general use.

This species of barrier it must be allowed incurs a degree of deception, which can scarcely be warranted upon any other occasion. In this instance, however, it is a species of fraud which we observe in nature's practice: how often have we seen two distinct herds feeding to appearance in the same extended meadow; until coming abruptly upon a deep funk rivulet, or an unfordable river, we discover the deception.

Besides the sunk fence, another sort of unseen barrier may be made, though by no means equal to that, especially if near the eye. This is constructed of paling, painted of the invisible green. If the colour of the background were permanent, and that of the paint made exactly to correspond with it, the deception would at a distance be complete; but back grounds in general changing with the season, this kind of fence is the less eligible.

Clumps and patches of woodiness scattered promiscuously on either side of an unseen winding fence, assist very much in doing away the idea of constraint. For by this means

The wand'ring flocks that browse between the shades, Seem oft to pass their bounds; the dubious eye Decides not if they crop the mead or lawn.

MASON.

"II. The WALK, in extensive grounds, is as necessary as the fence. The beauties of the place are disclosed that they may be seen; and it is the office of the walls." Bridge, &c. walk to lead the eye from view to view; in order that whilst the tone of health is preserved by the favourite exercise of nature, the mind may be thrown into unison by the harmony of the surrounding objects.

The direction of the walk must be guided by the points of view to which it leads, and the nature of the ground it passes over: it ought to be made subservient to the natural impediments (the ground, wood, and water) which fall in its way, without appearing to have any direction of its own. It can seldom run with propriety any distance in a straight line; a thing which rarely occurs in a natural walk. The paths of the Negroes and the Indians are always crooked; and those of the brute creation are very similar. Mr Mason's description of this path of nature is happily conceived.

The peasant driving through each shadowy lane His team, that bends beneath th' incumbent weight Of laughing Ceres, marks it with his wheel; At night and morn, the milkmaid's careless step Has through yon pasture green, from stile to stile Imprest a kindred curve: the feuding hare Draws to her dew-sprent seat, o'er thymy heaths, A path as gently waving—

Eng. Gard. v. 60.

"III. The ROAD may be a thing of necessity, as an approach to the mansion; or a matter of amusement only, as a drive or a ride, from which the grounds and the surrounding country may be seen to advantage. It should be the study of the artist to make the same road answer, as far as may be, the twofold purpose.

The road and the walk are subject to the same rule of nature and use. The direction ought to be natural and easy, and adapted to the purpose intended. A road of necessity ought to be straighter than one of mere convenience: in this, recreation is the predominant idea; in that, utility. But even in this the direct line may be dispensed with. The natural roads upon heaths and open downs, and the grassy glades and green roads across forests and extensive wastes, are proper subjects to be studied.

"IV. The BRIDGE should never be seen where it is not wanted: a useless bridge is a deception; deceptions are frauds; and fraud is always hateful, unless when practised to avert some greater evil. A bridge without water is an absurdity; and half a one stuck up as an eye-trap is a paltry trick, which, though it may strike the stranger, cannot fail of disgusting when the fraud is found out.

In low situations, and wherever water abounds, bridges become useful, and are therefore pleasing objects: they are looked for; and ought to appear not as objects of ornament only, but likewise as matters of utility. The walk or the road therefore ought to be directed in such a manner as to cross the water at the point in which the bridge will appear to the greatest advantage.

In the construction of bridges also, regard must be had to ornament and utility. A bridge is an artificial production, and as such it ought to appear. It ranks among the noblest of human inventions; the ship and the fortress alone excel it. Simplicity and firmness are the leading principles in its construction. Mr Wheatley's observation is just when he says, "The single wooden arch, now much in fashion, seems to me generally misapplied. Elevated without occasion so much above, it is totally detached from the river; it is often seen straddling in the air, without a glimpse of water to account for it; and the ostentation of it as an ornamental object, diverts all that train of ideas which its use as a communication might suggest." But we beg leave to differ from this ingenious writer when he tells us, "that it is spoiled if adorned; it is disfigured if only painted of any other than a dusky colour." In a rustic scene, where nature wears her own coarse garb, "the vulgar foot bridge of planks only guarded on one hand by a common rail, and supported by a few ordinary piles," may be in character; but amidst a display of ornamented nature, a contrivance of that kind would appear mean and paltry; and would be an affectation of simplicity rather than the lovely attribute itself. In cultivated scenes, the bridge ought to receive the ornaments which the laws of architectural taste allow; and the more polished the situation, the higher should be the style and finishings.

"V. SEATS have a twofold use; they are useful as places of rest and conversation, and as guides to the points of view in which the beauties of the surrounding scene are disclosed. Every point of view should be marked with a seat; and, speaking generally, no seat ought to appear but in some favourable point of view. This rule may not be invariable, but it ought seldom to be deviated from.

In the ruder scenes of neglected nature, the simple trunk, rough from the woodman's hands, and the butts or stools of rooted trees, without any other marks of tools upon them than those of the saw which severed them from their stems, are seats in character; and in romantic or recluse situations, the cave or the grotto are admissible. But wherever human design has been executed upon the natural objects of the place, the seat and every other artificial accompaniment ought to be in unison; and whether the bench or the alcove be chosen, it ought to be formed and finished in such a manner as to unite with the wood, the lawn, and the walk, which lie around it.

The colour of seats should likewise be suited to situations; where uncultivated nature prevails, the natural brown of the wood itself ought not to be altered; but where the rural art presides, white or stone colour has a much better effect."

"VI. BUILDINGS probably were first introduced into gardens merely for contrivance, to afford refuge from a sudden shower, and shelter against the wind; or, at the most, to be seats for a party; or for retirement. They have since been converted into objects, and now the original use is too often forgotten in the greater purposes to which they are applied: they are considered as objects only; the inside is totally neglected, and a pompous edifice frequently wants a room barely comfortable. Sometimes the price of making a lavish display to a visitor without any regard to the owner's enjoyments, and sometimes too scrupulous an attention to the style of the structure, occasions a poverty and dulness within, which deprive the buildings of part of their utility. But in a garden they ought to be considered both as beautiful objects and as agreeable greeable retreats: if a character becomes them, it is that of the scene they belong to; not that of their primitive application. A Grecian temple or Gothic church may adorn spots where it would be affectation to preferve that solemnity within which is proper for places of devotion: they are not to be exact models, subjects only of curiosity or study: they are also seats: and such seats will be little frequented by the proprietor; his mind must generally be indisposed to so much simplicity, and so much gloom, in the midst of gaiety, richness, and variety.

But though the interior of buildings should not be disregarded, it is by their exterior that they become objects; and sometimes by the one, sometimes by the other, and sometimes by both, they are entitled to be considered as characters.

1. As objects, they are designed either to distinguish, or to break, or to adorn, the scenes to which they are applied.

The differences between one wood, one lawn, one piece of water, and another, are not always very apparent: the several parts of a garden would, therefore, often seem similar, if they were not distinguished by buildings; but these are so observable, so obvious at a glance, so easily retained in the memory, they mark the spots where they are placed with so much strength, they attract the relation of all around with so much power, that parts thus distinguished can never be confounded together. Yet it by no means follows, that therefore every scene must have its edifice: the want of one is sometimes a variety; and other circumstances are often sufficiently characteristic: it is only when these too nearly agree, that we must have recourse to buildings for differences: we can introduce, exhibit, or contrast them as we please: the most striking object is thereby made a mark of distinction; and the force of this first impression prevents our observing the points of resemblance.

The uniformity of a view may be broken by similar means, and on the same principle: when a wide heath a dreary moor, or a continual plain, is in prospect, objects which catch the eye supplant the want of variety: none are so effectual for this purpose as buildings. Plantations or water can have no very sensible effect, unless they are large or numerous, and almost change the character of the scene: but a small single building diverts the attention at once from the sameness of the extent; which it breaks, but does not divide; and diversifies, without altering its nature. The design, however, must not be apparent. The merit of a cottage applied to this purpose, consists in its being free from the suspicion: and a few trees near it will both enlarge the object, and account for its position. Ruins are a hackneyed device immediately detected, unless their style be singular, or their dimensions extraordinary. The semblance of an ancient British monument might be adapted to the same end, with little trouble, and great success. The materials might be brick, or even timber plastered over, if stone could not easily be procured: whatever they were, the fallacy would not be discernible; it is an object to be seen at a distance, rude, and large, and in character agreeable to a wild open view. But no building ought to be introduced, which may not in reality belong to such a situation: no Grecian tem-

ples, no Turkish mosques, no Egyptian obelisks or pyramids; none imported from foreign countries, and unusual here. The apparent artifice would destroy an effect, which is so nice as to be weakened, if objects proper to produce it are displayed with too much ostentation; if they seem to be contrivances, not accidents; and the advantage of their position appear to be more laboured than natural.

But in a garden, where objects are intended only to adorn, every species of architecture may be admitted, from the Grecian down to the Chinese; and the choice is so free, that the mischief most to be apprehended is an abuse of this latitude in the multiplicity of buildings. Few scenes can bear more than two or three: in some, a single one has a greater effect than any number: and a careless glimpse, here and there, of such as belong immediately to different parts, frequently enliven the landscape with more spirit than those which are industriously shewn. If the effect of a partial sight, or a distant view, were more attended to, many scenes might be filled, without being crowded; a greater number of buildings would be tolerated, when they seemed to be casual, not forced; and the animation, and the richness of the objects, might be had without pretence or display.

Too fond an ostentation of buildings, even of those which are principal, is a common error; and when all is done, they are not always shewn to the greatest advantage. Though their symmetry and their beauties ought in general to be distinctly and fully seen, yet an oblique is sometimes better than a direct view: and they are often less agreeable objects when entire, than when a part is covered, or their extent is interrupted; when they are bounded in wood, as well as backed by it; or appear between the stems of trees which rise before or above them: thus thrown into perspective, thus grouped and accompanied, they may be as important as if they were quite exposed, and are frequently more picturesque and beautiful.

But a still greater advantage arises from this management, in connecting them with the scene: they are considerable, and different from all around them; inclined therefore to separate from the rest; and yet they are sometimes still more detached by the pains taken to exhibit them: that very importance which is the cause of the distinction ought to be a reason for guarding against the independence to which it is naturally prone, and by which an object, which ought to be a part of the whole, is reduced to a mere individual. An elevated is generally a noble situation. When it is a point or a pinnacle, the structure may be a continuation of the ascent; and on many occasions, some parts of the building may descend lower than others, and multiply the appearances of connexion: but an edifice in the midst of an extended ridge, commonly seems naked alone, and imposed upon the brow, not joined to it. If wood, to accompany it, will not grow there, it had better be brought a little way down the declivity; and then all behind, above, and about it, are so many points of contact, by which it is incorporated into landscape.

Accompaniments are important to a building; but they lose much of their effect when they do not appear to be casual. A little mount just large enough for it; a small piece of water below, of no other use Buildings than to reflect it; and a plantation close behind, evidently placed there only to give it relief; are as artificial as the structure itself, and alienate it from the scene of nature into which it is introduced, and to which it ought to be reconciled. These appendages therefore should be so disposed, and so connected with the adjacent parts, as to answer other purposes, though applicable to this: that they may be bonds of union, not marks of difference; and that the situation may appear to have been chosen at the most, not made, for the building.

In the choice of a situation, that which shows the building best ought generally to be preferred: eminence, relief, and every other advantage which can be, ought to be given to an object of so much consideration: they are for the most part desirable; sometimes necessary; and exceptionable only when, instead of rising out of the scene, they are forced into it, and a contrivance to procure them at any rate is avowed without any disguise. There are, however, occasions, in which the most tempting advantages of situation must be waved; the general composition may forbid a building in one spot, or require it in another; at other times, the interest of the particular group it belongs to may exact a sacrifice of the opportunities to exhibit its beauties and importance; and at all times, the pretensions of every individual object must give way to the greater effect of the whole.

2. The same structure which adorns as an object, may also be expressive as a character. Where the former is not wanted, the latter may be desirable: or it may be weak for one purpose, and strong for the other; it may be grave, or gay; magnificent, or simple: and according to its style, may or may not be agreeable to the place it is applied to. But mere conformity is not all the merit which buildings can claim: their characters are sometimes strong enough to determine, improve, or correct, that of the scene: and they are so conspicuous, and so distinguished, that whatever force they have is immediately and sensibly felt. They are fit therefore to make a first impression; and when a scene is but faintly characterized, they give at once a cast which spreads over the whole, and which the weaker parts concur to support, though perhaps they were not able to produce it.

Nor do they flop at fixing an uncertainty, or removing a doubt; they raise and enforce a character already marked: a temple adds dignity to the noblest, a cottage simplicity to the most rural, scenes; the lightness of a spire, the airiness of an open rotunda, the splendour of a continued colonnade, are less ornamental than expressive; others improve cheerfulness into gaiety, gloom into solemnity, and richness into profusion: a retired spot, which might have been passed unobserved, is noticed for its tranquillity, as soon as it is appropriated by some structure to retreat; and the most unfrequented place seems less solitary than one which appears to have been the haunt of a single individual, or even of a sequestered family, and is marked by a lonely dwelling, or the remains of a deserted habitation.

The means are the same, the application of them only is different, when buildings are used to correct the character of the scene; to enliven its dulness, mitigate its gloom, or to check its extravagance; and, on a variety of occasions, to soften, to aggravate, or to counteract, particular circumstances attending it. But care must be taken that they do not contradict too strongly the prevailing idea: they may lessen the dreariness of a waste, but they cannot give it amenity; they may abate horrors, but they will never convert them into graces; they may make a tame scene agreeable, and even interesting, not romantic; or turn solemnity into cheerfulnes, but not into gaiety. In these, and in many other instances, they correct the character, by giving it an inclination towards a better which is not very different; but they can hardly alter it entirely: when they are totally inconsistent with it, they are at the best nugatory.

The great effects which have been ascribed to buildings do not depend upon those trivial ornaments and appendages which are often too much relied on; such as the furniture of a hermitage; painted glass in a Gothic church, and sculpture about a Grecian temple; grotesque or bacchanalian figures to denote gaiety, and death's heads to signify melancholy. Such devices are only descriptive, not expressive, of character; and must not be substituted in the stead of those superior properties, the want of which they acknowledge, but do not supply. They besides often require time to trace their meaning, and to see their application; but the peculiar excellence of buildings is, that their effects are instantaneous, and therefore the impressions they make are forcible. In order to produce such effects, the general style of the structure, and its position, are the principal considerations: either of them will sometimes be strongly characteristic alone; united, their powers are very great; and both are so important, that if they do not concur, at least they must not contradict one another.

Every branch of architecture furnishes, on different occasions, objects proper for a garden; and there is no restraint on our selection, provided it be conformable to the style of the scene, proportioned to its extent, and agreeable to its character.

The choice of situations is also very free. A hermitage, indeed, must not be close to a road; but whether it be exposed to view on the side of a mountain, or concealed in the depth of a wood, is almost a matter of indifference; that it is at a distance from public resort is sufficient. A castle must not be sunk in a bottom; but that it should stand on the utmost pinnacle of a hill, is not necessary: on a lower knoll, and backed by the rife, it may appear to greater advantage as an object, and be much more important to the general composition. Many buildings, which from their splendour best become an open exposure, will yet be sometimes not ill bestowed on a more sequestered spot, either to characterize or adorn it; and others, for which a solitary would in general be preferred to an eminent situation, may occasionally be objects in very conspicuous positions. A Grecian temple, from its peculiar taste and dignity, deserves every distinction; it may, however, in the depth of a wood, be so circumstanced, that the want of those advantages to which it seems entitled will not be regretted. A happier situation cannot be devised, than that of the temple of Pan on the south lodge on Enfield Chase. It is of the usual oblong form, encompassed by a colonnade; in dimensions, and in style, it is equal to a most extensive landscape; and yet by the antique and rustic air of its Doric columns without bales; by the chaffy of its little ornaments, a crook, a pipe, and a scrip, and those only over the doors; and by the simplicity of the whole both within and without; it is adapted with so much propriety to the thickets which conceal it from the view, that no one can will it to be brought forward, who is sensible to the charms of the Arcadian scene which this building alone has created. On the other hand, a very spacious field, or sheep walk, will not be disgraced by a farm house, a cottage, or a Dutch barn; nor will they, though small and familiar, appear to be inconsiderable or insignificant objects. Numerous other instances might be adduced to prove the impossibility of restraining particular buildings to particular situations, upon any general principles: the variety in their forms is hardly greater than in their application. Only let not their titles be disguised, as is often absurdly attempted with the humbler kinds. "A barn I dressed up in the habit of a country church, or a farm house figuring away in the fierceness of a cattle, are ridiculous deceits. A landscape daubed upon a board, and a wooden steeple stuck up in a wood, are beneath contempt."

Temples, those favourite and most costly objects in gardens, too generally merit censure for their inutility, their profusion, or the impropriety of their purpose. "Whether they be dedicated to Bacchus, Venus, Priapus, or any other demon of debauchery, they are in this age, enlightened with regard to theological and scientific knowledge, equally absurd. Architecture, in this part of its sphere, may more nobly, and with greater beauty and effect, be exercised upon a chapel, a mausoleum, a monument, judiciously disposed among the natural ornaments. The late Sir William Harbord has given us a model, of the first kind, at Gunton, in Norfolk; the parish church standing in his park, and being an old unrighteous building, he had it taken down, and a beautiful temple, under the direction of the Adams erected upon its site for the same sacred purpose:—The mausoleum at Castle-Howard, in Yorkshire, the seat of the earl of Carlisle, is a noble structure:—And as an instance of the last fort, may be mentioned the Temple of Concord and Victory at Stowe, erected to the memory of the great Lord Chatham and his glorious war; a beautiful monumental building, suited to the greatness of the occasion."

To the great variety above mentioned must be added, Mr Wheatley observes, the many changes which may be made by the means of ruins. They are a class by themselves, beautiful as objects, expressive as characters, and peculiarly calculated to connect with appendages into elegant groups. They may be accommodated with ease to irregularity of ground, and their disorder is improved by it. They may be intimately blended with trees and thickets; and the interruption is an advantage: for imperfection and obscurity are their properties, and to carry the imagination to something greater than is seen, is their effect. They may for any of these purposes be separated into detached pieces: contiguity is not necessary, nor even the appearance of it, if the relation be preserved; but straggling ruins have a bad effect, when the several parts are equally considerable. There should be one large mass to raise an idea of greatness, to attract the others about it, and to be a common centre of union to all: the smaller pieces then mark the original dimensions of one extensive structure; and no longer appear to be the remains of several little buildings.

All remains excite an inquiry into the former state of the edifice, and fix the mind in a contemplation of the use it was applied to; besides the characters expressed by their style and position, they suggest ideas which would not arise from the buildings it entire. The purposes of many have ceased: an abbey, or a castle, if complete, can now be no more than a dwelling; the memory of the times, and of the manners to which they are adapted, is preserved only in history, and in ruins; and certain sensations of regret, of veneration, or compassion, attend the recollection. Nor are these confined to the remains of buildings which are in dilapidation; those of an old mansion raise reflections on the domestic comforts once enjoyed, and the ancient hospitality which reigned there. Whatever building we see in decay, we naturally contrast its present with its former state, and delight to ruminate on the comparison. It is true that such effects properly belong to real ruins: they are, however, produced in a certain degree by those which are fictitious: the impressions are not so strong, but they are exactly similar; and the representation, though it does not pretend facts to the memory, yet suggests subjects to the imagination. But, in order to affect the fancy, the supposed original design should be clear, the use obvious, and the form easy to be traced: no fragments should be hazarded without precise meaning, and an evident connexion; none should be perplexed in their construction, or uncertain as to their application. Conjectures about the form raise doubts about the existence of the ancient structure: the mind must not be allowed to hesitate; it must be hurried away from examining into the reality by the exactness and the force of the resemblance.

In the ruins of Tintern abbey § the original construction of the church is perfectly marked; and it is chiefly between Chepstow and Monmouth principally from this circumstance that they are celebrated as a subject of curiosity and contemplation. The walls are almost entire; the roof only is fallen in, but most of the columns which divided the aisles are still standing: of those which have dropped down, the bases remain, every one exactly in its place; and in the middle of the nave four lofty arches, which once supported the steeple, rise high in the air above all the rest, each reduced now to a narrow rim of stone, but completely preserving its form. The shapes even of the windows are little altered; but some of them are quite obscured, others partially shaded, by tufts of ivy; and those which are most clear are edged with its slender tendrils, and lighter foliage, wreathing about the sides and the divisions: it winds round the pillars; it clings to the walls; and in one of the aisles clutters at the top in branches, so thick and so large as to darken the space below. The other aisles, and the great nave, are exposed to the sky: the floor is entirely overspread with turf; and to keep it clear from weeds and bushes, is now its highest preservation. Monkish tomb stones and the monuments of benefactors, long since forgotten, appear above the greenward: the bases of the pillars which have fallen, rise out of it; and maimed effigies, and sepulchre worn with age and weather, Gothic capitals, carved cornices, cornices and various fragments, are scattered about, or lie in heaps piled up together. Other shattered pieces, though disjointed and mouldering, still occupy their original places; and a staircase much impaired, which led to a tower now no more, is suspended at a great height, uncovered and inaccessible: nothing is perfect; but memorials of every part still subsist; all certain, but all in decay; and suggesting at once every idea which can occur in a seat of devotion, solitude, and desolation. Upon such models fictitious ruins should be formed: and if any parts are entirely lost, they should be such as the imagination can easily supply from those which are still remaining. Distinct traces of the building, which is supposed to have existed, are less liable to the suspicion of artifice, than an unmeaning heap of confusion. Precision is always satisfactory, but in the reality it is only agreeable; in the copy it is essential to the imitation.

A material circumstance to the truth of the imitation is, that the ruins appear to be very old. The idea is besides interesting in itself: a monument of antiquity is never seen with indifference; and a semblance of age may be given to the representation by the hue of the materials, the growth of ivy and other plants, and cracks and fragments seemingly occasioned rather by decay than by destruction. An appendage evidently more modern than the principal structure will sometimes corroborate the effect: the shed of a cottage amidst the remains of a temple, is a contrast both to the former and to the present state of the building; and a tree flourishing among ruins, shows the length of time they have lain neglected. No circumstance so forcibly marks the desolation of a spot once inhabited, as the prevalence of nature over it:

Campos ubi Troja fuit,

is a sentence which conveys a stronger idea of a city totally overthrown, than a description of its remains; but in a representation to the eye, some remains must appear; and then the perversion of them to an ordinary use, or an intermixture of a vigorous vegetation, intimates a settled despair of their restoration.

SECT. II. Principles of Selection and Arrangement in the Subjects of Gardening.

I. OF ART. In the lower classes of rural improvements, art should be seen as little as may be; and in the more negligent scenes of nature, every thing ought to appear as if it had been done by the general laws of nature, or had grown out of a series of fortuitous circumstances. But in the higher departments, art cannot be hid; and the appearance of design ought not to be excluded. A human production cannot be made perfectly natural; and held out as such it becomes an imposition. Our art lies in endeavouring to adapt the productions of nature to human taste and perceptions; and if much art be used, do not attempt to hide it. Art seldom fails to please when executed in a masterly manner: nay, it is frequently the design and execution, more than the production itself, that strikes us. It is the artifice, not the design, which ought to be avoided. It is the labour and not the art which ought to be concealed. The rural artist ought, therefore, upon every occasion, to endeavour to avoid labour; or, if indispensably necessary, to conceal it. No trace should be left to lead back the mind to the expensive toil. A mound raised, a mountain levelled, or a useless temple built, convey to the mind feelings equally disgusting.

II. PICTURESQUE BEAUTY. Though the aids of art are as essential to gardening, as education is to manners; yet art may do too much: she ought to be considered as the handmaid, not as the mistress, of nature; and whether she be employed in carving a tree into the figure of an animal, or in shaping a view into the form of a picture, she is equally culpable. The nature of the place is sacred. Should this tend to landscape, from some principal point of view, afflict nature and perfect it; provided this can be done without injuring the views from other points. But do not disfigure the natural features of the place:—do not sacrifice its native beauties, to the arbitrary laws of landscape painting.

Great Nature scorns controul; she will not bear One beauty foreign to the spot or soil She gives thee to adorn: "Thine is thine alone To mend, not change, her features." MASON.

Nature scarcely knows the thing mankind call a landscape. The landscape painter seldom, if ever, finds it perfected to his hands; some addition or alteration is almost always wanted. Every man who has made his observations upon natural scenery, knows that the mistletoe of the oak occurs almost as often as a perfect natural landscape; and to attempt to make up artificial landscape upon every occasion is unnatural and absurd.

If, indeed, the eye were fixed in one point, the trees could be raised to their full height at command, and the sun be made to stand still, the rural artist might work by the rules of light and shade, and compose his landscape by the painter's law. But, whilst the sun continues to pour forth its light impartially, and the trees to rise with flow progression, it would be ridiculous to attempt it. Let him rather seek out, imitate, and associate, such striking passages in nature as are immediately applicable to the place to be improved, with regard to rules of landscape, merely human;—and let him,

in this and all Be various, wild, and free, as Nature's self. MASON.

Instead of sacrificing the natural beauties of the place to one formal landscape, let every step disclose fresh charms unsought for.

III. OF CHARACTER. Character is very reconcilable with beauty; and, even when independent of it, has attracted so much regard, as to occasion several frivolous attempts to produce it: statues, inscriptions, and even paintings, history and mythology, and a variety of devices, have been introduced for this purpose. The heathen deities and heroes have therefore had their several places assigned to them in the embankments and lawns of a garden; natural cascades have matheematically been disfigured with river gods, and columns erected on characters to receive quotations; the compartments of a sum-

Character. mer house have been filled with pictures of gambols and revels, as significant of gaiety; the cyprets, because it was once used in funerals, has been thought peculiarly adapted to melancholy; and the decorations, the furniture, and the environs of a building, have been crowded with puerilities under pretence of propriety. All these devices are rather emblematical than expressive: they may be ingenious contrivances, and recall absent ideas to the recollection; but they make no immediate impression: for they must be examined, compared, perhaps explained, before the whole design of them is well understood. And though an allusion to a favourite or well known subject of history, of poetry, or of tradition, may now and then animate or dignify a scene; yet as the subject does not naturally belong to a garden, the allusion should not be principal: it should seem to have been suggested by the scene; a transitory image, which irretrievably occurred; not sought for, not laboured; and have the force of a metaphor, free from the detail of an allegory.

Another species of character arises from direct imitation; when a scene or an object, which has been celebrated in description, or is familiar in idea, is represented in a garden. Artificial ruins, lakes, and rivers, fall under this denomination. The air of a feast extended to a distance, and scenes calculated to raise ideas of Arcadian elegance or of rural simplicity, with many more which have been occasionally mentioned, or will obviously occur, may be ranked in this class. They are all representations. But the materials, the dimensions, and other circumstances, being the same in the copy and the original, their effects are similar in both: and if not equally strong, the defect is not in the resemblance; but the confusiveness of an imitation checks that train of thought which the appearance naturally suggests. Yet an over-anxious solicitude to disguise the fallacy is often the means of exposing it: too many points of likeness sometimes hurt the deception; they seem studied and forced; and the affectation of resemblance destroys the supposition of a reality. A hermitage is the habitation of a recluse; it should be distinguished by its solitude, and its simplicity: but if it is filled with crucifixes, hour glases, beads, and every other trinket which can be thought of, the attention is diverted from enjoying the retreat to examining the particulars; all the collateral circumstances which agree with a character seldom meet in one subject; and when they are indifferently brought together, though each be natural, the collection is artificial.

But the art of gardening aspires to more than imitation: it can create original characters, and give expressions to the several scenes superior to any they can receive from allusions. Certain properties, and certain dispositions, of the objects of nature, are adapted to excite particular ideas and sensations; many of them have been occasionally mentioned, and all are very well known. They require no discernment, examination, or discussion; but are obvious at a glance, and instantaneously distinguished by our feelings. Beauty alone is not so engaging as this species of character: the impressions it makes are more transient and less interesting; for it aims only at delighting the eye, but the other affects our sensibility. An assemblage of the most elegant forms in the happiest situations is to a degree indiscriminate, if they have not been selected and arranged with a design to produce certain expressions; an air of magnificence, or of simplicity, of cheerfulness, tranquillity, or some other general character, ought to pervade the whole; and objects pleasing in themselves, if they contradict that character, should therefore be excluded: those which are only indifferent must sometimes make room for such as are more significant; many will often be introduced for no other merit than their expression; and some, which are in general rather disagreeable, may occasionally be recommended by it. Barrenness itself may be an acceptable circumstance in a spot dedicated to solitude and melancholy.

The power of such characters is not confined to the ideas which the objects immediately suggest; for these are connected with others, which insensibly lead to subjects far distant perhaps from the original thought, and related to it only by a similitude in the sensations they excite. In a prospect enriched and enlivened with inhabitants and cultivation, the attention is caught at first by the circumstances which are gayest in their feature, the bloom of an orchard, the festivity of a hay field, and the carols of harvest home; but the cheerfulness which these infuse into the mind, expands afterwards to other objects than those immediately presented to the eye; and we are thereby disposed to receive, and delighted to pursue, a variety of pleasing ideas, and every benevolent feeling. At the sight of a ruin, reflections on the change, the decay and the desolation before us, naturally occur; and they introduce a long succession of others all tinctured with that melancholy which these have inspired; or if the monument revive the memory of former times, we do not stop at the simple fact which it records, but recollect many more coeval circumstances, which we see, not perhaps as they were, but as they are come down to us, venerable with age, and magnified by fame. Even without the affluence of buildings or other adventitious circumstances, nature alone furnishes materials for scenes which may be adapted to almost every kind of expression: their operation is general, and their consequences are infinite: the mind is elevated, depressed, or composed, as gaiety, gloom, or tranquillity, prevails in the scene; and we soon lose sight of the means by which the character is formed; we forget the particular objects it presents; and giving way to their effects, without recurring to the cause, we follow the track they have begun, to any extent which the disposition they accord with will allow. It suffices that the scenes of nature have a power to affect our imagination and our sensibility; for such is the constitution of the human mind, that if once it is agitated, the emotion spreads far beyond the occasion: when the passions are roused, their course is unrestrained; when the fancy is on the wing, its flight is unbounded; and, quitting the inanimate objects which first gave them their spring, we may be led by thought above thought, widely differing in degree, but still corresponding in character, till we rise from familiar subjects up to the sublimest conceptions, and are wrapped in the contemplation of whatever is great or beautiful, which we see in nature, feel in man, or attribute to divinity.

IV. GENERAL ARRANGEMENT. Notwithstanding the nature of the place, as already observed, ought not to be sacrificed to the mansion;—the house must ever be allowed to be a principal in the composition. It ought to be considered as the centre of the system; and the rays of art, like those of the sun, should grow fainter as they recede from the centre. The house itself being entirely a work of art, its immediate environs should be highly finished; but as the distance increases, the appearance of design should gradually diminish, until nature and fortuitousness have full possession of the scene.

In general, the approach should be to the back front, which, in suitable situations, ought to lie open to the pasture grounds. On the sides more highly ornamented, a well kept gravel walk may embrace the walls; to this the haven lawn and shrubbery succeed: next, the grounds closely pastured; and lastly, the surrounding country, which ought not to be considered as out of the artist's reach: for his art consists not more in decorating particular spots, than in endeavouring to render the whole face of nature delightful.

Another reason for this mode of arrangement is, objects immediately under the eye are seen more distinctly than those at a distance, and ought to be such as are pleasing in the detail. The beauties of a flower can be discerned on a near view only; whilst at a distance a roughet of coppice wood, and the most elegant arrangement of flowering shrubs, have the same effect. The most rational entertainment the human mind is capable of receiving, is that of observing the operations of nature. The foliation of a leaf, the blowing of flowers, and the maturation of fruits, are among the most delightful subjects that a contemplative mind can be employed in. These processes of nature are slow; and except the object fall spontaneously under the eye of the observer, the inconveniences of visiting it in a remote part, so far interfere with the more important employments of life, as to blunt, if not destroy, the enjoyment. This is a strong argument in favour of shrubs and flowers being planted under or near our windows, especially those from whence they may be viewed during the hours of leisure and tranquillity.

Further, the vegetable creation being subject to the animal, the shrub may be cropped, or the flower trodden down in its day of beauty. If therefore we will to converse with nature in private, intruders must be kept off,—the shrubbery be fevered from the ground;—yet not in such a manner as to drive away the pasturing flock from our sight. For this reason, the haven lawn ought not to be too extensive, and the fence which encloses it should be such as will not interrupt the view: but whether it be seen or unseen, suspected or unsuspected, is a matter of no great import: its utility in protecting the shrubs and flowers,—in keeping the horns of the cattle from the window, and the feet of the sheep from the gravel and broken ground,—in preserving that neatness on the outside, which ought to correspond with the finishings and furniture within,—render it of sufficient importance to become even a part of the ornament.

PART II. EXECUTION OF THE GENERAL SUBJECTS.

IMPROVEMENTS in general may be classed under the following heads: The Hunting-Box, the Ornamented Cottage, the Villa, and the Principal Residence.

But before any step can be taken towards the execution of the design, be it large or small, a map or plan of the place, exactly as it lies in its unimproved state, should be made; with a corresponding sketch, to mark the intended improvements upon. Not a hovel nor a twig should be touched, until the artist has studied maturely the natural abilities of the place, and has decidedly fixed in his mind, and finally settled on his plan, the proposed alterations: and even then, let him "dare with caution."

1. Of Improvements adapted to a Hunting-Box.

Here art has little to do. Hunting may be called the amusement of nature; and the place appropriated to it ought to be no farther altered from its natural state than decency and convenience require:—"With men who live in the present age of refinement, 'a want of decency is a want of sense.'"

The style throughout should be masculine. If shrubs be required, they should be of the hardier sorts: the box, the holly, the laurustinus. The trees should be the oak and the beech, which give in autumn an agreeable variety of foliage, and anticipate as it were the season of diversion. A suite of paddocks should be seen from the house; and if a view of tillant covers can be caught, the back-ground will be complete. The stable, the kennel, and the learing-bar, are the

facilities accompaniments; in the construction of which simplicity, substantialness, and convenience, should prevail.

2. Of the Style of an ORNAMENTED COTTAGE.

Neatness and simplicity ought to mark the style of this rational retreat. Ornamentation and show should be cautiously avoided; even elegance should not be attempted; though it may not be hid, if it offer itself spontaneously.

Nothing, however, should appear vulgar, nor should simplicity be pared down to baldness; every thing whimsical or expensive ought to be studiously avoided;—chasteness and fragility should appear in every part.

Near the house a studied neatness may take place; but at a distance, negligence should rather be the characteristic.

If a taste for botany lead to a collection of native shrubs and flowers, a shrubbery will be requisite; but in this every thing should be native. A gaudy exotic ought not to be admitted; nor should the lawn be kept close shaven; its flowers should be permitted to blow; and the herbage, when mown, ought to be carried off, and applied to some useful purpose.

In the artificial accompaniments, ornament must be subordinate; utility must prelude. The buildings, if any appear, should be those in actual use in rural economics. If the hovel be wanted, let it appear; and, as a fideleesen, the barn and rick-yard are admissible; whilst the dove-house and poultry-yard may enter more freely into the composition.

In fine, the ornamented cottage ought to exhibit cultivated nature in the first stage of refinement. It ranks next above the farm-house. The plain garb of rusticity may be set off to advantage; but the studied dress of the artist ought not to appear. That becoming neatness, and those domestic conveniences, which render the rural life agreeable to a cultivated mind, are all that should be aimed at.

3. Of the Embellishments of a Villa.

This demands a style very different from the preceding. It ought to be elegant, rich, or grand, according to the style of the house itself, and the state of the surrounding country; the principal business of the artist being to connect these two in such a manner, that the one shall not appear naked or flaring, nor the other desolate and inhospitable.

If the house be flatly, and the adjacent country rich and highly cultivated, a shrubbery may intervene, in which art may show her utmost skill. Here the artist may even be permitted to play at landscape: for a place of this kind being supposed to be small, the purpose principally ornamental, and the point of view probably confined simply to the house, side-fences may be formed, and a fore-ground laid out suitable to the best distance that can be caught.

If buildings or other artificial ornaments abound in the offscape, so as to mark it strongly, they ought also to appear more or less in the fore-ground: if the distance abounds with wood, the fore-ground should be thickened, left baldness should offend; if open and naked, elegance rather than richness ought to be studied, left heaviness should appear.

It is far from being any part of our plan to cavil unnecessarily at artists, whether living or dead; we cannot, however, refrain from expressing a concern for the almost total neglect of the principles here in ornamenting the vicinages of villas. It is to be regretted, that in the present practice these principles seem to be generally lost sight of. Without any regard to uniting the house with the adjacent country, and, indeed, seemingly without any regard whatever to the offscape, one invariable plan of embellishment prevails; namely, that of stripping the fore-ground entirely naked, or nearly so, and surrounding it with a wavy border of shrubs and a gravel walk; leaving the area, whether large or small, one naked sheet of green sward.

In small confined spots, this plan may be eligible. But a simple border round a large unbroken lawn only serves to show what more is wanted. Simplicity in general is pleasing; but even simplicity may be carried to an extreme, so as to convey no other idea than that of poverty and baldness. Besides, how often do we see in natural scenery, the holly, and the fox-glove flourishing at the foot of an oak, and the primrose and the campion adding charms to the hawthorn scattered over the pastured lawn? And we conceive that single trees footed with evergreens and native flowers, and clumps as well as borders of shrubs, are admissible in ornamental as well as in natural scenery.

The species of shrub will vary with the purpose. If the principal intention be a winter retreat, evergreens and the early-blooming shrubs should predominate; but Principal in a place to be frequented in summer and autumn, the deciduous tribes ought chiefly to be planted.

4. Of the Principal Residence.

Here the whole art centres. The artist has here full scope for a display of taste and genius. He has an extent of country under his eye, and will endeavour to make the most of what nature and accident have spread before him.

Round a principal residence, a gentleman may be supposed to have some considerable estate, and it is not a shrubbery and a ground only which fall under the consideration of the artist: he ought to endeavour to disclose to the view, either from the house or some other point, as much as he conveniently can of the adjacent estate. The love of possession is deeply planted in every man's breast: and places should bow to the gratification of their owners. To curtail the view by an artificial side-fence, or any other unnatural machinery, so as to deprive a man of the satisfaction of overlooking his own estate, is an absurdity which no artist ought to be permitted to be guilty of. It is very different, however, where the property of another intrudes upon the eye: Here the view may, with some colour of propriety, be bounded by a woody fence.

The grounds, however, by a proper management, may be made independent of whatever is external; and though prospects are nowhere more delightful than from a point of view which is also a beautiful spot, yet if in the environs of such a garden they should be wanting, the elegant, picturesque, and various scenes within itself, almost supply the deficiency.

"This (says Mr Wheatley) is the character of the gardens at Stowe: for there the views in the country are only circumstances subordinate to the scenes; and the principal advantage of the situation is the variety of the ground within the inclosure. The house stands on the brow of a gentle ascent: part of the gardens lie on the declivity, and spread over the bottom beyond it: this eminence is separated by a broad winding valley from another which is higher and steeper; and the descents of both are broken by large dips and hollows, sloping down the sides of the hills. The whole space is divided into a number of scenes, each distinguished with taste and fancy; and the changes are so frequent, so sudden, and complete, the transitions so artfully conducted, that the same ideas are never continued or repeated to satiety.

These gardens were begun when regularity was in fashion; and the original boundary is still preserved, on account of its magnificence: for round the whole circuit, of between three and four miles, is carried a very broad gravel walk, planted with rows of trees, and open either to the park or the country; a deep sunk fence attends it all the way, and comprehends a space of near 400 acres. But in the interior scenes of the garden, few traces of regularity appear; where it yet remains in the plantations, it is generally diffused: every symptom, almost, of formality, is obliterated from the ground; and an octagon bason in the bottom is now converted into an irregular piece of water, which receives on one hand two beautiful streams, and falls on the other down a cascade into a lake.

In the front of the house is a considerable lawn, oper to the water: beyond which are two elegant Doric pavilions, placed in the boundary of the garden, but not marking it, though they correspond to each other; for still further back, on the brow of some rising grounds without the inclosure, stands a noble Corinthian arch, by which the principal approach is conducted, and from which all the gardens are seen, reclining back against their hills; they are rich with plantations; full of objects; and lying on both sides of the house almost equally, every part is within a moderate distance, notwithstanding the extent of the whole.

On the right of the lawn, but concealed from the house, is a perfect garden scene, called the queen's amphitheatre, where art is avowed, though formality is avoided. The fore-ground is scooped into a gentle hollow. The plantations on the sides, though but just reseved from regularity, yet in style are contrasted to each other: they are, on one hand, chiefly thickets, standing out from a wood; on the other, they are open groves, through which a glimpse of the water is visible. At the end of the hollow on a little knoll, quite detached from all appendages, is placed an open Ionic rotunda: beyond it, a large lawn flops across the view; a pyramid stands on the brow; the queen's pillar, in a recess on the descent; and all the three buildings, being evidently intended for ornament alone, are peculiarly adapted to a garden-scene. Yet their number does not render it gay: the dusky hue of the pyramid, the retired situation of the queen's pillar, and the solitary appearance of the rotunda, give it an air of gravity; it is encompassed with wood; and all the external views are excluded; even the opening into the lawn is but an opening into an inclosure.

At the king's pillar, very near to this, is another lovely spot; which is small, but not confined; for no termination appears; the ground one way, the water another, retire under the trees out of sight, but nowhere meet with a boundary. The view is first over some very broken ground, thinly and irregularly planted; then between two beautiful clumps, which feather down to the bottom; and afterwards across a glade, and through a little grove beyond it, to that part of the lake where the thickets close upon the brink, spread a tranquillity over the surface, in which their shadows are reflected. Nothing is admitted to disturb that quiet: no building obtrudes; for objects to fix the eye are needless in a scene which may be comprehended at a glance; and none would suit the pastoral idea it inspires, of elegance too refined for a cottage, and of simplicity too pure for any other edifice.

The situation of the rotunda promises a prospect more enlarged; and in fact most of the objects on this side of the garden are there visible; but they want both connexion and contrast; each belongs peculiarly to some other spot: they are all blended together in this, without meaning; and are rather shown on a map, than formed into a picture. The water only is capital; a broad expanse of it is so near as to be seen under the little groups on the bank without interruption. Beyond it is a wood, which in one place leaves the lake, to run up behind a beautiful building, of three pavilions joined by arcades, all of the Ionic order: it is called Kent's Building. And never was a design more happily conceived: it seems to be characteristically proper for a garden; it is so elegant, so varied, and so purely ornamental: it directly fronts the rotunda, and a narrow rim of the country appears above the trees beyond it. But the effect even of this noble object is fainter here than at other points: its position is not the most advantageous; and it is but one among many other buildings, none of which are principal.

The scene at the temple of Bacchus is in character directly the reverse of that about the rotunda, though the space and the objects are nearly the same in both: but in this, all the parts concur to form one whole. The ground from every side declines gradually towards the lake; the plantations on the further bank open to flow Kent's building, rise from the water's edge towards the knoll on which it stands, and close again behind it. That elegant structure, inclined a little from a front view, becomes more beautiful by being thrown into perspective; and though at a greater distance, is more important than before, because it is alone in the view: for the queen's pillar and the rotunda are removed far aside; and every other circumstance refers to this interesting object: the water attracts, the ground and the plantations direct, the eye thither: and the country does not just glimmer in the offscrape, but is close and eminent above the wood, and connected by clumps with the garden. The scene altogether is a most animated landscape; and the splendor of the building; the reflection in the lake; the transparency of the water, and picturesque beauty of its form, diversified by little groups on the brink, while on the broadest expanse no more trees cast their shadows than are sufficient to vary the tints of the surface; all these circumstances, yoking in lustre with each other, and uniting in the point to which every part of the scene is related, diffuse a peculiar brilliancy over the whole composition.

The view from Kent's building is very different from those which have been hitherto described. They are all directed down the declivity of the lawn. This rises up the ascent: the eminence being crowned with lofty wood, becomes thereby more considerable; and the hillocks into which the general fall is broken, sloping further out this way than any other, they also acquire an importance which they had not before; that, particularly, on which the rotunda is placed, seems here to be a profound situation; and the structure appears to be properly adapted to so open an exposure. The temple of Bacchus, on the contrary, which commands such an illustrious view, is itself a retired object, close under the covert. The wood rising on the brow, and descending down one side of the hill, is shown to be deep; is high, and seems to be higher than it is. The lawn too is extensive; and part the boundary being concealed, it suggests the idea of a still greater extent. A small portion only of the lake indeed is visible; but it is not here an object: it is a part of the spot; and neither termination being in sight, it has no diminutive appearance: if more water had been admitted, it might have hurt the character of the place, which is sober and temperate; neither solemn nor gay; great and simple, but elegant; above sufficiency, yet free from ostentation.

These are the principal scenes on one side of the gardens. On the other, close to the lawn before the house, Principal Residence is the winding valley above mentioned: the lower part of it is assigned to the Elysian fields. These are watered by a lovely rivulet; are very lightsome, and very airy, so thinly are the trees scattered about them; are open at one end to more water and a larger glade; and the rest of the boundary is frequently broken to let in objects afar off, which appear still more distant from the manner of flowing them. The entrance is under a Doric arch, which coincides with an opening among the trees, and forms a kind of vista, through which a Pembroke bridge just below, and a lodge built like a castle in the park, are seen in a beautiful perspective. That bridge is at one extremity of the gardens; the queen's pillar is at another; yet both are visible from the same station in the Elysian fields: and all these external objects are unaffectedly introduced, divested of their own appurtenances, and combined with others which belong to the spot. The temple of Friendship is also in sight, just without the place; and within it are the temples of ancient Virtue, and of the British worthies; the one in an elevated situation, the other low down in the valley, and near to the water: both are decorated with the effigies of those who have been most distinguished for military, civil, or literary merit; and near to the former stands a rostral column, sacred to the memory of Captain Grenville, who fell in an action at sea: by placing here the need of valour, and by filling these fields with the representations of those who have deserved best of mankind, the character intended to be given to the spot is justly and poetically expressed; and the number of the images which are presented or excited, perfectly corresponds with it. Solitude was never reckoned among the charms of Elysium; it has been always pictured as the mansion of delight and of joy: and in this imitation, every circumstance accords with that established idea. The vivacity of the stream which flows through the vale; the glimpses of another approaching to join it; the sprightly verdure of the green sward, and every bust of the British worthies reflected in the water; the variety of the trees; the lightness of the greens; their disposition; all of them distinct objects, and dispersed over gentle inequalities of the ground; together with the multiplicity of objects both within and without, which embellish and enliven the scene; give it a gaiety, which the imagination can hardly conceive, or the heart wish to be exceeded.

Close by this spot, and a perfect contrast to it, is the alder grove; a deep recess in the midst of a shade, which the blaze of noon cannot brighten. The water seems to be a stagnated pool, eating into its banks; and of a peculiar colour, not dirty but clouded, and dimly reflecting the dun hue of the horse-chestnuts and alders which press upon the brink: the stems of the latter, rising in clusters from the same root, bear one another down, and flant over the water. Millhaven elms and ragged firs are frequent in the wood which encompasses the hollow; the trunks of dead trees are left standing amongst them: and the uncouth fumach, and the vew, with elder, nut, and holly, compose the underwood: some limes and laurels are intermixed; but they are not many; the wood is in general of the darkest greens; and the foliage is thickened with ivy, which not only twines up the trees, but creeps also over the falls of the ground: there are steep and abrupt: the gravel-walk is covered with mofs; and a grotto at the end, faced with broken flints and pebbles, preserves, in the simplicity of its materials, and the duffiness of its colour, all the character of its situation: two little rotundas near it were better away; one building is sufficient for such a scene of solitude as this, in which more circumstances of gloom concur than were perhaps ever collected together.

Immediately above the alder-grove is the principal eminence in the gardens. It is divided by a great dip into two pinnacles; upon one of which is a large Gothic building. The space before this structure is an extensive lawn: the ground on one side falls immediately into the dip; and the trees which border the lawn, sinking with the ground, the house rises above them, and fills the interval: the vast pile seems to be still larger than it is; for it is thrown into perspective, and between and above the heads of the trees, the upper story, the porticoes, the turrets, and balustrades, and all the slated roofs, appear in a noble confusion. On the other side of the Gothic building, the ground slopes down a long continued declivity into a bottom, which seems to be perfectly irriguous. Divers streams wander about it in several directions: the conflux of that which runs from the Elysian fields with another below it, is full in sight; and a plain wooden bridge thrown over the latter, and evidently designed for a paillage, imposes an air of reality on the river. Beyond it is one of the Doric porticoes which front the house; but now it is alone; it stands on a little bank above the water, and is seen under some trees at a distance before it; thus grouped, and thus accompanied, it is a happy incident, occurring with many other circumstances to distinguish this landscape by a character of cheerfulness and amenity.

From the Gothic building a broad walk leads to the Grecian valley, which is a scene of more grandeur than any in the gardens. It enters them from the park, spreading at first to a considerable breadth; then winds; grows narrower, but deeper; and loses itself at last in a thicket, behind some lofty elms, which interrupt the sight of the termination. Lovely woods and groves hang all the way on the declivities: and the open space is broken by detached trees; which, near the park, are cautiously and sparingly introduced, lest the breadth should be contracted by them; but as the valley sinks, they advance more boldly down the sides, stretch across or along the bottom, and cluster at times into groups and forms, which multiply the varieties of the larger plantations. Those are sometimes close coverts, and sometimes open groves: the trees rise in one upon high stems, and feather down to the bottom in another; and between them are short openings into the park or the gardens. In the midst of the scene, just at the bend of the valley, and commanding it on both sides, upon a large, easy, natural rise, is placed the temple of Concord and Victory: at one place its majestic front of fix Ionic columns, supporting a pediment filled with bas relief, and the points of it crowned with statues, faces the view; at another, the beautiful colonnade, on the side, of 10 lofty pillars, retires in perspective. It is seen from every part; and impressing its own character of dignity on all around, it spreads an awe over the whole: but no gloom, no melancholy, attends it: the sensations it excites are ra- ther placid; but full of respect, admiration, and solemnity: no water appears to enliven, no distant prospect to enrich the view; the parts of the scene are large, the idea of it sublime, and the execution happy; it is independent of all adventitious circumstances, and relies on itself for its greatness.

The scenes which have been described are such as are most remarkable for beauty or character; but the gardens contain many more; and even the objects in these, by their several combinations, produce very different effects, within the distance sometimes of a few paces, from the unevenness of the ground, the variety of the plantations, and the number of the buildings. The multiplicity of the last has indeed been often urged as an objection to Stowe; and certainly, when all are seen by a stranger in two or three hours, twenty or thirty capital structures, mixed with others of inferior note, do seem too many. But the growth of the wood every day weakens the objection, by concealing them one from the other: each belongs to a distinct scene; and if they are considered separately, at different times, and at leisure, it may be difficult to determine which to take away. Yet still it must be acknowledged that their frequency destroys all ideas of silence and retirement. Magnificence and splendour are the characteristics of Stowe: it is like one of those places celebrated in antiquity, which were devoted to the purposes of religion, and filled with sacred groves, hallowed fountains, and temples dedicated to several deities; the resort of distant nations, and the object of veneration to half the heathen world: this pomp is, at Stowe, blended with beauty; and the place is equally distinguished by its amenity and its grandeur.

In the midst of so much embellishment as may be introduced into this species of garden, a plain field, or a sheep-walk, is sometimes an agreeable relief, and even wilder scenes may occasionally be admitted. These indeed are not properly parts of a garden, but they may be comprehended within the verge of it; and the proximity to the more ornamented scenes is at least a convenience, that the transition from the one to the other may be easy, and the change always in our option. For though a spot in the highest state of improvement be a necessary appendage to a seat; yet, in a place which is perfect, other characters will not be wanting: if they cannot be had on a large scale, they are acceptable on a smaller; and so many circumstances are common to all, that they might often be intermixed; they may always border on each other."

But on this head it would be in vain to attempt to lay down particular rules: different places are marked by sets of features as different from each other as are those in men's faces. Much must be left to the skill and taste of the artist; and let those be what they may, nothing but mature study of the natural abilities of the particular place to be improved can render him equal to the execution, so as to make the most of the materials that are placed before him.

Some few general rules may nevertheless be laid down. The approach ought to be conducted in such a manner, that the striking features of the place shall burst upon the view at once: no trick however should be made use of: all should appear to fall in naturally. In leading towards the house, its direction should not be fully in front, not exactly at an angle, but should pass obliquely upon the house and its accompaniments; so that their position with respect to each other, as well as the perspective appearance of the house itself, may vary at every step: and having flown the front and the principal wing, or other accompaniment, to advantage, the approach should wind to the back front, which, as has been already observed, ought to lie open to the park or pastured grounds.

The improvements and the rooms from which they are to be seen should be in unison. Thus, the view from the drawing-room should be highly embellished, to correspond with the beauty and elegance within: every thing here should be feminine, elegant, beautiful, such as attunes the mind to politeness and lively conversation. The breakfasting room should have more masculine objects in view: wood, water, and an extended country for the eye to roam over; such as allures us imperceptibly to the ride or the chase. The eating and banqueting rooms need no exterior allurements.

There is a harmony in taste as in music: variety, and even wildness upon some occasions, may be admitted; but discord cannot be allowed. If, therefore, a place be so circumstanced as to consist of properties totally irreconcilable, the parts ought, if possible, to be separated in such a manner, that, like the air and the recitative, the adagio and the allegro, in music, they may set off each other's charms by the contrast.—These observations, in the elegant performance whence they are extracted, the author illustrates by the follow-of Percefield, chil- field, the seat of Mr Morris, near Chepflow in Mon.-P. 618, &c. mouthshire; a place upon which nature has been peculiarly lavish of her favours, and which has been spoken by Mr Wheatley, Mr Gilpin, and other writers, in the most flattering terms.

"Percefield is situated upon the banks of the river Wye, which divides Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire, and which was formerly the boundary between England and Wales. The general tendency of the river is from north to south; but about Percefield it describes by its winding course the letter S, somewhat compressed, so as to reduce it in length and increase its width. The grounds of Percefield are lifted high above the bed of the river, shelving, and form the brink of a lofty and steep precipice, towards the south-west.

"The lower limb of the letter is filled with Percewood, which makes a part of Percefield; but it is at present an impenetrable thicket of coppice-wood. This dips to the south-east down to the water's edge; and, seen from the top of the opposite rock, has a good effect.

"The upper limb receives the farms of Llancoit, rich and highly cultivated, broken into inclosures, and scattered with groups and single trees; two well-looking farm-houses in the centre, and a neat white chapel on one side: altogether a lovely little paradaical spot. The lowlines of its situation stamps it with an air of meekness and humility; and the natural barriers which surround it add that of peacefulness and security. The picturesque farms do not form a low flat bottom, subject to be overflowed by the river; but take the form of a gorget, rising fullest in the middle, and falling on every side gently to the brink of the Wye; except Principal except on the east side, where the top of the gorge leans in an easy manner against a range of perpendicular rock; as if to show its skill with advantage to the walks of Persefield.

"This rock stretches across what may be called the Isthmus, leaving only a narrow pass down into the fields of Llancot, and joins the principal range of rocks at the lower bend of the river.

"To the north, at the head of the latter, stands an immense rock (or rather a pile of immense rocks heaped one above another) called Windcliff; the top of which is elevated as much above the ground of Persefield as those are above the fields of Llancot.

"These several rocks, with the wooded precipices on the side of Persefield, form a circular inclosure, about a mile in diameter, including Perce-wood, Llancot, the Wye, and a small meadow lying at the foot of Windcliff.

"The grounds are divided into the upper and lower lawn, by the approach to the house: a small irregular building, standing near the brink of the precipice, but facing down the lower lawn, a beautiful ground, falling precipitately every way into a valley which inclines down in the middle, and is scattered with groups and single trees in an excellent style.

"The view from the house is soft, rich, and beautifully picturesque; the lawn and woods of Persefield and the opposite banks of the river; the Wye, near its mouth, winding through 'meadows green as emerald,' in a manner peculiarly graceful; the Severn, here very broad, backed by the wooded and highly cultivated hills of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Somersetshire. Not one rock enters into the composition. The whole view consists of an elegant arrangement of lawn, wood, and water.

"The upper lawn is a less beautiful ground, and the view from it, though it command the 'cultivated hills and rich valleys of Monmouthshire,' bounded by the Severn and backed by the Mendip-hills, is much inferior to that from the house.

"To give variety to the views from Persefield, to disclose the native grandeur which surrounds it, and to set off its more striking features to advantage, walks have been cut through the woods and on the face of the precipice which border the grounds to the south and east. The viewer enters these walks at the lower corner of the lower lawn.

"The first point of view is marked by an alcove, from which are seen the bridge and the town of Chepstow, with its castle situated in a remarkable manner on the very brink of a perpendicular rock, washed by the Wye; and beyond these the Severn shows a small portion of its silvery surface.

"Proceeding a little farther along the walk, a view is caught which the painter might call a complete landscape: The castle, with the serpentine part of the Wye below Chepstow, intermixed in a peculiar manner with the broad waters of the Severn, forms the fore-ground; which is backed by distant hills: the rocks, crowned with wood, lying between the alcove and the castle, to the right, and Cattlehill farm, elevated upon the opposite banks of the river, to the left, form the two side-scenes. This point is not marked, and must frequently be lost to the stranger.

"The grotto, situated at the head of Perce-wood, commands a near view of the opposite rocks; magnificent beyond description! The littleness of human art was never placed in a more humiliating point of view; the castle of Chepstow, a noble fortress, is, compared with the natural bulwarks, a mere houle of cards.

"Above the grotto, upon the isthmus of the Persefield side, is a thurberly; strangely misplaced! an unpardonable intrusion upon the native grandeur of this scene. Mr. Gilpin's observations upon this, as upon every other occasion, are very just. He says, 'It is a pity the ingenious embellisher of these scenes could not have been satisfied with the great beauties of nature which he commanded. The thurberlies he has introduced in this part of his improvements I fear will rather be esteemed paltry.'—'It is not the shrub which offends; it is the formal introduction of it. Wild underwood may be an appendage of the grandest scene; it is a beautiful appendage. A bed of violets or of lilies may enamel the ground with propriety at the foot of an oak; but if you introduce them artificially in a border, you introduce a trifling formality, and disgrace the noble object you wish to adorn.'

"The walk now leaves the wood, and opens upon the lower lawn, until coming near the house it enters the alarming precipice facing Llancot; winding along the face of it in a manner which does great honour to the artist. Sometimes the fragments of rock which fall in its way are avoided, at other times partially removed, so as to conduct the path along a ledge carved out of the rock; and in one instance, a huge fragment, of a somewhat conical shape and many yards high, is perforated; the path leading through its base. This is a thought which will hand down to future times the greatness of Mr Morris's taste; the design and the execution are equally great; not a mark of a tool to be seen; all appears perfectly natural. The arch-way is made winding, so that on the approach it appears to be the mouth of a cave; and, on a nearer view, the idea is strengthened by an allowable deception; a black dark hole on the side next the cliff, which, even from the entrance before the perforation is discovered, appears to be the darksome inlet into the body of the cave.

"From this point, that vast inclosure of rocks and precipices which marks the peculiar magnificence of Persefield is seen to advantage. The area, containing in this point of view the fields of Llancot and the lower margin of Perce-wood, is broken in a manner peculiarly picturesque by the graceful winding of the Wye; here washing a low grassy shore, and there sweeping at the feet of the rocks, which rise in some places perpendicular from the water; but in general they have a wooded offset at the base; above which they rise to one, two, or perhaps three or four hundred feet high; exposing one full face, silvered by age, and bearded with ivy, growing out of the wrinkle-like seams and fissures. If one might be allowed to compare the paltry performances of art with the magnificent works of nature, we should say, that this inclosure resembles a prodigious fortress which has lain long in ruins. It is in reality one of nature's strong-holds; and as such has probably been frequently made use of. Across the isthmus on the Gloucestershire side there are the remains of a deep intrenchment, called to this day the Principal Bulwark; and tradition still teems with the extraordinary warlike feats that have been performed among this romantic scenery.

"From the perforated rock, the walk leads down to the cold-bath (a complete place), feated about the mid-way of the precipice, in this part left steep; and from the cold-bath a rough path winds down to the meadow, by the side of the Wye, from whence the precipice on the Persefield side is seen with every advantage; the giant fragments, hung with thubs and ivy, rise in a ghastly manner from amongst the underwood, and show themselves in all their native vagueness.

"From the cold-bath upward, a coach-road (very steep and difficult) leads to the top of the cliff, at the upper corner of the upper lawn. Near the top of the road is a point which commands one of the most pleasing views of Persefield: The Wye sweeping through a graffy vale which opens to the left.—Llancot backed by its rocks, with the Severn immediately behind them; and, seen in this point of view, seems to be divided from the Wye by only a sharp ridge of rock, with a precipice on either side; and behind the Severn, the vale and wooded hills of Gloucesterhire.

"From this place a road leads to the top of Windcliff—astonishing sight! The face of nature probably affords not a more magnificent scene! Llancot in all its grandeur, the ground of Persefield, the castle and town of Chepstow, the graceful windings of the Wye below, and its conflux with the Severn; to the left the forest of Dean; to the right, the rich marshes and picturesque mountains of South Wales; a broad view of the Severn, opening its sea-like mouth; the conflux of the Avon, with merchant ships at anchor in King-road, and vessels of different descriptions under sail; Austin Cliff, and the whole vale of Berkeley, backed by the wooded fells of Gloucesterhire, the view terminating in clouds of distant hills, rising one behind another, until the eye becomes unable to distinguish the earth's billowy surface from the clouds themselves."

The leading principle of the improvement proposed by our author is, to "separate the sublime from the beautiful; so that in viewing the one, the eye might not so much as suspect that the other was near.

"Let the hanging walk be conducted entirely along the precipices, or through the thickets, so as to disclose the natural scenery, without once discovering the lawn or any other acquired softness. Let the path be as rude as if trodden only by wild beasts and savages, and the resting places, if any, as rustic as possible.

"Erase entirely the present shrubbery, and lay out another as elegant as nature and art could render it before the house, swelling it out into the lawn towards the stables; between which and the kitchen-garden make a narrow winding entrance.

"Convert the upper lawn into a deer-paddock, suffering it to run as wild, rough, and forest-like, as total negligence would render it.

"The viewer would then be thus conducted: He would enter the hanging-walk by a sequestered path at the lower corner of the lawn, pursuing it through the wood to beneath the grotto, and round the head-land, or winding through Perse-wood, to the perforated rock and the cold-bath, without once conceiving an idea (if possible) that art, or at least that much art, had been made use of in disclosing the natural grandeur of the surrounding objects; which ought to appear as if they presented themselves to his view, or at most as if nothing was wanted but his own penetration and judgement to find them out. The walk should therefore be conducted in such a manner, that the breaks might be quite natural; yet the points of view obvious, or requiring nothing but a block or stone to mark them. A stranger at least wants no seat here; he is too eager in the early part of his walk, to think of lounging upon a bench.

"From the cold bath he would ascend the steep, near the top of which a commodious bench or benches might be placed: the fatigue of ascending the hill would require a resting place; and there are few points which afford a more pleasing view than this; it is grand, without being too broad and glaring.

"From these branches he would enter the forest part. Here the idea of Nature in her primitive state would be strengthened: the roughnesses and deer to the right, and the rocks in all their native wildness to the left. Even Llancot might be shut out from the view by the natural thurubbery of the cliff. The Lover's Leap, however (a tremendous peep), might remain; but no benches, nor other work of art, should here be seen. A natural path, deviating near the brink of the precipice, would bring the viewer down to the lower corner of the park; where benches should be placed in a happy point, so as to give a full view of the rocks and native wildness, and at the same time hide the farm houses, fields, and other acquired beauties of Llancot.

"Having satiated himself with this savage scene, he would be led, by a still rustic path, through the labyrinth—when the thurubbery, the lawn, with all its appendages, the graceful Wye, and the broad silver Severn, would break upon the eye with every advantage of ornamental nature: the transition could not fail to strike.

"From this soft scene he would be shown to the top of Windcliff, where in one vast view he would unite the sublime and beautiful of Persefield."

Only one particular remains now to be noticed. A place which is the residence of a family all the year is very defective, if some portion of it be not set apart for the enjoyment of a fine day, for air, and exercise, in winter. To such a spot shelter is absolutely essential; and evergreens being the thickest covert, are therefore the best: their verdure also is then agreeable to the eye; and they may be arranged so as to produce beautiful mixture of greens, with more certainty than deciduous trees, and with almost equal variety: they may be collected into a wood; and through that wood gravel-walks may be led along openings of a considerable breadth, free from large trees which would intercept the rays of the sun, and winding in such a manner as to avoid any draft of wind, from whatever quarter it may blow. But when a retreat at all times is thus secured, other spots may be adapted only to occasional purposes; and be sheltered towards the north or the east on one hand, while they are open to the sun on the other. The few hours of cheerfulness and warmth which its beams afford are so valuable as to justify the sacrifice even of the principles of beauty to the enjoyment of them; and therefore no Principal objections of sameness or formality can prevail against the pleasantness of a straight walk, under a thick hedge or a south wall. The eye may, however, be diverted from the screen by a border before it, where the aconite and the snowdrop, the crocus and hepatica, brought forward by the warmth of the situation, will be welcome harbingers of spring; and on the opposite side of the walk little tufts of laurilines, and of variegated evergreens, may be planted. The spot thus enlivened by a variety of colours, and even a degree of bloom, may be still further improved by a green-house. The entertainment which exotics afford peculiarly belongs to this part of the year; and if amongst them be inter- spered some of our earliest flowers, they will there blow before their time, and anticipate the gaiety of the season which is advancing. The walk may also lead to the loaves, where the climate and the plants are always the same. And the kitchen-garden should not be far off; for that is never quite destitute of produce, and always an active scene: the appearance of bushes is alone engaging; and the occupations there are an earnest of the happier seasons to which they are preparative. By these expedients even the winter may be rendered cheerful in a place where shelter is provided against all but the bitterest inclemencies of the sky, and agreeable objects and interesting amusements are contrived for every hour of tolerable weather.

PART III. PRACTICAL GARDENING.

WE now proceed to treat of horticulture or practical gardening. And although it may not appear to be the most perfect arrangement; yet as it is probably the most convenient and useful in the directions to be given for the practical management of the garden, we shall consider the work to be done for each month of the year in the kitchen garden, the fruit garden, the flower garden and the nursery, under so many separate sections.

JANUARY.

SECT. I. Kitchen Garden.

In the beginning, or any time in the course of this month, when the weather is open, sow some short-top'd radishes on a border exposed to the south, and protected by a wall or other fence; and about the middle or latter end of the month, you may sow some more of the same sort, and also some salmon radishes to succeed the short-top'd. The seed should be fown pretty thick at this season, because vegetation being slow at this period they will be longer exposed to the depredation of birds, and if the weather prove severe, many of them will be cut off after they have appeared above ground. Sow the seed evenly over the surface, and rake it in with a large wide-toothed rake, or if sown in beds, cover it with earth to the depth of half an inch from the alleys. A covering of straw about two inches thick would greatly promote their growth, and protect them from frost and birds. After the plants have come above ground, the covering of straw should be drawn off with a light rake in the early part of the day; and replaced in the evening.

Garden mats are frequently used to cover radishes, a number of small pins being previously stuck into the ground to support them an inch or two from the surface, and prevent them from pressing down the young plants. The covering ought to be continued for a longer or shorter time, according to the severity of the weather; but when the plants have pushed out their rough leaves it may safely be discontinued. Radishes sown under common hot-bed frames, without the assistance of warm dung, will succeed very well, and come on much earlier than those sown in the open air: due attention, however, must be paid to give them air whenever the weather is mild, by raising the glases, or removing them altogether during warm days. If wanted very early, reconile must be had to a flight hot-bed.

At any time in this month, when the weather is mild and dry, let a spot of ground in a warm situation be prepared for sowing a few early carrots, by digging the ground a full spade deep, and breaking the earth well; and when the seed is sown, let it be raked in. When carrots are wanted very early, they may be reared in a flight hot-bed.

About the beginning, or any time in the month, Spinach, when the weather is mild, you may sow some spinach; but if the weather will permit, some ought to be sown, both in the beginning and towards the end of the month. The smooth-fed or round-leaved spinach should chiefly be sown now. It is preferred, on account of its leaves being thicker, larger, and more succulent than the prickly-fed; though some of the latter ought also to be sown, because it is hardier, and better able to sustain the severity of the weather. They may be sown either broadcast and raked in, or in shallow drills about an inch deep, and nine or ten inches asunder. It is a frequent practice to sow spinach in drills between the rows of early beans and cabbages.

You may sow some seed of cress, mustard, radish, Small rape, &c. and likewise some lap lettuce in a warm situation exposed to the sun. They form an agreeable salad when cut young. The ground on which they are to be sown ought to be flopped to the south, and covered with a common hot-bed frame, which should be sunk in the ground, so far as to allow the glases to approach to within six or eight inches of the sown surface.

But small salad will succeed best in a flight hot-bed of warm dung formed to the depth of 18 or 20 inches; air must be admitted freely, whenever the weather will permit, by raising or removing the glases.

About the middle, or towards the latter end of the month, sow parsley feed in any dry situation, in shallow drills nine inches asunder, and cover it in with earth to the depth of a quarter of an inch, or in single rows along the borders of the kitchen garden. There are two sorts, the plain-leaved and curled-leaved; the latter is preferred a garnishing on account of its large bushy leaves, but both are equally good as pot herbs. This feed lies very long in the ground before it vegetates.

Sow some early peas in a warm situation, to succeed those sown in November and December. The principal early peas are the Charlton hotspur, golden hotspur, Reading hotspur, Matters hotspur, &c. the two first of which are reckoned the earliest. Sow them in rows two feet and a half apart, but when they are to be supported by sticks they ought to be three feet apart. Some marrowfat peas should likewise be sown at this season for a first crop of late peas: the dwarf marrowfat is the most proper, but any other late pea will succeed very well, such as the Spanish moratto, tall marrowfat, Prussian prolific, sugar pea, dwarf sugar, egg pea, pearl pea, &c. These should be sown in rows three feet apart; but when it is intended that they should be supported by sticks, the rows should be three feet and a half apart.

Any time in the course of the month, if the weather be mild, a main crop of beans may be sown. The Sandwich bean, toker, Windsor, broad Spanish, broad long-pod, &c. are the kinds most commonly used. After the ground has been well dug, put in the beans to the depth of about two inches, with a dibble, in rows three feet apart, and at the distance of four or five inches from each other in the rows: or they may be sown in drills to the same depth and distance. If no early beans were sown in November or December, they ought to be sown the earliest opportunity this month: the early Mazagan and Lisbon beans are the best. They ought to be planted in a warm border; if at the foot of a south wall, they will come on earlier. These may be planted closer than the larger beans, two feet, or two feet and a half, between the rows, being sufficient. When peas or beans are wanted very early, they may be sown in hot-beds or stoves, and when somewhat advanced, they may either be planted out into other hot-beds, into peach and vine-houses, or into any warm situation in the open air.

In the beginning, and again towards the end of the month, you may sow some lettuce. The kinds commonly used are the green and white cos, brown Dutch, Cilicia, and common cabbage lettuce. Prepare a piece of ground in a warm situation; sow the seeds moderately thick, and rake them in as evenly as possible. They may also be sown under hand glases or in common hot-bed frames, to be occasionally covered with glases or mats; but in either case, air must be freely admitted, whenever the weather will permit. When wished for very early, they may be sown in a flight hot-bed, and planted out in the open air in March or April.

Take care of lettuce plants which have flood the winter.—If you have lettuce plants in frames or under hoops, covered with mats, give them plenty of air when the weather is moderate. Remove all decayed leaves, and destroy snails which frequently infest them; and when the frost is severe, take care to protect them well with mats.

The cauliflower plants raised last autumn, which have flood during the winter in frames, should be looked over in open weather. If any decayed leaves appear, pick them off; stir up the earth between the plants, and remove all weeds. In mild weather, give them plenty of air during the day, by pushing down, or removing the glases altogether: but cover them during the night, unless when the weather is particularly mild: when it is frosty, or rains much, they ought to be covered during the day. But if the frost is very severe, the frames should be protected at night with a covering of mats, and even during the day, should the frost be intense, without sunshine; and some straw, dried leaves, or something of that nature, should likewise be laid all round the outside of the frame, to prevent the frost from penetrating its sides.

Cauliflowers under bell and hand glases require the same attention: during mild weather, the covers should either be taken off altogether, or raised (or tilted) on the south side, so as to admit the air freely during the day and shut again at night, unless the weather should be very mild, in which case they may remain a little tilted on one side; but should intense frost prevail, they should be kept shut, and covered with straw or something of that nature. The free admission of the air will prevent the plants from becoming weak, and make them less apt to run up to flower before they have acquired sufficient size. In mild winters, bugs very frequently injure cauliflower plants; they ought, therefore, to be carefully looked for and destroyed.

About the end of the month, if the weather is mild, plant out a few early cabbages, on a spot of ground bages, well dug and manured with rotten dung, at the distance of a foot and a half from each other, or even closer, as they are to be cut early, and before they acquire a great size. The early York, Battersea, and sugar-loaf, are the kinds which should be planted at this season.

Transplant some full grown cabbages and savoys, for transplant, about the beginning of the month; though the early part of winter is the most proper time for doing so, &c. See NOVEMBER.

In open dry weather, earth up such celery as has advanced much above ground; let the earth be well broken, and laid up almost to the tops of the plants, but care must be taken not to bruise them. This will afford them protection against frost, which might prove very injurious to them at this season.

Where celery is wanted daily, a quantity of straw or something of that nature, should be laid over the rows on the approach of frost, which will prevent the frost from penetrating the ground, and on the removal of the covering, the celery may be dug up: or when severe weather threatens to set in, a quantity of celery may be taken up, placed in some situation sheltered from the weather, and covered as far as the blanched part extends with fand.

In open dry weather prepare some full grown on-blanch dive for blanching. When the plants are perfectly dry enclose up their leaves close together, and they will be completely blanched in about a fortnight. As enclose is very apt to rot in wet weather at this season, when blanched in the open air, a quantity of it ought to be transplanted into a ridge of dry earth, in some situation where it may be sheltered from rain.

In open dry weather, the earth should be drawn up about such peas and beans as may have advanced an inch or two above ground, which will both strengthen them beans and protect them against frost. If artichokes have not been earthed up before this, that work should now be done the first opportunity. See November.

Mushroom beds ought to be well covered at this season, and protected both from rain and frost. The covering of straw should be at least a foot thick, and if the rain should at any time have penetrated nearly through it, it ought to be removed, and a covering of dry straw put in its place; for if the bed should get wet, the spawn would be injured, and the future crop destroyed.

Sometimes it is desirable to have some of the ordinary kitchen garden crops, at an earlier period, than that at which they are produced in the open air. For this purpose recourse is had to hot-beds; there are likewise some things reared in the kitchen garden, such as cucumbers and melons, which cannot be obtained in this country without their aid. The principal crops, besides cucumbers and melons, for which hot-beds may be prepared in this month, are asparagus, small salad, mint, tansy, peas, and beans for transplanting; radishes, early carrots, early potatoes, and kidney beans. Hot-beds are formed either of fresh horse dung, or of tanners bark; the hot-beds used this month, as feed-beds for early cucumbers and melons, are almost always formed of horse dung. Procure a sufficient quantity of fresh horse dung, according to the size and number of the hot-beds you mean to form, lay it up in a heap to ferment for ten or twelve days, longer or shorter according to the condition of the dung or the state of the weather, during which time it ought to be turned over once or twice with a fork, that it may be thoroughly mixed and equally fermented. After the violent fermentation is over, and the rank steam has escaped, it will be in proper condition to form a hot-bed. Dung that is very much mixed with straw, or is too dry, ought to be rejected. About a cart-load may be sufficient for a common hot-bed frame of one light, and so on in proportion for one of two or three lights. Hot-beds should be formed in a situation sheltered from the wind, and exposed to the morning and mid-day sun. Some dig a trench about a foot deep, and a few inches longer and wider than the frame with which they mean to cover the bed; others form hot-beds on the surface of the ground. At this season of the year the last mode is to be preferred, because it affords an opportunity of lining the bed with fresh hot dung quite down to the bottom, to augment the heat when it declines; in this way water is likewise prevented from setting about the bottom of the bed, which is often the case, when the bed is formed in a trench, which would inevitably check the fermentation, and consequently destroy the heat of the bed. Mark out a space on the ground, a few inches longer and wider than the frame which you intend to put on the bed. Spread the dung when in proper condition, regularly with a fork, beating it down gently from time to time with the fork; when the dung is trodden down, it is apt to heat too violently, and does not succeed so well as when the dung is allowed to settle gradually. The dung ought to be raised to three feet and a half, or thereabouts. In this way hot-beds may be formed, which will preserve their heat for a considerable time: When lighter hot-beds are required, the dung may be raised to one foot and a half, or two feet: these light hot-beds answer very well for raising early crops.

Having prepared a hot-bed according to the directions just given for a larger or smaller frame, in proportion to the quantity of feed you intend to sow, such a one as may be covered with a frame of one light will be sufficient to raise plants for an ordinary Sow-crop. Let the frame and lights be put on, and kept cumber close, till the heat begin to rise, then raise the glads, and moderate the steam may pass off. Three or four days after the bed has been formed, it may be covered with earth prepared for that purpose, to the depth of about three inches; before the earth is put on, if the dung shall have settled unequally, the furnace of the bed ought to be made perfectly level. Rich light dry earth is best adapted to this purpose: that it may be dry enough, it ought to have been protected from the rain by foine shade during the winter; for, should it be wet, it is apt to prevent the seeds from germinating, or to injure the young plants. Fill two or three small flower-pots with some of the same earth, and place them in the hot-bed till the earth in them be warmed, and then sow the seeds.

Sow the seeds, and cover them about half an inch deep; the bottom of the pots ought to be plunged a little way into the earth with which the bed is covered, some of which ought to be drawn up round the pots. A few days after sowing the seeds in the pots, some seeds may be sown in the earth of the bed. By sowing in pots, if the bed should overheat (which is sometimes the case) you have it in your power to withdraw and remove the pots out of danger.

After sowing the seeds, put on the lights; when the steam rises copiously, give the hot-bed an by raising the glads a little. The hot-bed ought to be covered every evening about sunset with mats, which should be taken off again in the morning about nine o'clock, sooner or later according to the state of the weather. A single mat will be sufficient at first, as the warmth of the bed will be strong. The ends of the mats ought not to hang down over the sides of the frame, because the rank steam proceeding from the bed would be confined, and might injure the plants. The plants will appear, in two or three days after the seeds have been sown, when care must be taken to raise the glads a little to admit fresh air, and to allow the steam of the bed to escape; if this be not properly attended to, and if the beds be kept too close, the plants will either be destroyed altogether, or become weak and yellowish. About the time the first sown seeds appear above ground, a few more ought to be sown in the earth of the bed. As those tender plants are liable to suffer from various causes at this season, it would be proper to sow a little seed at three different periods, at short intervals, that if one sowing should miscarry, another may succeed. Three or four days after the plants have come up, they ought to be planted out into small pots.

The day before the plants are to be transplanted, pots filled with light rich dry earth should be put into the bed, that the earth which they contain may be brought to a proper temperature. Take the plants carefully up, raising them with your finger and thumb, with all the roots as entire as possible, and with as much of the earth as will readily adhere about the fibres. Plant three cucumbers and two melons in each pot, and draw the earth well up about the stems. If the earth in the pots be very dry, a little water should be given. given after the transplanting has been finished. The pots ought to be plunged close to one another in the earth of the bed, and all the spaces between them ought to be carefully filled with earth, to prevent the rank steam of the dung from rising up, which would certainly kill the plants. The bed ought to be carefully examined every day to see that the roots of the plants do not receive too much heat. If any thing like that appear, draw up the pots a little, taking care to replunge them to the rim after the danger is over. When the plants are fairly rooted, if the earth appears dry, give them a little water in the warmest time of the day; let the watering be occasionally repeated very moderately, according as the earth in the pots becomes dry. All the water given to the plants at this season ought to stand for a few hours within the bed, that it may acquire the same temperature with the earth in which the plants grow, as very cold water would chill the plants too much. In order to preserve a proper heat in the bed as long as possible, the sides of it ought to be covered with straw or dry leaves, which will defend the bed from cold piercing winds, heavy rains, and snow. Should the bed be unprotected when any of these prevail, the heat would be diminished, and the plants receive a check. If a lively heat be kept up, you may admit air to the plants every day, by raising the glafes in proportion to the heat of the bed and temperature of the external air. If the air be very cold, it will be necessary to fix a piece of mat or some such thing to the edge of the path, which may hang down over the opening, and prevent the cold air from rushing too freely into the bed. About a fortnight after the bed has been formed, it ought to be examined carefully, to discover whether the heat of the bed still continues strong enough; if not, the dry leaves and straw ought to be removed from the front and back of the bed if any had been placed there, and a quantity of fresh horse dung should be supplied. The lining thus applied should not exceed 15 or 18 inches in thickness, and should be raised a few inches higher than the bed. When too thick a lining is applied, it is apt to throw in too great a heat, and injure the plants. A quantity of earth should be laid on the top of the dung thus applied to the depth of two inches, to keep down the rank steam. The lining will soon increase the heat of the bed, and maintain it for ten days or a fortnight longer. At the expiration of that time, when the heat begins to fail, the two sides of the bed should receive a lining of the same thickness, which will again augment the heat of the bed, and preserve it in good condition for upwards of a fortnight longer. By lining first the one side and then the other at the interval of about a week or ten days, the heat of the bed may be made to last longer than when both linings are applied at the same time. Either method may be followed, according to the degree of external cold which may prevail, or according to the degree of warmth required to be maintained in the bed. After performing the lining, if very cold, wet, or snowy weather prevail, it may be proper to lay a quantity of long dry litter all round the general lining, which will protect the whole of the bed, and keep it in a proper temperature. By the proper management of this feed-bed, and by the due application of linings, the growth of young plants may be promoted till they are fit to be planted out into other hot-beds, where they are to remain and produce fruit. Where there is plenty of hot dung and every other convenience, a second bed may be prepared, into which the young plants may be transferred and nurfed till they become perfectly fit for final transplantation. Due attention must be paid to have this second nursery-bed in proper condition for the reception of the pots containing the young plants. It is to be formed, earthed over, and taken care of, according to the directions given for the management of the feed-bed. When the plants have got their two first rough leaves, two or three inches broad, and have pushed out their two first running buds, they are in a proper state for planting out into larger hot-beds. For the farther managements of cucumbers and melons, see FEBRUARY.

It is proper that none but such feeds, both of cucumbers and melons, as have been kept for some time, should be sown; those which have been kept for two or three years are to be preferred, because the plants which proceed from them are thought to be, not only more fruitful, but to produce their fruit sooner. Plants which are produced from recent feeds commonly push vigorously, and their shoots grow to a great length before they show a single fruit. The best sorts of cucumbers for producing an early crop, are the early short prickly and long green prickly; the former of these is the earlier, the other produces the best crop and the largest fruit. There are several sorts of melons sown for an early crop, viz. the romana, cantaloupe, polignac, &c. The romana is a very good bearer, and produces early, and is a very well-flavoured, though small fruit. The cantaloupe is a very well-flavoured melon, acquires a good size, and ripens early. The polignac is also a very good melon. It is better, however, to sow two or three kinds, if they are easily to be had, for the sake of gaining greater variety.

Hot-beds may be formed any time this month for forcing asparagus: they are to be formed in the same way as hot-beds for cucumbers and melons; the dung, however, need not be raised to the same height, from two and an half to three feet will be sufficient. After a bed has been formed, it should be covered with earth to the depth of six or seven inches, and the asparagus plants immediately put in; but the frame and glafes are not to be put on till after the violent heat of the bed shall have subsided, and the rank steam escaped. A sufficient quantity of asparagus plants, proper for forcing, must be provided; viz. such as have been raised from seed and planted out in the open ground for two or three years, as directed elsewhere; six hundred will be sufficient for a frame of three lights, and so on in proportion, for a larger or smaller frame. The strongest and most vigorous plants ought to be chosen, and should be planted very close together, that the quantity produced may repay the trouble and expense of forcing. Having marked the size of the frame on the surface of the bed, raise a ridge of earth a few inches high, against which place the first row of plants, and draw a little earth over the roots of each; next to them another row may be planted as close as possible, and so on till the whole space is covered, some moist earth should be applied all round the outside of the space, occupied by the plants, and raised an inch or two above their tops. Then the whole should be covered with a quantity quantity of rich light earth, to the depth of about two inches, and left in that situation till the buds begin to appear above ground. They should then receive an additional covering of rich light earth to the depth of three or four inches. A wreath of strong straw band is previously fixed by some round the bed, which both supports the last covering of earth and the frame. The straw ropes should be about four inches thick, and fixed down all round the edge of the bed, exactly in that place where the frame is to be put. Should there be no reason to suspect overheating or burning, the frame may be immediately put on; care should be taken to raise up or throw down the glafes to allow the rank steam to escape, particularly about the time the buds begin to appear. If much rain or snow should fall after the bed has been formed, and before the frame is put on, it will be necessary to cover the bed with mats or with straw. The heat of the bed likewise during that time should be carefully examined; with that view, two or three sticks, called watch flicks, should be stuck in the dung, to be pulled out occasionally, and examined by applying the hand to their extremities; or the heat may be better regulated by the agricultural thermometer, invented and constructed by Mrs Lovi of Edinburgh. If there be danger of burning, it is moderated by boring several wide holes in the dung on each side of the bed, and in the earth immediately under the roots of the plants, to admit air, and let the rank steam pass off: these holes should be shut after the heat of the bed is become moderate. The outside of the bed should be protected in wet, or cold windy weather, and when its heat decays, it is revived by means of lining, as directed in cucumber and melon beds. After the asparagus begins to appear above ground, due attention should be paid to the regular admission of air, whenever the weather is at all moderate; and care must be taken to cover the beds with mats during severe weather, and constantly during the night. In four or five weeks after the formation of the bed, the asparagus will be fit for cutting, and will continue to produce abundantly for two or three weeks longer. During that time three or four hundred may be collected every week from a three light frame. They must not be cut, as is the case when asparagus is collected in the open air, the fingers must be introduced into the earth, and the buds are to be broken off close to the roots.

When carrots are required early, make a hot-bed about two feet thick of dung, and cover it to the depth of six inches with light rich earth. Sow the seed thin, and cover it to the depth of a quarter of an inch. Admit air freely in mild weather through the day, and cover them during the night. When about an inch or two high, thin them to about three inches asunder, they will be fit for drawing in April or May.

Sow rape, cresses, mustard, and radish, in a flight hot-bed. The dung should not exceed the thickness of eighteen inches or two feet, and should be covered with five or fix inches of light dry earth. The seeds may be sown very thick, either in drills or all over the surface of the bed, and covered slightly. The bed should be covered with a frame and glafes, and protected during the night and severe weather, with mats. Whenever the weather will permit, air must be admitted, otherwise the plants will be apt to die as fast as they come up.

Where mint, tanfey, and terragon, are required very early, a flight hot-bed may be prepared and covered with earth to the depth of five or fix inches, in which the roots of mint, tanfey, and terragon, may be planted and covered with a frame and glafes.

About the beginning of this month, some peas and Early peas beans may be sown in a hot-bed, either for tranplanting and beans, into a warm border in the open air, or into other hot-beds where they are to remain, and produce a crop; the early framing pea is best for this purpose.

A hot-bed may be formed, in which some Early dwarf potatoes may be planted, either to be planted out tatoes afterwards, or to remain to produce a crop.

Sow some early kidney beans in a hot-bed, or in pots early kid- to be placed in a hot-houle. Fill moderate sized pots ney beans. (24s) with rich light earth, and sow three or four beans in each pot. When the plants have come up, give them a moderate quantity of water; they will produce a crop in March and April.

SECT. II. Fruit Garden.

If any apple or pear trees remain unpruned on walls Apple and or espaliers, that work may be performed any time thispear trees month, even though the weather should be frosty; some to be people indeed think it improper to prune trees during pruned. frost, lest the trees should receive injury by having their cut surfaces exposed to the action of the frost; but their apprehensions are chimerical.

Apple and pear trees produce their flower buds on short branches, (or spurs as they are termed), which proceed from the sides of the branches of one or more years standing, and which every year increase in number, while the branches from which they proceed continue vigorous: if these branches, which throw out spurs, be shortened or cut at their extremities, they commonly push out a number of smaller branches, which acquire considerable length, but form no flower buds; it is therefore proper in pruning these trees, to take care never to shorten a leading branch where there is room on the wall or espalier to allow it to be extended, unless when a supply of new wood is wanted to fill up a vacancy. In young trees which have not yet formed a sufficient head, select the most vigorous and best placed shoots, and train them to the wall or espalier, at the distance of from four to fix inches from one another; any branches that intervene between them are to be removed close to their origin, and all those branches which do not apply well to the wall or espaliers may likewise be removed. When the branches are too thin, and a supply of wood is wanted, one or more of the last year's shoots may be cut down to within a few inches of its origin; four or five buds are commonly left. These branches so shortened, commonly push out three or four shoots the ensuing season. The young branches that have been laid in at full length, will in two or three years produce a good many spurs or short branches along their sides, from which a crop of fruit may be expected. In old trees, that have been already trained, all the vigorous bearing branches are to be retained, unless where they may happen to be too crowded, then the branch intended to be removed should be cut out close to its insertion. When any of the old bearing branches seem to be worn out, or decayed, they should be pruned out near near to their insertion; from the stump that is left some shoots will be pulled out the following season, the best of which may be retained, to supply the place of the branch removed. All the leading branches ought to be looked over, and the superfluous fore-right and misplaced shoots of last year's growth which will not easily apply to the wall, ought to be cut off close to their insertion into the main branch; the most vigorous and best placed shoots should be trained at full length to the wall or espalier at the distance of from four to fix inches from one another. When there happens to be any vacant space on the wall or espalier, some of the last year's shoots may be shortened, as directed in the pruning of young trees.

In looking over the leading branches, all the spurs which produce flower buds ought to be carefully retained; and any stumps which may have been left, after former prunings, ought to be cut away quite close to the branch from which they proceed, for they constantly produce a redundancy of branches which create confusion, shade the fruit from the sun, and rob it of its proper nourishment.

This is a proper season to prune plum and cherry trees either on walls or espaliers: the same directions which have been given for pruning apples and pears will apply to the pruning of plums and cherries, as they likewise produce their fruit on spurs, pushed out from nearly the extremity of the shoots, which are two or three years old. It is improper in pruning to shorten the branches, because the very part would be removed from which the fruit buds should proceed next or subsequent season.

These trees produce their fruit on the young branches of last year. A plentiful supply of last year's shoots must therefore be retained to be nailed to the wall, at the distance of from three inches to half a foot from one another; the most vigorous and best placed shoots are to be selected for this purpose, and all fore-right, weakly or superfluous shoots are to be removed, likewise some of the last year's bearers. That the pruning knife may be used more freely, it would be proper not only to unmail the shoots which had been laid in last year, but even some of the principal branches. In selecting the branches, attention must be paid not only to their position and proper distance, but likewise to the quantity of flower buds they contain. These buds are distinguishable from those which produce branches by their roundness; and towards spring when the buds begin to swell, by their size: those which produce branches being generally small, flat, and pointed. It frequently happens that one of each is produced at the same eye (as it is termed), or sometimes two flower buds, with a branch bud between them. All very strong thick branches are to be rejected, as well as those that are long, small, and feeble, because the very vigorous branches are much more apt to run to wood, than to produce fruit. Those branches which are selected as the fittest to be retained, ought to be shortened (due regard being paid to their vigour, and to the number and situation of the flower buds they contain), which will make them push out two or three branches the ensuing summer, the best of which may be retained for next year's bearers.

In weak trees that are not disposed to push vigorously, the smaller shoots may be shortened to the length of six or eight inches; the more vigorous shoots may be left from ten to fifteen inches long, or thereby. In trees of moderate growth the branches ought to be left proportionally longer, the smaller ones from half a foot to ten inches, the more vigorous from one foot to a foot and a half. In very vigorous trees, the branches ought to be shortened but little, and some of them not at all, the smaller shoots may be shortened to the length of a foot or fifteen inches; the more vigorous shoots should have only about a third or fourth part of their length cut off; and the most vigorous should not be shortened at all, for the more they are shortened, the more they are disposed to push vigorously and run to wood, and on that account produce few fruit. As the flower buds are sometimes situated near the extremity, at other times near the bottom of the branch, this circumstance in a certain degree must regulate the shortening the branch, as care must be taken to leave a sufficient quantity of flower buds, where fruit is the object. Care must likewise be taken to have a bud which is expected to produce a branch, at the eye which is next the cut extremity; it is of no moment whether it be alone or in company with one or two flower buds, but it is absolutely necessary to have one to produce a leading branch, without which the fruit will not thrive. When three or four last year's shoots are found on a branch of the preceding year, the one at the upper and lower extremities is frequently preferred; in that case the intermediate ones ought to be cut away close to the branch: but should any of the intermediate ones be selected as the most proper to be retained, the branch of the preceding year should be cut off close by the uppermost of the shoots which has been fixed on, and all those shoots which are to be removed should be cut away close to the branch from which they proceed. After each tree has been gone over, it ought to be carefully nailed to the wall or fixed to the espalier.

Vines if cut when in a growing state are apt to bleed Vines and very copiously. This bleeding is detrimental to them, figs and is flopt with great difficulty. If vines are pruned a short time before the rife of the sap, they are likewise liable to bleed at the recently cut extremities; it would therefore be improper any time this month to prune vines which grow in the hot-house or in a vinery which is to be early forced; but such as grow on open walls or in vineyards may be safely cut any time this month. Though it would certainly be advisable to prune as soon after the fall of the leaf as may be, as in that case the cut extremities would have sufficient time to heal, and all danger of bleeding would be removed.

Fig trees may be pruned any time this month, though perhaps it would be as well to defer it till next or following month. For the method, see FEBRUARY.

Gooseberries and currants may still be pruned. See NOVEMBER.

Gooseberries and currants may be planted if the fertility of the soil does not render the ground too hard; gooseberries indeed they may be planted any time from the fall of the leaf in autumn till the putting out of their buds in spring. It is usual to plant them in rows along the borders, or to divide the plots in the kitchen garden; in which case they ought to be planted two or three yards apart, and the distance between the rows must depend on the size of the plots they are to separate (10, 15 or 18 yards). They ought to be trained up with a single single stalk to the height of 10 or 15 inches, which will allow the kitchen crops that may be planted near them to grow freely, and will render the operations of hoeing, weeding, and raking under the bushes easy. They are frequently planted out in compartments by themselves, in which case the bushes ought to stand at the distance of from five to eight feet in the rows, and the rows ought to be eight or nine feet apart.

When plenty of room is allowed between the bushes, they grow freely, and produce larger fruit; free admission is likewise afforded to the sun and air, without which, the fruit would not acquire its proper flavour: hoeing, and digging between the bushes, is more easily performed, and crops of different kinds of kitchen garden productions may be reared in the intervals. Currants are very frequently planted against walls and rails, to which they are regularly trained. Gooseberries also are sometimes planted against walls and rails, those against walls yield early and well-flavoured fruit. The variety of gooseberries is very great, and every season adds new varieties to those already known. The principal kinds are the early rough green, small early red, smooth green, large Dutch red, common hairy red, smooth black, rough white, white crystal, large yellow, rough yellow, large amber, large tawney, &c.

The different kind of currants are the black, common white, large Dutch white or grape currant, common red and champagne.

Raspberries may be pruned or planted during this or any of the winter months; they produce their fruit on small branches which proceed from the shoots of the former year. Every year they push up a number of shoots from the root, which bear fruit the subsequent summer, and then die. In dressing raspberries, all the old dead stalks must be cut away close by the ground, and all the young ones except four or five of the strongest, which should be shortened a little. All these shoots become small towards their extremity and bend a little; it is the common practice to cut off the bent part, but some shorten them one-third, others one-fourth. After the shoots have been shortened, they ought to be intertwined or surrounded by a bandage of some kind to keep them together, for the sake of mutual support, because when they are allowed to stand single they are apt to be weighed down in summer by the weight of their own leaves and fruit, particularly when loaded with rain, or to be beaten down by the wind; in which case they may frequently lie one over the other, create confusion, and exclude the sun and air from those that are underneath, or may lie so close to the ground as to have their fruit destroyed. After the plants are pruned, the ground between them ought to be dug, and all flagging shoots which advance to a distance from the main plants ought to be taken up.

Raspberries may be planted any time this month when the weather is moderate: when new plantations of them are wanted, they ought to be formed in open situations, if high-flavoured fruit be wished for; but rasps will thrive very well and produce good crops in shady situations. The ground in which they are to be planted ought to be well dug, and if a little rotten dung be added, the plants will succeed the better. They ought to be planted at the distance of three feet from each other, in rows four or five feet apart. The offsets which are dug up from between the rows of old plantations of raspberries are commonly made use of for this purpose. Any of the last years shoots that are well rooted and tolerably vigorous will answer perfectly well. Those which have two or three buds, formed on the roots, from which young shoots are to proceed the following summer, are generally to be preferred to those which have fewer though equally vigorous. They ought to be taken up carefully with all their roots, and after the stem has been shortened a little (about one-third) they may be planted at the distances already mentioned. Plantations formed now will yield some fruit the ensuing summer, and a plentiful crop the following season. The kinds of raspberries commonly used are the white, double bearing, (which bears two crops, one in summer the other in autumn), the smooth stalk, the Antwerp (very large).

If the weather be mild, all kind of fruit trees may be planted any time this month; but if it should be planting deemed more advisable to defer planting till next month, the ground may be prepared for their reception any time during open weather. The borders on which fruit trees are to be planted, which are to be trained against walls or espaliers, should be trenched or dug two spades deep. For planting and preparing ground for fruit trees, see October.

The roots of the more tender sorts of fruit trees, viz. peaches, nectarines, apricots, and indeed of all sorts of roots, &c. stoned fruit, which may have been planted any time in the course of the winter, will require to be protected during frost by a covering of straw, or litter mixed with dung, or something of that nature, applied to a considerable distance round the stem, so as to cover the ground completely, and prevent the frost from penetrating.

Protect fig trees during frosty weather with a covering of mats, or something of that nature, because their shoots being succulent, particularly towards their extremities, are apt to be destroyed by the frost. This is of the more consequence as the fruit is produced from the young shoots only, and chiefly from their extremities, the parts most liable to suffer.

Where there are vineyards, peach, cherry-houses, &c. Force fruit the glasshouses ought to be put on about the beginning of the month when it is intended to force early, and fires ought to be applied about the middle or towards the end of it. See Forcing, February.

Towards the beginning, middle, or end of the month, and hot-beds may be made for forcing strawberries, which, if properly managed, will produce ripe fruit in March or April. The hot-beds are to be formed according to the directions given under the article Melon, and Cucumber. See Kitchen Garden, January. The dung should be raised at least to the height of three feet, and the frame and glases put on as soon as the bed is made, which will both protect it from rain or snow, and draw up the steam sooner. As soon as the violent heat is over, the surface of the bed should be covered to the depth of four or five inches with dry earth, or with a quantity of decayed tanners bark taken from an old tan-bed. The pots containing the plants should be plunged up to the rims into the earth or tan with which the bed is covered. They should be placed as close together as possible, and care taken to fill up all the interstices with earth or tan. When all the pots are plunged, put on the glases and keep them close till the steam rise in the bed, when it will be necessary to raise them a little behind, to allow the steam to pass off. The alpine and scarlet strawberry are commonly made use of for this purpose.

The plants should be two years old, and if potted the preceding autumn, they will succeed the better; but if a quantity of plants were not put into pots last autumn for this purpose, that work may be done any time this month during open weather. For the method, see September. Or the plants may be taken up now with balls of earth, and placed in the beds without being put into pots. When the plants begin to push, let them have plenty of air during favourable weather, for should they be kept too close they will become weakly, and either produce no flowers at all, or their flowers will drop off without yielding fruit. They should likewise be frequently watered and protected during the night in severe weather with a covering of mats. When the heat of the bed begins to decay, it should be renewed by proper linings of fresh dung, applied as directed for melon-beds. As to the size of hot-beds nothing need be said, as that must be regulated by the number of plants intended to be forced. Hot-beds formed of tanners bark, particularly where there are pits constructed on purpose, will answer better than those of horse-dung, because they afford a more equable heat. Where there are pine houset, or hot-houses of any kind, plenty of strawberries may be obtained early, without much trouble, by placing pots filled with the plants in them anywhere near the glads.

Sect. III. The Flower Garden or Pleasure Ground.

Double flowers, as sweetwilliams, wallflowers, stocks, rose campion, and auriculas, carnations, &c. kept in pots ought to be protected in severe weather, either by common garden frames, or by coverings of mats supported on hoops. Due attention must be paid to give them air whenever the weather is mild. Where there are no conveniences of the above description, the pots may be plunged up to their rims in well-sheltered borders close to a south wall. The pots containing hardy plants should likewise be plunged in the earth in some dry situation up to the rims, to protect the roots from frost.

During severe frosty weather the beds in which the finer sorts of hyacinths, tulips, ranunculus, anemones, &c. have been planted, should be protected by a covering of mats or straw; but if the plants have begun to make their appearance above ground, the beds should be arched over with low hoops and covered with mats, which ought to be fixed down to prevent their being blown off by the wind; and they should be removed occasionally during mild weather.

If any hyacinth, tulip, narcissus, crown imperial, crocus, or snowdrop roots remain unplanted, they ought now to be put into the ground. For the method of planting them, see October.

About the latter end of the month, if the weather is mild, sow a few sweet peas in any warm sheltered situation for flowering early, also some seeds of candytuft, larkspur, adonis, dwarf sunflower, pericaria, Venus navel-wort, venus looking-glasses, lobel's-catchfly, and pansy violet.

Pots of pinks, carnations, roses, Persian or common lilac, hyacinth, polyanthus, narcissus, Italian narcissus, January, dwarf tulip, jonquil, lily of the valley, &c. may be placed in the hot-house, where they will flower early. As soon as they come into blow they should be removed into a green-house, or the apartments of a dwelling-house, where they will continue longer in flower than they would do if left in the flove, where the great heat would accelerate their decay. All these should have been put into pots the preceding autumn, or at least some time previous to their being introduced into the hot-house. The roses in particular require to be well rooted in the pots before they are forced.

Shrubs may now be pruned, which should be performed with a knife and not with garden sheers. All irregular shoots which extend far beyond the rest of shrubs the branches should be cut off. A few branches should also be cut out wherever they are too much crowded together, likewise all dead and decayed ones. After the pruning has been finished, the ground in the shrubbery ought to be dug over, and all suckers removed. Where the shrubs are too much crowded together, some of them ought to be taken out; and where any of them have died, or if they stand too distant, long young ones may now be planted to fill up the vacancies.

Gras walks and lawns should be kept neat by frequent polishing and rolling. Poling may be performed in walks and open dry weather, with a long taper ash pole about lawns, twelve or fifteen feet long, which breaks and flattens the worn catts. After this, in moderately dry weather, roll with a wooden roller, to which all the loose worn-catts will adhere. Walks or lawns may also be made this month during open weather. Good turf may be obtained from commons or downs where sheep feed, or from fields which have been long under pasture. Each turf should be marked out a yard long and a foot in breadth, and cut to the thickness of an inch with a turning iron. As the cutting proceeds, they should be rolled up compactly with the gras side in. If they are not closely rolled up they will be apt to break in carrying. They must be laid on the walk or lawn close to one another after the surface has been rendered level and compact by proper treading, that it may not settle unequally. When they have been put on they must be beat down with a wooden rammer, and afterwards rolled with a large iron or wooden roller.

Gravel walks should be cleared of weeds and all dead or decayed leaves, and kept clean; and in dry weather they walks should be occasionally rolled. New walks may likewise be formed now. For the method, see March.

Edgings of boxwood, thrift, &c. may be planted any time this month in open weather. See October.

Hedges of hawthorn, barberry, privet, hazel, holm, pluming, yew, birch, elm, elder, &c. may be planted during this &c. of month. See November. Old hedges which have hedges become open below should be plashed. See December.

Forest trees for ornamental plantations, coppices, or of forest woods, may be planted either now, or at any time from the fall of the leaf till the rise of the sap in spring. See October.

Sect. IV. Nursery.

Prune and transplant shrubs, fruit and forest trees, and trim the stems of forest-trees, and cut off all irregular trees. part III.

regular rambling shoots of shrubs, and reduce them to a regular neat form. This work may be executed any time this month, even during frost, when little else can be done. All kinds of hardy deciduous shrubs, fruit, and forest trees, may be transplanted during open weather.

Dig ground in open weather, and wheel out dung in frost.

Vacant compartments of ground may be dug any time during open weather; and likewise after the necessary pruning has been given to the trees and shrubs, the ground between the rows may be dug, and all weeds carefully buried.

The young plants of many of the tenderer kinds of trees and shrubs, such as cedar of Lebanon, and some other species of pine, cypriss, chinese arbor vitae, strawberry-tree, &c. require to be protected during frost. If they have been raised in boxes or pots, they may be placed in garden frames and occasionally covered with the glases; but care must be taken always to remove the glases in mild open weather. If the plants stand in beds in the open ground, they may be covered with mats supported on hoops, which must be removed during favourable weather, or a covering of peat straw, or something of that nature may answer the purpose.

Layers of many kinds of trees and shrubs may be made any time this month during open weather; many of them which are laid now will be well rooted and fit for removing by October; for the method, see NOVEMBER.

Put in cuttings of honeysuckles, gooseberries, currants, &c. indeed most kinds of trees and shrubs may be propagated by cuttings. For this purpose select the straight shoots of last year's growth; take them off by a clean cut with a sharp knife, and reduce them to the length of ten, twelve, or fifteen inches, by cutting off part of their smaller extremities. Plant them in rows a foot apart, and at the distance of four or five inches from one another in the rows, taking care to insert one-third or one half of their length into the ground. Though cuttings will grow when their smaller extremities are put into the ground, they never succeed so well in this inverted position, therefore in planting, attention should be paid to place them in their natural position. Older and longer branches of some trees and shrubs, viz. willow, elder, &c. may be employed as cuttings.

Gooseberries, currants, roses, lilacs, and many other shrubs and trees, may be propagated by suckers or offsets from the roots; these may be taken off any time this month, and planted in rows. Previous to their being planted it would be proper to trim off part of their extremities.

SECT. V. Green-House and Hot-House.

During frost, keep the glases shut; but whenever the weather is mild, give the green-house air by opening admitted the glases more or less according to the state of the weather: even in the brightest mild days during this month the glases should not be opened until about ten o'clock in the morning, and ought to be shut again about three in the afternoon. In dull foggy days, even though the weather be mild, they should be opened but little, and that for a short time, and in very damp weather, not at all. When very severe frost prevails, fires must be put on, and the flues gently warmed; but the temperature of the air should not be raised higher than merely to keep off the effects of the external frost. A little fire should likewise be put on during very wet weather to banish the damps. Water should be given to such plants as require it, but sparingly. Succulent plants, such as aloes, &c. require little or no water at this season. All dead and decayed leaves should be carefully picked off, and the green-house kept clean.

Particular attention must be paid to the pine apple Pine apple plants which are to produce fruit the ensuing summer, plants require attention. as many of them in the course of this month begin to show flowers. If due attention be not now paid to keep up a proper heat, both in the tanned bed and in the air of the hot-house, the plants may receive such a check as will considerably affect the size of the future fruit. The bark bed must be carefully examined; and if the bark be much decayed and the heat found on the decline, a quantity of fresh tanners bark should be prepared to be added as a refreshment to the old. The pots containing the pine apple plants should then be taken out of the tan pits, and a quantity of the decayed tan removed from the surface and sides of the pits, to make room for the fresh tan which is to be added. The old tan must likewise be turned up from the bottom, and well mixed with the new, after which the pots must be again plunged into the tan. But if, on examination, the heat of the tan pit be found good, and the tan not much decayed, it will be sufficient to turn the old tan, and to mix it well together without making any addition of new. This operation will revive the heat of the bed, and preserve it in good condition for some time to come. The heat of the air in the house must likewise be attended to, and regulated by the thermometer and by due attention to the fires. Moderate watering must be given once a week or ten days, according as the pine apple plants may seem to require it; and care must be taken not to pour any of the water into their hearts or among their leaves.

The other plants in the hot-house must be regularly watered; but those of a succulent nature, such as the different species of aloe, euphorbia, mefembryanthemum, &c. require very little water at a time, and that but seldom.

Kidney beans, sown in pots or in narrow boxes of Kidney about two or three feet long, may be reared in the hot-beans-house. Those sown this month will produce fruit in April or March. When sown in pots, two or three may be put into each, and covered about an inch deep: When in boxes they may be planted to the depth of an inch along the middle, at the distance of two or three inches from one another. The pots or boxes may be placed on the crib of the bark bed, on shelves, or any convenient situation, within the house, where they may not encumber the other plants. After the plants have come up, they should be regularly and frequently watered. The kinds commonly used for this purpose are the early speckled dwarf, negro dwarf, and dun-coloured dwarf.

Cucumbers may be raised with tolerable success in Cucumbers. the hot-house, which will produce fruit early in spring. If the plants have been raised in small pots, plunged in the tan of the bark bed, or in hot-beds made of horse dung, they should be transplanted into larger pots or boxes, in which they may remain and produce fruit; February, or the seeds may be sown at once in the pots where they are to remain. In this case fix or eight seeds may be sown in each pot, or patches containing that number may be sown at proper intervals in long narrow boxes. When the plants have come up, only two or three of the strongest should be left in each pot or patch. The pots or boxes may be placed in any convenient situation in the hot-house, but will succeed best on a shelf fixed near the top of the house, within a short distance of the glass. The plants must be frequently watered, and have some small rods fixed near them, to which the runners may be fastened.

FEBRUARY.

SECT. I. Kitchen Garden.

The cauliflower plants, which are under frames, should have plenty of air. Indeed, whenever the weather will permit, the glases ought to be taken off entirely.

About the end of the month, if the weather be mild, some of the strongest plants may be transplanted into the situations where they are to remain. They ought to be planted in good well-manured ground, in a warm situation, at the distance of two feet and a half each way from one another. The same attention must be paid to cauliflowers under bell or hand-glases. When more than two plants happen to be under one glass, the weakest of them should be planted out about the end of the month, if the weather be mild, and only one or two should be left under each glass: but if the weather is unsettled or severe, transplanting ought to be deferred till next month.

Some cauliflower seed may be sown any time this month to produce plants to succeed those that have been preserved during winter under frames or hand-glases, or to supply the place of those which may have been cut off by the severity of the weather.

For this purpose make a flight hot-bed of horse dung, to the height of 20 inches or two feet; cover it with a light rich earth to the depth of four or five inches, on the surface of which sow the seeds, and cover them to the depth of a quarter of an inch with earth of the same description. After the seed has been sown, a frame and glases should be put on, if one can be spared for this purpose; and when the plants begin to appear above ground, they should have plenty of air, whenever the weather will permit, otherwise they will be drawn up and become weak. The glases, therefore, (unless in very severe weather) should be raised every day, and in mild ones taken off entirely. When there are no glases to spare, the bed may be covered during the night, and in severe weather, with mats properly fixed over it. The plants should be sprinkled with water from time to time, if moderate showers should not render this unnecessary.

Cabbage plants, if tolerably strong, should be transplanted in the course of this month. See Planting out cabbages, January.

About the middle, or towards the end of the month, sow some cabbage and savoy seed to raise plants for late crops in summer and autumn. Both the early and late kinds of cabbage may be sown now, but it is better to sow them in August; but if none were sown in autumn, or if the plants raised then have been cut off by the severity of the winter, a quantity of both early and late should be sown the first opportunity this month. That the plants may sooner acquire sufficient strength for planting out, it would be proper to sow them in a flight hot-bed.

Where small salad is required, let some seeds of small mustard, cress, radish, rape, &c. be sown regularly every lad, eight or ten days during the course of the month. See January.

Earth up celery in open dry weather if the plants have advanced much above ground. Sow some upright celery seed for an early crop about the middle or towards the end of the month, in a small bed of rich light earth in a warm situation. There are three ways in which this may be performed. 1st, The earth of the bed should be well broken with the spade; the seed sown on the rough surface and raked in. 2dly, The surface of the bed may be made smooth; the seed sown and covered to the depth of a quarter of an inch with light rich earth. 3dly, A quantity of earth, to the depth of about half an inch, should be removed with the back of a rake from the surface of the bed into the alleys, which, after the seed has been sown, should be gently replaced with the rake. Those who are very anxious to have early celery, should sow some in a flight hot-bed. The plants raised now will be fit for use in June or July; but it would be advisable to sow few at this season, as they will be very apt to pipe or run up to feed before they acquire sufficient size: there are two kinds of celery, the Italian, and turnip-rooted or celeriac.

About the beginning of this month sow some short-topped radishes to succeed those sown last month, and some salmon and Italian radishes at any time during the month. See January.

Some round-leaved spinach may be sown any time in the course of the month, to succeed that which was sown last month. See January.

Some early peas may be sown this month. This is likewise a proper season for sowing a full crop of late peas, such as marrowfists, runcivalls, Carolina, and sugar pea, &c. For the distances at which they are to be sown, see January.

This is the proper time to plant beans. For the method and distances, see January.

Such peas and beans as are sufficiently advanced in growth should now be earthered up.

In mild open weather sow some seeds of green and white cos lettuce, likewise some Sicilian, imperial, brown Dutch, and common cabbage lettuce. See January.

If young lettuce plants are wanted for transplanting early, they should be sown in a flight hot-bed or in some warm sheltered situation; and when they have advanced to the height of about two inches, they may be planted out in the open ground. Lettuce that have flood the winter in frames, under hand-glases, or in warm borders, should be thinned and left standing at the distance of one foot from each other, and those that are drawn out should be planted in some proper situation.

About the middle or end of this month sow some carrots and parsnips. They succeed best in light deep soil, and in an open situation. The ground should be dug, at least one spade deep or two, if the depth of the soil February will admit, and the clods ought to be well broken. They may be sown either broadcast, in narrow beds, or in drills. See MARCH.

Sow some seeds of red, white, and green beet, likewise of mangel wurzel or German beet. The fine red root of the first is used as a pickle, &c.; the leaves of the white and green are made use of in soups, &c.; and the large leaves of the mangel wurzel are boiled and used as spinach. The footstalks of its leaves are likewise used as asparagus. Each kind should be sown separately, either broadcast or in drills, an inch deep, and about a foot apart; but the mangel wurzel requires more room than the other kinds, because it is of larger growth. After the plants have come up, they should be thinned out, to the distance of fix or eight inches from each other. The seed may likewise be dibbled in rows, about a foot apart, and at the distance of fix or eight inches from each other in the rows. Two or more seeds may be put into each hole; and when the plants appear above ground, one of the strongest only should be left.

Some of last year's carrots, parsnips, and beets, should be planted out in rows, two feet apart, and one foot distant from each other in the row, to stand and produce feed.

Some onions and leeks may be sown in mild dry weather, any time after the middle of this month. The ground should be well dug, and the seeds sown when the furface is dry, and then raked in. The best mode is to divide the ground into beds of about four feet wide, for the convenience of thinning, weeding, &c.; but they may also be sown in plots, without being divided into beds, in which case, if the soil be light, the seed may be gently trodden in, before the furface is raked. The leeks will be fit for transplanting in June and July, and the onions for drawing in August. Sometimes a small quantity of leek-feed is sown along with the onion; and when the onions are drawn in August, the leeks are allowed to remain to acquire a proper size; but it is better to sow each separately. The principal kinds of onions are Straffurg, Deptford, Spanish, Portugal, long keeping, and red.

The Hamburgh parsley and scorzonera are cultivated for their roots; the falfafy for its roots and tops. The roots of all of them, if sown now or any time in spring, will be fit for using in autumn, and continue good all winter. The Hamburgh parsley roots are not only used for culinary purposes, but recommended in medicine. They are said to be useful in the gravel. The seeds may be sown in drills, fix inches apart, and covered with earth to the depth of half an inch. The plants should be thinned in May or June, and left standing at the distance of fix inches from each other in the rows.

About the middle of the month you may sow seeds of burnet, lovage, angelica, marigold, fennel, dill, forrel, chervil, and clary. Each kind should be sown separately, either in the place where they are to remain, or they may be transplanted in summer. See JUNE.

About the middle or end of the month sow marjoram, thyme, savory, and hyssop. The plants may either remain where sown, or be planted out in the beginning of summer. See JUNE.

Towards the end of the month plant shallot, garlic, and rokambole. Having procured a quantity of their roots, divide and plant them in rows nine inches apart and fix inches distant from each other in the row. They may be put in to the depth of two inches with the dibble, or placed in drills, two inches deep, drawn with a hoe.

This is a proper time to raise a full crop of parley, Parsley. See JANUARY.

A few potatoes may be planted about the middle or end of this month for an early crop; but if wanted very early, some early dwarf potatoes should be planted in a slight hot-bed. For the method of planting, see MARCH.

Horse radish is propagated by offsets or cuttings of the roots, about three inches long, which may be planted, either with the dibble or spade, at the distance of fix or eight inches from each other, in rows two feet apart. When they are planted with the dibble, the holes ought to be made 10 or 12 inches deep; when with the spade a trench should be made a full spade deep, in the bottom of which the offsets or cuttings should be placed erect, and covered with earth from the next trench. As they will not appear above ground till the month of May, a crop of spinach, radishes, or small salad, may be got from the ground, and cleared off before the horse radish appears. After the plants have come above ground, they ought to be kept clear of weeds.

About the middle or towards the end of the month, Sow turnip. Sow some seed of the early Dutch turnip in a border of light earth, in a warm situation. See MARCH.

If no preparations were made last month for raising early cucumbers and melons, they may be commenced, and melons, any time this month, with better prospect of success. For the method of forming and managing the feed-bed, see JANUARY.—If the cucumbers and melons, sown last month and transplanted into small pots, be fit for ridging out, a hot-bed for one or more frames should be got ready for their reception, which should be raised to the height of three feet and a half, and covered with a frame and glases. About a week afterwards, if the hot-bed has settled unevenly, the frame and glases should be removed; and after the surface of the bed has been made perfectly level, replaced. As soon as the violent heat has subsided, the rank steam cleared, and all danger of burning apparently over, cover the bed to the depth of two inches with dry light rich earth, and raise a conical heap of the same earth, to the height of about 10 inches, immediately under the centre of each light. By the following day the earth will have acquired a proper warmth, and the bed will be fit for the reception of the young plants. The earth, laid over the surface of the bed, to the depth of two inches, will prevent the rank steam of the dung, on the one hand, from rising up freely, and yet not keep it down altogether: were much of the surface of the dung exposed, and the steam allowed to escape freely, the young plants would be destroyed; and, on the other hand, were it prevented from escaping altogether, by laying on earth to a sufficient depth at once, the bed would become overheated, and the roots of the plants might be burnt.

The pots containing the young cucumber and melon Manage-plants, which were transplanted last month (see J.A.-ment of the-NUARY), should be well watered the day previous to their being ridged out, to make the ball of earth adhere, and come out of the pot entire. After the tops of the hilloeks of earth, which had been raised to the height height of 10 inches under each light, have been flattened by reducing their height about two inches, make a hole in the centre of each, capable of containing one of the balls of earth, which is to be turned out of the pots. Select some pots containing the strongest plants; place your hand on the surface of the pot, allowing the plants to pass between your fingers; invert it, and strike the edge of it gently against the frame till the ball of earth comes out, which should be put into one of the holes in the hillock just mentioned; close the earth round the ball, and make it rise about an inch over its surface. After they have been thus ridged out, they should receive a gentle watering, and be covered with the glass till the steam begin to rise much, when air should be given by raising the glass. These hot-beds, into which the cucumbers and melons have been finally transplanted, must be managed in the same manner as the nursery beds, mentioned last month. A covering of straw, or something of that nature, should be laid all round the dung; linings of fresh dung should be applied to the sides of the bed when the heat begins to decline, air admitted under the same circumstances and with the same precautions as there stated. If three cucumbers or two melons have been planted in the pots, as before directed, one of the weakest of either should be removed immediately before, or after they are ridged out. Should any symptoms of burning appear soon after the plants have been ridged out, part of the earth, close to the bottom of the hillocks, must be removed; and as soon as the violent heat has subsided, be replaced with fresh earth. When the heat of the bed begins to decline a little, especially if any of the roots of the plants shew themselves through the sides of the hillocks, a quantity of fresh earth should be applied all round them, which should be kept within the frame for one night previously, that it may acquire a proper temperature, for should it be applied cold, it might injure the young roots. Two or three days after this an additional quantity of fresh earth should be applied to the sides of the hills; and in two or three more the whole surface of the bed may be earthened over as high as the tops of the hills.

When the plants have got two rough leaves, and when the second is about an inch broad, the bud, which is situated at the axilla (or base) of the second rough leaf, must be removed either with the finger, a pair of scissors, or a pen-knife, or, when the bud is very small, with a needle or pin, being careful not to injure the joint. After the plants are thus topped or stopped, they soon acquire strength; and in about 10 or 12 days, each of them will throw out two or three runners, which will shew flowers sometimes at the second or third joint. Were the plants not to be topped, the principal shoots would probably advance to the length of about two feet, without fending off any runners to fill up the frame, and without shewing a single flower. If none of the runners, which are pushed out after the first topping, shew flowers at the third or fourth joint, they should be topped likewise, which will cause each of them to push out two or three runners, all of which may perhaps prove fruitful. As these runners advance in growth they ought to be trained regularly along the surface of the beds, and all very weak or redundant shoots removed. The cucumbers, if well managed, will be fit for the table about the end of this or beginning of next month; but the melons will not be ripe before May or June.

Cucumbers and melons have male and female flowers, on the same plant, which are easily distinguished from one another. The male flowers, in the centre of which the antherae are situated that contain the farina (or tion of the fecundating powder), have stalks of an equal thickness, without any swell immediately under the flowers; whereas a swelling is perceptible immediately under the female flowers which contain the female organ of generation, as soon as they are pulled out from the stalks of the plant, which is the germen or future fruit. If none of the farina of the male be conveyed into the female flower, the germen decays, becomes yellowish, and drops off. It becomes therefore necessary, particularly at this early period, to impregnate the female flowers by suspending male flowers over them, and shaking some of the farina into the pistillium (or female organ); for after the plants have continued some time in flower, the air of the hot-bed in which they grow becomes loaded with the farina, by which means it is wafted into the female flowers. Insects likewise, particularly bees, at a more advanced period of the year, serve to convey it from flower to flower. As soon as the female flowers have opened, pinch off a newly blown male flower, together with a portion of its foot stalk, remove the greatest part of its corolla or flower leaf, introduce it into the female flower, and either touch the pistillium of the female gently with the antherae of the male so as to make some of the farina adhere, or shake the male flower over the pistillium of the female in order to make some of the farina fall on it. In a day or two after impregnation the germen or future fruit begins to swell, and in about a fortnight, if the weather be favourable and the heat of the bed good, the young cucumbers may be brought to table. This operation may be employed to produce new varieties, not only of cucumbers and melons, but of many other vegetables. Were the female of one variety of melon to be impregnated with the farina of another, a kind would be produced partaking somewhat of the properties of both; thus a large melon, not possessed of much flavour, might be improved by intermixture with one superior in flavour but inferior in size. In hermaphrodite flowers this operation of impregnating, or crossing, as it is called by cattle breeders, is performed by removing the antherae from a flower of one species, and impregnating it with the farina of another of the same natural family. The plants proceeding from such a commixture partake more of the properties of the male than the female parent. We have seen a hybrid produced from the papaver somniferum impregnated with the farina of the papaver orientale, so like the male parent as with difficulty to be distinguished from it.

The papaver orientale produces only one flower on a stalk; some of this hybrid however carried more than one, and in this particular alone it resembled the papaver somniferum, which branches very much. Mr Knight has made some curious and interesting experiments on this subject, which he has detailed in the following letter to Sir Joseph Banks, published in the Transactions of the Royal Society. "The result of Mr Knight's some experiments which I have amused myself with observations making on plants, appearing to me to be interesting to the naturalist, by proving the existence of supercotation." in the vegetable world, and being likely to conduct to some improvements in agriculture, I have taken the liberty to communicate them to you. The breeders of animals have very long entertained an opinion that considerable advantages are obtained by breeding from males and females not related to each other. Though this opinion has lately been controverted, the number of its opposers has gradually diminished, and I can speak from my own observation and experience, that animals degenerate in size, at least on the same pasture, and in other respects under the same management, when this process of crossing the breed is neglected. The close analogy between the animal and vegetable world, and the sexual system equally pervading both, induced me to suppose that similar means might be productive of similar effects in each; and the event has, I think, fully justified this opinion. The principal object I had in view, was to obtain new and improved varieties of the apple, to supply the place of those which have become diseased and unproductive by having been cultivated beyond the period which nature appears to have assigned to their existence. But as I saw that several years must elapse before the success or failure of this process could possibly be ascertained, I wished in the interval to see what would be its effects in annual plants. Amongst these none appeared so well calculated to answer my purpose as the common pea, not only because I could obtain many varieties of this plant, of different forms, sizes, and colours, but also because the structure of its blossom, by preventing the ingress of insects and adventitious farina, has rendered its varieties remarkably permanent. I had a kind growing in my garden, which, having been long cultivated in the same soil, had ceased to be productive, and did not appear to recover the whole of its former vigour when removed to a foil of a somewhat different quality: on this my first experiment in 1787 was made. Having opened a dozen of its immature blossoms, I destroyed the male parts, taking great care not to injure the female ones; and a few days afterwards when the blossoms appeared mature, I introduced the farina of a very large and luxuriant gray pea into one half of the blossoms, leaving the other half as they were. The pods of each grew equally well, but I soon perceived that in these into whose blossoms the farina had not been introduced, the seeds remained nearly as they were before the blossoms expanded, and in that state they withered. Those in the other pods attained maturity, but were not in any sensible degree different from those afforded by other plants of the same variety; owing, I imagine, to the external covering of the seed (as I have found in other plants) being furnished entirely by the female. In the succeeding spring the difference however became extremely obvious, for the plants from them rose with excessive luxuriance, and the colour of their leaves and stems clearly indicated that they had all exchanged their whiteness for the colour of the male parent. The seeds produced in autumn were dark gray.

"By introducing the farina of another white variety, (or in some instances by simple culture), I found this colour was easily discharged, and a numerous variety of new kinds produced, many of which were in point of size and in every other respect much superior to the original white kind, and grew with excessive luxuriance, some of them attaining the height of more than twelve feet. I had frequent occasion to observe in this plant a stronger tendency to produce purple blossoms and coloured seeds than white ones; for when I introduced the farina of a purple blossom into a white one, the whole seeds in the succeeding year became coloured; but when I endeavoured to discharge this colour by reverting the process, a part only of them afforded plants with white blossoms; this part sometimes occupying one end of the pod, and being at other times irregularly intermixed with those which, when sown, retained their colour. It might perhaps be supposed that something might depend on the quantity of farina employed; but I never could discover, in this or any other experiment in which superfection did not take place, that the largest or smallest quantity of farina afforded any difference in the effect produced.

"The dilimilarity I observed in the offspring afforded by different kinds of farina in these experiments, pointed out to me an easy method of ascertaining whether superfection, (the existence of which has been admitted amongst animals), could also take place in the vegetable world. For as the offspring of a white pea is always white, unless the farina of a coloured kind be introduced into the blossom; and as the colour of the gray one is always transferred to its offspring though the female be white, it readily occurred to me, that if the farina of both were mingled or applied at the same moment, the offspring of each could be easily distinguished.

"My first experiment was not altogether successful, for the offspring of five pods (the whole which escaped the birds) received their colour from the coloured male. There was, however, a strong resemblance to the other male in the growth and character of more than one of the plants, and the seeds of several in the autumn very closely resembled it in everything but colour. In this experiment, I used the farina of a white pea, which possessed the remarkable property of flourishing exceedingly when ripe, and in the second year I obtained white seeds from the gray ones above mentioned, perfectly similar to it. I am strongly disposed to believe, that the seeds were here of common parentage; but I do not conceive myself to be in possession of facts sufficient to enable me to speak with decision on this question.

"If, however, the female afford the first organised atom, and the farina act only as a stimulus, it appears to me by no means impossible, that the explosion of two vehicles of farina at the same moment (taken from different plants) may afford seeds (as I have supposed) of common parentage, and as I am unable to discover any source of inaccuracy in this experiment, I must believe this to have happened.

"Another species of superfection, if I have justly applied the term to a process in which one seed appears to have been the offspring of two males), has occurred to me so often as to remove all possibility of doubt as to its existence. In 1797, that year after I had seen the result of the last-mentioned experiment, having prepared a great many white blossoms, I introduced the farina of a white pea, and that of a gray pea, nearly at the same moment into each, and as in the last year, the character of the coloured male had prevailed, I used its farina more sparingly than that of the white one, and now almost every pod afforded plants of dif- ferent colours. The majority however were white, but the characters of the two kinds were not sufficiently distinct to allow me to judge with precision whether any of the seeds produced were of common parentage or not. In the last year I was more fortunate, having prepared blossoms of the little early frame pea, I introduced its own farina, and immediately afterwards, that of a very large and late gray kind; and I sowed the seeds thus obtained in the end of the last summer. Many of them retained the colour and character of the small early pea not in the slightest degree altered, and blossomed before they were 18 inches high, whilst others (taken from the same pods) whose colour was changed, grew to the height of more than four feet, and were killed by the frost before any blossoms appeared.

"It is evident that in those instances, superfrication took place, and it is equally evident that the seeds were not all of common parentage. Should subsequent experience convince that a single plant may be the offspring of two males, the analogy between animal and vegetable nature may induce some curious conjectures relative to the process of generation in the animal world.

"In the course of the preceding experiments, I could never observe that the character either of the male or female in this plant at all preponderated in the offspring, but as this point appeared interesting, I made a few trials to ascertain it. And as the foregoing observations had occurred in experiments made principally to obtain new and improved varieties of the pea for garden culture; I chose for a similar purpose the more hardy varieties usually sown in the fields. By introducing the farina of the largest and most luxuriant kinds into the blossoms of the most diminutive, and by reversing this process, I found that the powers of the male and female in their effects on the offspring are exactly equal. The vigour of the growth, the size of the seeds produced, and the season of maturity, were the same, though the one was a very early, and the other a late variety. I had in this experiment a striking instance of the stimulating effects of crossing the breeds; for the smallest variety, whose height rarely exceeded two feet, was increased to fix feet, whilst the height of the large and luxuriant kind was very little diminished. By this process, it is evident that any number of new varieties may be obtained; and it is highly probable, that many of these will be found better calculated to correct the defects of different soils and situations, than any we have at present; for I imagine that all we now possess have in a great measure been the produce of accident, and it will rarely happen, in this or any other case, that accident has done all that art will be found able to accomplish.

"The success of my endeavours to produce improved varieties of the pea, induced me to try some experiments on wheat, but those did not succeed to my expectations. I readily obtained as many varieties as I wished, by merely sowing the different kinds together, for the structure of the blossoms of this plant, (unlike that of pea), freely admits the ingress of adventitious farina, and is thence very liable to sport in varieties. Some of these I obtained were excellent, others very bad; and none of them permanent. By separating the best varieties, a most abundant crop was produced, but its quality was not quite equal to the quantity, and all the discarded varieties again made their appearance. It appeared to me an extraordinary circumstance, that in the years 1795 and 1796, when almost the whole crop of corn in this island was blighted, the varieties thus obtained, and these only, escaped in this neighbourhood, though sown in several different soils and situations.

"My success in the apple (as far as long experience and attention have enabled me to judge from the cultivated appearance of trees which have not yet borne fruit) has been fully equal to my hopes. But as the improvement of this fruit was the first object of my attention, no probable means of improvement either from soil or aspect were neglected. The plants, however, which I obtained from my efforts to unite the good qualities of two kinds of apple seem to possess the greatest health and luxuriance of growth, as well as the most promising appearance in other respects. In some of these, the character of the male appears to prevail; in others, that of the female; and in others both appear blended, or neither is distinguishable. These variations, which were often observable in the seeds taken from the single apple, evidently arise from the want of permanence in the characters of this fruit when raised from seed.

"The results of similar experiments on another fruit, the grape, were nearly the same as of those on the apple, except that by mingling the farina of a black and a white grape, just as the blossoms of the latter were expanding, I sometimes obtained plants from the same berry so dissimilar that I had good reason to believe them the produce of superfrication. By taking off the cups and destroying the immature male parts (as in the pea), I perfectly succeeded in combining the characters of different varieties of this fruit, as far as the changes of form and autumnal tints in the leaves of the offspring will allow me to judge.

"Many experiments of the same kind were tried on other plants; but it is sufficient to say that all tended to evince, that improved varieties of every fruit and excellent plant may be obtained by this process, and that nature intended that a sexual intercourse should take place between neighbouring plants of the same species. The probability of this will, I think, be apparent, when we take a view of the variety of methods which nature has taken to disperse the farina, even of these plants in which it has placed the male and female parts within the same empalement. It is often scattered by an elastic exertion of the filaments which support it in the first opening of the blossom, and its excessive lightness renders it capable of being carried to a great distance by the wind. Its position within the blossom is generally well adapted to place it on the bodies of insects, and the villous coat of the numerous family of bees is not less well calculated to carry it. I have frequently observed with great pleasure the dispersion of the farina of some of the grasses, when the sun had just risen in a dewy morning. It seemed to be impelled from the plant with considerable force, and being blue was easily visible, and very strongly resembled in appearance the explosion of a grain of gunpowder. An examination of the structure of the blossoms of many plants, will immediately point out that nature has something more in view than that its own proper males should fecundate each blossom, for the means it employs are always best calculated to answer the intended pur- But the farina is often so placed that it can never reach the summit of the pointal, unless by adventitious means; and many trials have convinced me that it has no action on any other part of it. In promoting this sexual intercourse between neighbouring plants of the same species, nature appears to me to have an important purpose in view; for independent of its stimulative power, this intercourse certainly tends to confine within more narrow limits those variations which accidental richness or poverty of soil usually produces. It may be objected by those who admit the existence of vegetable mules, that under this extensive intercourse these must have been more numerous; but my total want of successes in many endeavours to produce a single mule plant, makes me much disposed to believe that hybrid plants have been mistaken for mules, and to doubt (with all the deference I feel for the opinions of Linnaeus and his illustrious followers) whether nature ever did or ever will permit the production of such a monster. The existence of numerous mules in the animal world between kindred species is allowed, but nature has here guarded against their production, by impelling every animal to seek its proper mate; and amongst the feathered tribe, when from perversion of appetite, sexual intercourse takes place between those of distinct genera (A), it has in some instances at least rendered the death of the female the inevitable consequence. But in the vegetable world there is not any thing to direct the male to its proper female, its farina is carried by winds and insects to plants of every different genus and species, and it therefore appears to me (as vegetable mules certainly are not common) that nature has not permitted them to exist at all.

"I cannot dismiss this subject, without expressing my regret, that those who have made the science of botany their study should have considered the improvement of those vegetables, which in their cultivated state afford the largest portion of subsistence to mankind and other animals, as little connected with the object of their pursuit. Hence it has happened, that whilst much attention has been paid to the improvement of every species of useful animal, the most valuable succulent plants have been almost wholly neglected. But when the extent of the benefit which would arise to the agriculture of the country, from the possession of varieties of plants, which with the same extent of soil and labour would afford even a small increase of produce, is considered, this subject appears of no inconsiderable importance. The improvement of animals is attended with much expense, and the improved kinds necessarily extend themselves slowly; but a single bushel of improved wheat or peas may in ten years be made to afford feed enough to supply the whole island, and a single apple or other fruit tree may within the same time be extended to every garden in it. These considerations have been the cause of my addressing the foregoing observations to you at this time; for it was much my wish to have ascertained before I wrote to you, whether in any instance a single plant can be the offspring of two male parents. The decision of that question must of necessity have occupied two years, and must therefore be left to the test of future experiment."

The opinion Mr Knight endeavours to establish towards the end of his letter, is certainly incorrect, if he means to assert that hybrids can only be produced by a commixture of different varieties of the same species, and that none can be produced by the union of plants of different species. The fact already stated relative to the hybrid produced between the papaw, oriental, and somnif. (two species as different, in every respect, from each other as the horse and ass).

SECT. II. Fruit Garden.

Where peaches, nectarines, and apricots, have not been pruned before this, that work ought to be done fruit-trees without delay, because the flower buds after they have begun to swell (which they do at this season) are easily rubbed off. Plums, cherries, apples, pears, gooseberries, currants, and raspberries, &c. may likewise be pruned during this month, if neglected till now.

About the end of the month you may prune fig trees, as by that time all danger of the young shoots being killed by the frost will be over. As the young shoots of last season alone produce figs the ensuing, a sufficient supply of them must be left to nail on to the wall; and superfluous, ill-placed, very strong long-jointed shoots, and small weak ones, ought to be cut away close to the branch of the former year's growth. The branches which are retained ought to be laid in and nailed to the wall at full length, at the distance of about half a foot from each other. They ought not to be shortened, because the figs are generally produced from that part of the branch near to the extremity: on this account likewise care must be taken, in choosing those which are to be retained, not only to prefer the shoots of moderately vigorous growth, but likewise those which have had least of their extremities killed by the frost, for it frequently happens that the frost kills the succulent extremities of branches, and sometimes even the whole shoot.

Shortening the branches has another bad effect besides removing the part from which the fruit is to proceed, it makes them throw out a crowd of lateral shoots, which create confusion and shade the fruit. All worn-out old branches which are not furnished with a sufficient number of young lateral shoots, ought to be cut away, either close to the main branch from which they proceed, or close to some shoot placed near their lower end. Young fig trees may be planted also any time this month. See October.

Strawberry beds should now receive a dressing. Last Plant, &c., year's runners should be cut away, weeds and decayed strawberry-leaves removed, the ground between the rows dug or loosened with the hoe, and some earth drawn up about the roots of the plants. Strawberries may be planted towards the end of the month: for the method, see June and September.

Any time this month you may begin to force the Force trees on hot walls, in vine, peach, and cherry houses, early fruit. &c.

(A) This is said to be the case with the drake and the hen. February, &c. They ought to be covered with the glasses, some time previous to the application of fire-heat, and if the houses have been constructed with pits for containing hot-beds of tanners bark or horse dung, a quantity of either should be got ready. If tanners bark is to be used, it ought to be spread out and exposed to the air, that it may dry, for if it be put in too wet it will either not heat at all, or heat violently and soon rot, but if properly dried, the heat will be moderate and last for a long time. When horse dung is to be used, it ought to be forked up into a heap and allowed to remain for a few days, during which time it should be turned two or three times with a fork that it may be thoroughly mixed. Slight fires should be applied for two or three days at first, which may be gradually increased. They ought to be kindled about sunset, and supplied with fuel from time to time till about ten o'clock, which will keep the house in a proper heat until morning, when the fires should again be set a going, if the heat has declined, but it will seldom be necessary at this season to keep the fires burning all day. The fuel employed may be either coal, wood, peat, or turf; of these coal is best, because it makes the strongest, the most durable, and most easily managed fire. The heat of each house should be regulated by a thermometer. The degree of warmth kept up at this season, should not much exceed the 65° of Fahrenheit. When the sun shines bright, the heat must be regulated by opening the glasses more or less, and admitting the external air. Besides the trees that may be trained to the wall or front of the house, pots or boxes containing cherry or peach trees may be introduced; likewise pots of kidney beans, strawberries, &c. roses, and a variety of other flowers. The trees and plants within the house must be duly watered, and have plenty of air admitted to them whenever the weather will permit. When the fruit approach to maturity a greater heat should be maintained within the house, which may be effected during the day by the rays of the sun, and sparing admittance of the external air, and during the night (if the weather be cold) by fire.

SECT. III. The Pleasure or Flower Garden.

TOWARDS the end of the month, you may sow some tender annuals, such as balsams, cockscombs, globe amaranthus, ice plants, egg plants, &c. They must be sown in a hot-bed, which is to be formed and earthed over in the same way as feed beds for cucumbers and melons. See January. The seeds may either be sown in the earth of the bed, or in pots plunged into the earth. Or a few may be sown in pots, and introduced into a cucumber or melon bed. When the plants have acquired sufficient strength to admit of being transplanted, they should be put into separate pots and transferred to other hot-beds. See April.

About the end of the month, you may sow some feed of mignonet, ten weeks stock, larkspur, flos Adonis, convolvulus, lupines, scarlet, sweet-scented, and Tangier pea, candytuft, dwarf lychnis, Venus's looking glass, Lobel's catchfly, Venus's navel-wort, dwarf poppy, annual sunflower, oriental mallow, lavatera, hawkweed, and many others. They must be sown in places where they are to remain, for none of these plants succeed so well when they are transplanted.

Dig small patches with a trowel in the flower borders, break the earth well, remove part of it from the surface with the edge of the trowel, and sow the seeds, which should be covered with the earth which had been moved aside from the surface of the patches. The smaller seeds, such as mignonet, ten weeks stock, larkspur, &c. should be covered to the depth of about a quarter of an inch; the larger ones, such as lupines, painted and sweet peas, annual sunflower, &c. may be covered to the depth of an inch. After the plants have advanced a little in growth, they should be thinned out in proportion to their size, viz. one sunflower should be left in a place, two plants of lavatera and oriental mallow, four or five of the larger, and six or eight of the smaller lupines, and so on in proportion.

Most kinds of hardy perennials and biennials may be planted out this month, viz. polyanthus, primroses, roses, London pride, violets, double daisies, double chamomile, saxifrage, rose campion, rockets, campanula, catchfly, scarlet lychnis, double feverfew, bachelor's button, carnations, pinks, sweetwilliam, columbines, monkshood, tree primrose, foxglove, goldenrod, perennial asters, perennial sun-flower, holyhocks, French honeyfuckles, wallflowers, and many others.

Where auricula plants are much valued, and where there are many of the finer varieties, they are commonly kept in pots. During mild weather any time this month, it would be proper to give them some fresh earth. Clear away all dead leaves from the plants, remove some of the old earth from the sides of the pot all around, so far as you can do it without injuring the roots, and fill the pots with fresh earth prepared for the purpose. See September.

Auricula and polyanthus seed may be sown any time this month, either in the open grounds or in pots. When sown in pots or boxes they are more easily moved to proper situations during different seasons. Sow them in light rich earth, and cover them to the depth of about a quarter of an inch. The pots or boxes should be placed in a situation sheltered from the north, and exposed to the morning and mid-day sun, from which they ought to be removed in April to a more shady place. They will be fit for transplanting in the month of June. See June.

About the end of the month plant out the carnations which were raised last year by cuttings or layers, carnation into pots or borders where they are to remain to produce flowers the ensuing summer.

Any time this month you may transplant evergreen trees, and shrubs; such as pines, firs, evergreen oaks, hollies, yews, ephyrises, cedars, phillyreas, arbutuses, laurels, laurustinus, &c.

The finer sorts of tulips, hyacinths, anemones, ranuncules, &c. should be protected during severe weather, as they begin to appear above ground. For the method of sheltering them, see January.

Gras walks and lawns ought to be kept clean, poled and rolled at least once a week if the weather permit it. After being rolled with a wooden roller to take off the worm-casts, a heavy stone or iron one should be passed over them to render them firm. Their edges ought likewise to be cut with an edging iron about the end of the month, which will give them a neat appearance.

Gravel and grass walks may be made during this month: for the latter, see January, and the former March.

Edgings of boxwood, thrift, daisies, thyme, hyssop, &c. may be planted this month. Boxwood forms the neatest, most durable, and most easily kept edging, and if planted now it will succeed very well. For the method, see October. Where any of the old boxwood edgings have become irregular, they ought to be taken up and replanted.

Thrift is frequently employed as an edging, and well kept makes a very neat one. The plants may be either put in with the dibble so close as to touch, or at the distance of two or three inches from each other, or planted as boxwood, see October. Daisies are sometimes used, and form a very pretty edging; they may be planted in the same manner as the thrift.

A great variety of flowers, such as hyacinths, jonquils, and roses, &c. may be placed in the hot-house, vineyard, or peach-house; and when they have come into flower they may be placed in a green-house, or in apartments of a dwelling house.

Sect. IV. Nursery.

Many things mentioned under the article work to be done in the nursery for January may likewise be done this month; such as pruning young trees and shrubs, digging between the rows, propagating by cuttings, suckers, and layers, &c. See January.

Such layers of last year, as appear well rooted, should be removed from the parent plant (or stool), and planted in rows of from one to two feet asunder, according to the size of the plant, and at the distance of a foot or foot and a half from each other in the row.

If seeds or stones of apples, pears, cherries, and plums, were not sown last autumn to raise stocks for budding and ingrafting, they should be sown about the beginning of this month. They should be sown in light soil, and covered to about the depth of an inch. The plants raised from this sowing will be fit for transplanting in the beginning of next winter or spring. The seeds of berries and nuts of shrubs and forest trees may likewise be sown any time this month in narrow beds, and covered in proportion to their size, viz. the small seeds to the depth of about half an inch, the larger to the depth of an inch or an inch and a half, and some of the nuts even to a greater depth.

Trees and shrubs may be removed from the seed-bed or from where they stand too thick, and planted out in rows at proper distances, or transplanted into the places where they are to remain.

Young trees that were budded successfully last summer should be cut down to within about four inches of the bud. See June and July.

Pears, plums, and cherries may be ingrafted towards the end of the month, if the weather is mild: apples likewise may be ingrafted at the same time, or in the course of the following month.

Grafting or engrafting, in gardening, is the taking a shoot from one tree, and inserting it into another, in such a manner, that both may unite closely and become one tree.

By the ancient writers on husbandry and gardening this operation is called incision, to distinguish it from inoculation or budding, which they call insertion. Grafting has been practised from the most remote antiquity, but its origin and invention are differently related engrafting by naturalists. Theophrastus tells us, that a bird having swallowed a fruit whole, cast it forth into a cleft or cavity of a rotten tree, where, mixing with some of the putrefied parts of the tree, and being washed with the rains, it germinated, and produced within this tree a tree of a different kind. This led the husbandman to certain reflections, from which afterwards arose the art of engrafting.

Pliny gives a different account of the origin of grafting: he says, a husbandman willing to make a palliade in his ground, that it might endure the longer, and with a view to fill up and strengthen the bottom of the palliade, wattled it with the twigs of ivy. The effect of this was, that the stakes of the palliades taking root, became engrafted into the twigs, and produced large trees, which suggested to the husbandman the art of engrafting.

The use of grafting is to propagate any desirable sorts of fruit so as to be certain of the variety; for as all good varieties of fruit have been accidentally obtained from seeds, so the seeds of these, when sown, will many of them degenerate, and produce such fruit as is not worth cultivating; but when grafts are taken from such trees as produce good fruit, these will never alter from their kind, whatever be the stock or tree on which they are grafted. Many have supposed that fruit undergoes a change, by being engrafted; but this is not the case. M. Du Hamel tried it on different trees, and for fear of error repeated every experiment several times. He grafted the peach on the almond, the plum on the apricot, the pear upon the apple, the quince on the white thorn, one species of plum on another, and the almond and apricot on the peach. All these succeeded alike; the fruit was never altered; the leaves, the wood, the flowers, were perfectly the same with those of the tree from which the grafts were taken.

Some authors have made mention of engrafting trees of distinct genera on one another; such as the apple on the oak, the elm, the mapple, and the plum. M. Du Hamel tried a number of these experiments, none of which proved successful. Engrafting seems never to succeed but when trees of the same natural family are grafted on one another. Some trees are supposed to live longer, and grow more vigorously when engrafted than when growing in a natural state. It is said, that this is the case with the peach, when engrafted on the plum. But it is commonly alleged, that engrafted trees do not live so long as they would have done in their natural state. The reason why engrafted trees are short lived, perhaps proceeds from another cause than merely from the circumstance of being grafted, viz. the age of the tree from which the scions were originally taken.

The proper tools and other materials used in grafting, are, 1. A strong knife for cutting off the heads performing of the stocks previous to the insertion of the graft; also it, a small hand saw for occasional use in cutting off the heads of large stocks. 2. A common grafting knife or sharp pen knife for cutting and shaping the grafts ready for insertion; also to slope and form the stocks for February: the reception of the grafts. 3. A flat grafting chisel, and small mallet for cleaving large stocks, in cleft grafting, for the reception of the graft. 4. A quantity of new bals strings for bandages for tying the grafted parts close together, to secure the grafts, and promote their speedy union with the stock. And, 5. A quantity of grafting clay for claying closely round the grafts after their insertion and binding, to defend the parts from being dried by the sun and winds, for these parts ought to be closely surrounded with a coat of clay in such a manner as effectually to guard them from all weathers, which would prove injurious to the young grafts, and prevent their junction with the stock.

For this purpose some argillaceous loam or pure clay must be procured, to which should be added one-fourth part of fresh horse dung and a small portion of cut hay. The whole must be well moistened with water, and thoroughly beat with a stick after the manner of mortar.

The scions or grafts (which should be shoots of last year) ought to be selected and cut off some time about the beginning or middle of the month. Each kind ought to be put up separately in little bundles, which should be inserted into the earth of a dry border, and should be protected during severe weather by a covering of straw or something of that nature. The reason for taking them off at the time mentioned, is that their growth may be checked, and that they may be preserved in a condition for grafting; for were they to remain on the trees, their buds would begin to swell, and would soon advance so far as to be unfit for using with any prospect of success. The stocks intended to be grafted, must, previous to the insertion of the graft, be cut down; those intended for dwarf trees, to be trained on walls or espaliers, must be cut over five or fix inches above the ground; those intended for standards should be cut over at the height of five or fix feet.

The stocks must vary according to the kinds of fruit to be grafted on them, and to the size of the tree to be produced. Apples are grafted on apple stocks raised from seed, cuttings, or layers; for dwarfs, paradise pipin or Siberian crab stocks are used; for half dwarfs, codlin stocks raised from suckers, cuttings or layers; and for full standards, stocks raised by sowing the seed of crabs or any common apple. Pears are engrafted upon pear stocks obtained from seed or suckers, on quinces, and on white thorn. When they are engrafted on quince stocks, they become dwarf, and are fit for espaliers, &c.

Cherries are engrafted upon cherry stocks obtained by sowing the stones of red or black cherries, and plums are engrafted upon plum stocks raised from seed or suckers (b).

There are different methods of grafting, termed whip-grafting, cleft-grafting, crown-grafting, cheek-grafting, side-grafting, root-grafting, and grafting by approach or marching; but whip-grafting and cleft-grafting are the most commonly used, and whip-grafting most of all.

Whip-grafting being the most expeditious and successful method of grafting, is the most commonly practised in all the nurseries; it is always performed upon small stocks, from about the size of a goose-quill to half an inch or a little more or less in diameter, but the nearer the stock and graft approach in size, the better; and is called whip-grafting, because the grafts and stock being nearly of a size, are flopped on one side so as to fit each other, and tied together in the manner of whips or joints of angling rods, &c.; and the method is as follows. Having the scions or grafts, knife, bandages, and clay ready, begin the work by cutting off the head of the stock at some smooth part; this done, cut one side sloping upwards, about an inch and a half or near two inches in length, and making a notch or small slit near the upper part of the slope downwards, about half an inch long, to receive the tongue of the scion; then prepare the scion, cutting it to five or six inches in length, forming the lower end also in a sloping manner, so as exactly to fit the flopped part of the stock, as if cut from the same place, that the bark of both may join evenly in every part, and make a fit so as to form a tongue to fit the slit made in the slope of the stock; then place the graft, inserting the tongue of it into the slit of the stock, applying the parts as evenly and close as possible, and immediately tie the parts close together with a string of bals, passing closely several times round the stock and graft; then clay the whole over near an inch thick all round, from about half an inch or more below the bottom of the graft, to an inch above the top of the stock, finishing the whole coat of clay in a kind of oval form, closing it effectually about the scion, so that neither air nor water may penetrate. The clay must be examined from time to time, for should it crack much, or fall off, a quantity of fresh clay ought to be applied immediately. This sort of grafting may also be performed upon the young shoots of any bearing tree, if you wish to alter the kind of fruit or to have more kinds than one on the same tree. By the middle or latter end of May the graft will be well united with the stock, as will be evident from the shooting of the buds of the graft, when the clay should be removed; but the bals bandage should remain until the united parts seem to swell, and be too much confined, then the bandage should be taken off entirely.

Cleft-grafting is so called because the stock being too large for whip-grafting, is cleft or slit down the middle for the reception of the graft, and is performed in stocks from one to two inches diameter or upwards. First, with a strong knife take off the head of the stock with a sloping cut about an inch and a half long, then cleave the stock with a strong knife or chisel and mallet across the slope to the depth of about two inches, or long enough to admit the graft, leaving the instrument in to keep the cleft open. Prepare the scion by cutting it to such length as to leave four or five eyes, sloping the lower part of it on each side, wedge fashion, to the length of an inch and a half or two inches, making one edge very thin, and leaving the other much thicker with the bark on; then place it in the cleft at the back

(b) Stocks which are raised from seed, generally grow more freely and vigorously than those raised from cuttings or layers, and on that account are called free stocks. part III.

In February, part of the stock, with the thickest edge outwards to the nursery, whole depth of the slope, taking care that the bark of the stock and graft join exactly; when the knife or chisel is removed, each side of the cleft will press on the graft and hold it fast. It must then be bound with a bals bandage and clayed over as in whip-grafting, leaving three or four of the eyes of the scion uncovered.

If large stocks or branches are to be grafted in this way, they must be cut horizontally and unsmoothed, and may be cleft quite across, and a graft inserted on each side. More clefts indeed than one may be made, and two grafts put in each. This method of grafting may be performed on the branches or stems of old trees, with a view to produce vigorous branches or change the kind of fruit.

Towards the latter end of May or beginning of June the junction of the graft with the stock will be effectually formed, when the clay may be removed, and in a fortnight afterwards the bals bandage may also be taken away.

Crown-grafting is commonly practised upon such stocks as are too large to cleave, and is often performed upon the large branches of apple and pear trees, &c. that already bear fruit, when it is intended to change the sorts, or supply the tree with a number of new vigorous branches. It is termed crown-grafting, because, after the stock or branch has been cut over, several grafts are inserted all around betwixt the wood and bark, so as to produce a crown-like appearance; this kind of grafting should not be performed until March or early in April, for then the sap being in motion renders the bark and wood of the stock much easier to be separated for the admission of the graft. The manner of performing this sort of grafting is as follows: first cut off the head of the stock horizontally, and pare the top smooth; then having the grafts, cut one side of each flat, and somewhat flopping, an inch and a half, forming a fort of shoulder at the top of the slope to rest upon the crown of the stock; after the bark of the stock has been raised by means of a wedge, so as to admit the scion between the bark and the wood, let the scion be thrust down to the shoulder with its cut side next the wood of the stock: in this manner three, four, or more grafts may be inserted into one stock or branch. After the grafts have been inserted, let them be tied tight, and let the clay be applied so as to rise an inch above the top of the stock, taking care to form it so as to prevent the admission of water, which would injure the grafts. Crown-grafting may also be performed by making several clefts in the crown of the stock, and inserting the grafts into the clefts. The grafts will be pretty well united with the stock by the end of May or beginning of June, when the clay and bandage may be taken away. The trees grafted by this method will succeed very well; but for the first two or three years the grafts are liable to be blown out of the stock by violent winds, to prevent which, long sticks must be tied to the stock or branch, to which they may be fixed.

Check-grafting is thus executed. Cut the head of the stock off horizontally, and pare the top smooth: then cut one side flopping an inch and a half or two inches deep, and cut the lower part of the graft flopping the same length, making a fort of shoulder at the top of the flopped part; it is then to be placed upon the flopped part of the stock, resting the shoulder upon the crown of it; bind it with bals, and finish it with a covering of clay as in whip-grafting.

Side-grafting is done by inserting grafts into the sides of the branches without cutting them over, and may be practised upon trees to fill up any vacancy, or for the purpose of variety, to have several sorts of apples, pears, plums, &c. upon the same tree. It is performed thus. Fix upon such parts of the branches where wood is wanted to furnish the head or part of the tree; there slop off the bark and a little of the wood, and cut the lower end of the grafts to fit the part as near as possible; then join them to the branch and tie them with bals, and clay them over.

Root-grafting. This is done by whip-grafting scions upon pieces of the root of any tree of the same genus, grafting, and planting the root where it is to remain; it will take root, draw nourishment, and feed the graft.

Grafting by approach, or inarching, is preferred when inarching the stocks designed to be grafted, and the tree from which the graft is intended to be taken, either grow so near, or can be placed so near together, that the branch or graft may be made to approach the stock, without separating it from the tree till after its union or junction with the stock, so that the branch or graft being bent to the stock they together form a fort of arch, whence it is called grafting by approach, or inarching. It is commonly practised upon such trees as are with difficulty made to succeed by any of the former ways of grafting. When intended to propagate any kind of tree or shrub by this method of grafting; if the tree be hardy enough to grow in the open ground, a proper quantity of young plants for stocks must be set round it, and when grown of a proper height, the work of inarching must be performed; if the branches of the tree you intend to take grafts from be too high for the stocks, in that case the stocks planted in pots, must be placed on a flight stage or some support of that nature, of such a height as to make them reach the branches. Inarching is sometimes performed with the head of the stock cut off, sometimes it is allowed to remain; when the head of the stock is cut off, the work is more easily performed, and is generally more successful, because the stock having no top of its own to support, will transmit all the nourishment taken up by its roots into the graft; when the stocks are properly placed, make the branches approach to them, and mark on the branches the places where they will most easily join to the stock, and in those parts of each branch, pare away the bark and part of the wood two or three inches in length, and in the same manner pare the stock at the proper place; then make a slit upwards in the branch so as to form a fort of tongue, and make a slit downwards in the stock to admit it; let the parts be then joined, flopping the tongue of the graft into the slit of the stock so as to make the whole join in an exact manner; then tie them close together with bals, and afterwards cover the whole with a proper quantity of clay, as before directed in the other methods. After this, let a stout stake be fixed for the support of each graft, to which the stock and graft may be fixed, to prevent their being disjoined by the wind. If this operation be performed in spring, the graft and stock will be united in four months, when the branch may be separated from the parent plant; this should be done cautiously and with a sharp knife, lest the graft should be February. be shaken and loosened from the stock. If the head of the stock were not removed previous to marching, it should now be cut off close to the insertion of the graft, and all the old clay and bandages should be taken away and replaced with new, which should be allowed to remain a few weeks longer. If the graft and stock do not seem perfectly united the first autumn after they have been marched, they should be allowed to stand till next autumn: for were the branch to be cut off from the parent plant before a complete union was formed between it and the stock, the operation would prove abortive.

An anonymous author has given, in a treatise published at Haniburgh under the title Annales Horti- fes Novae, a new method of grafting trees, so as to have very beautiful pyramids of fruit upon them, which will exceed in flavour, beauty, and quantity, all that can otherwise be produced. This he says he had long experienced, and gives the following method of doing it. The trees are to be transplanted in autumn, and all their branches cut off: early in the following summer the young shoots are to be pulled off, and the buds are then to be engrafted into them in an inverted position. This he says, not only adds to the beauty of the pyramids, but also makes the branches more fruitful. These are to be closely connected to the trunk, and are to be fastened with the common ligature; they are to be placed circularly round the tree, three buds in each circle, and these circles at fix inches distance from each other. The old trees may be grafted in this manner, the success having been found very good in those of twenty years standing; but the most eligible trees are those which are young, vigorous, and full of juice, and are not above an inch or two thick. When these young trees are transplanted, they must be fenced round with pales to defend them from the violence of the wind. The buds engrafted must be small, that the wounds made in the bark to receive them, not being very large, may heal the sooner; and if the buds do not succeed, which will be perceived in a fortnight, there must be others put in their place. The wound made to receive these buds must be a straight cut, parallel to the horizon, and the piece of bark taken out, must be downwards that the rain may not get in at the wound. In the autumn of the same year this will be a green flourishing pyramid, and the next summer it will flower, and ripen its fruit in autumn.

Mr Fairman, of Kent, gives an account of a method of renewing decayed trees, by what he calls extreme branch-grafting, which has been published in the Memoirs of the Society of Arts for 1802. It is addressed to the Secretary.

"SIR,

"From much conversation with Mr Bucknall, on the idea of improving standard fruit trees, we could not but remark that in apple orchards, even in such as are most valuable, some were to be seen that were flinted and barren, which not only occasioned a loss in the production, but made a break in the rows, and spoiled the beauty and uniformity of the plantation.

"To bring these trees into an equal state of bearing, size, and appearance, in a short time, is an object of the greatest importance in the system of orcharding, and also for the recovery of old barren trees, which are fallen into decay, not so much from age as from the forts of their fruits being of the worn out, and deemed nearly lost, varieties.

"Having long entertained these thoughts, and been by no means inattentive to the accomplishment of the design, I attempted to change their fruits by a new mode of engrafting, and am bold enough to assert that I have most fortunately succeeded in my experiments; working, if I am to be allowed to say it, from the errors of other practitioners, as also from those of my own habits.

"My name having several times appeared in the Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c.; and having the honour of being a member of that Society, I thought no pains or expense would be too much for the completion of so desirable an improvement. Under these impressions, and having many trees of this description, I made an experiment on three of them in March 1798, each being nearly a hundred years old. They were not decayed in their bodies, and but little in their branches. Two of these were golden pippins, and the other was a golden rennet: each had likewise been past a bearing date for several years. I also followed up the practice on many more the succeeding spring, and that of the last year, to the number of forty at least, in my different plantations (c).

"The attempt has gone so far beyond my utmost expectation, that I beg of you, Sir, to introduce the system to the society for their approbation; and I hope it will deserve the honour of a place in their valuable Transactions.

"I directed the process to be conducted as follows: cut out all the spray wood, and make the tree a perfect skeleton, leaving all the healthy limbs; then clean the branches, and cut the top of each branch off, where it would measure from an inch to two inches in diameter. Some of the branches must of course be taken off, where it is a little larger, and some smaller, to preserve a head or canopy of the tree; and it will be necessary to take out the branches which cross others, and obviate the arms are left to fork off; so that no considerable opening is to be perceived when you stand under the tree, but that they may represent a uniform head. I must here remark to the practitioner, when he is preparing the tree as I directed, that he should leave the branches sufficiently long to allow of two or three inches to be taken off by the saw, that all the splintered parts may be removed.

"The trees being thus prepared, put in one or two grafts at the extremity of each branch; and from this circumstance I wish to have the method called extreme branch grafting. A cement, hereafter described, must be used instead of clay, and the grafts tied with bals or soft string. As there was a considerable quantity of moss on the bodies and branches of the trees, I ordered my gardener to scrape it off, which is effectually done when they are wet, by a stubbed birch broom. I then

(c) The average expence I calculated at 2s. 6d. each tree. ordered him to brush them over with coarse oil, which invigorated the growth of the tree, acted as a manure to the bark, and made it expand very evidently; the old cracks were soon, by this operation, rendered invisible.

"All wounds should be perfectly cleaned out, and the medication applied, as described in the Orchardist, p. 14. By the beginning of July the bandages were cut, and the floats from the grafts shortened, to prevent them from blowing out. I must here, too, observe, that all the floats, or suckers from the tree, must enjoy the full liberty of growth till the succeeding spring, when the greater part must be taken out, and few but the grafts suffered to remain, except on a branch where the grafts have not taken; in that case leave one or two of the suckers, which will take a graft the second year, and make good the deficiency. This was the whole of the process (D).

"By observing what is here stated, it will appear that the tree remains nearly as large when the operation is finished, as it was before the bushels began; and this is a most essential circumstance, as no part of the former vegetation is lost, which is in health fit to continue for forming the new tree. It is worthy of notice, that when the vivifying rays of the sun have caused the sap to flow, these grafts, inducing the fluid through the pores to every part of the tree, will occasion innumerable suckers or scions to start through the bark, which, together with the grafts, give such energy to vegetation, that, in the course of the summer, the tree will be actually covered over by a thick foliage, which enforces and quickens the due circulation of sap. These, when combined, fully compel the roots to work for the general benefit of the tree.

"In these experiments, I judged it proper to make choice of grafts from the sorts of fruits which were the most luxuriant in their growth, or any new variety, as described in the 17th and 18th volumes of the Society's Transactions, by which means a greater vigour was excited; and if this observation is attended to, the practitioner will clearly perceive, from the first year's growth, that the grafts would soon starve the suckers which shoot forth below them, if they were suffered to remain. With a view to accomplish this grand object of improvement, I gave much attention, as I have observed before, to the general practice of invigorating old trees; and I happily discovered the error of the common mode of grafting but a short distance from the trunk or body. There the circumference of the wounds is as large as to require several grafts, which cannot firmly unite and clasp over the thumps, and consequently these wounds lay a foundation for after decay. If that were not the case, yet it so reduces the size of the tree, that it could not recover its former state in many years, and it is dubious if it ever would; whereas, by the method of extreme grafting, the tree will be larger in three or four years, than before the operation was performed. For all the large branches remaining, the tree has nothing to make but fruit-bearing wood; and from the very beautiful verdure it soon acquires, and the symmetry of the tree, no argument is necessary to enforce the practice. Some of the trees, done in this way, yielded each two bushels of apples from the third year's wood.

Cement for Engrafting.

One pound of pitch, One pound of rosin, Half a pound of bees-wax, A quarter of a pound of hog's lard, A quarter of a pound of turpentine;

to be boiled up together, but not to be used till you can bear your finger in it."

SECT. V. Green-house and Hot house.

The same care of the green-house is required during this month which was recommended in January. If severe frost, or very wet weather prevails, the glasse must be kept close during the day to exclude the frost and damp, or flight fires may be had recourse to for this purpose.

In mild weather the glasse must be opened during Air to be the day to admit air, and water must be given to the admitted plants regularly, though sparingly. Towards the end of the month it will be proper to remove a little of the earth from the surface and sides of the boxes or pots, and to replace it with some fresh compost. If any of the orange trees, myrtles, or plants of that nature, have irregular heads, they may be cut so as to cause them to throw out a number of new branches to fill up any vacant places, or form an entirely new head. If they require to be much pruned, or to be cut over altogether, it would be proper to shift them at the same time, i.e. to remove them from the box or pot in which they have stood with the ball of earth about their roots, part of which, together with any matted roots, should be pared off from the sides and bottom, and replaced in the boxes and pots, with a proper addition of fresh earth. Any of the plants which are to undergo this operation, that are very sickly, should have almost the whole of the earth removed from their roots, and ought, for some time after shifting, to stand in a bark-bed.

If the bark-bed in the pine stove received no fresh Pine stoves tan or turning last month, it should be examined as early as convenient; and if the heat should have at all declined, it ought immediately to be turned or have an addition of fresh tan, as directed last month. See JANAURY.

If a lively heat be not kept up in the bark-bed now, when the plants show flower, the size of the future fruit will be considerably affected. A proper degree of warmth, applied to the roots of the plants, will make them grow vigorously and produce large fruit. The heat of the air of the house must be kept at a proper temperature, by due attention to the fires every night and morning, and even during the day in frosty weather, or when cold winds prevail. The bark-bed, in which the succession pine-apple plants grow, should be examined; and if the heat in it begins to decline, it ought

(d) The system succeeds equally well on pear, as also on cherry trees, provided the medication is used to prevent the cherry tree from gumming. ought to be turned or receive an addition of fresh tan. When the sun shines bright, and the weather is moderate, air must be given by opening some of the glafes. Water should be given regularly both to the pine apple and other plants in the hot-houfe, but much should not be given at a time.

The kidney beans that were sown last month should receive water frequently. If none were sown last month, some of the early dwarf kinds may be sown now.

If no cucumbers were sown last month in the hot-houfe, some may be sown now; or, plants raised in hot-beds may be introduced, and placed in any convenient situation near the glafes.

MARCH.

SECT. I. Kitchen Garden.

We need not here give a detailed account of the methods of performing many of the things mentioned under this head, in the two preceding months, though most of them might be performed now with better prospect of success, as this is the principal month in the year for sowing and planting full crops of the greater part of kitchen-garden vegetables. We shall, therefore, merely enumerate them. Make hot-beds. Sow cucumbers and melons. Transplant and sow cauliflower. Transplant and sow cabbage. Transplant and sow lettuce. Sow spinach, onions, leeks, radishes, carrots, parsnips, beets, beans, peas, turnips, celery, small salad, parsley, falfafy, and Hamburger parsley. Plant shallot, garlic, scorzonera, and rockambole.

Some seed of the early purple and cauliflower broccoli should be sown, both about the beginning and towards the end of the month, in a bed of rich earth, in an open situation, to raise plants to be fit for the table the following autumn. For the subsequent management, see APRIL, MAY, JUNE, and JULY.

The seeds of the sea cabbage (crambe maritima) may be sown any time this month, in narrow beds of light earth, about four feet wide, for the convenience of weeding. They may either be sown all over the surface of the bed, tolerably thick, when they are to be transplanted, or in drills a foot and a half or two feet apart, where they are to remain. Those plants are perennial, and every year put up thick succulent floats. They should be covered some time during the course of the winter, with dry earth, to the depth of a few inches, by which the young floats, as they come up in spring, are blanched and become fit for use. They should be cut as soon as they appear above ground, or very soon after, in the manner of alparagus.

Sow brown and green cole, or bore cole.

Any time in the course of the month, some seeds of brown and green cole (kale) may be sown in an open situation, for when they are shaded they are apt to grow up tall and weak. The plants raised now will be fit for planting out in summer, and may be cut for use any time from autumn to spring.

About the beginning of this month alparagus seed may be sown in narrow beds of good earth in an open situation. The seed may be scattered regularly all over the surface of the bed, raked in, and then receive a light covering of earth from the alleys, or in drills, about an inch deep, at the distance of six inches from one another. The plants will appear above ground in March, four or five weeks, when they ought to be kept clear of weeds and watered occasionally during dry weather. The plants raised now will be fit for transplanting next spring into beds, where they are to remain and produce crops, or into plots, to remain for a year or two till they be fit for forcing.

This a proper season for making plantations of af-Asparagus paragus, for which purpose young plants of one or two to three years old are commonly used. They succeed best in a cold and deep light soil, and in an exposed situation. The ground should be well manured, dug to the depth of 12 or 15 inches, and divided into beds of the breadth of four feet and a half, in which the alparagus may be planted in rows, 10 or 12 inches apart, and about the same distance from each other in the rows. The usual mode of planting them is to stretch a garden line along the bed, and to form a drill with a spade; to the depth of about fix inches, in which the alparagus roots are placed with their crowns or buds uppermost.

A crop of onions may be sown in beds when it is an object to make the most of the ground.

The surface of alparagus beds should be loosened or dressed, turned over with a fork, in the course of this month. The instrument commonly made use of for this purpose, is a fork with three flat blunt prongs. Care must be taken not to dig too deep, lest the tops of the alparagus roots should receive injury. Immediately after the surfaces of the beds have been loosened, they should be raked over; for if the raking were to be deferred for some time till the buds of the alparagus approach the surface of the ground, they might be broken by the teeth of the rake. Asparagus beds still continue to produce good crops for 10 or 12 years, if properly managed. They ought not to be cut till the third or fourth year after they have been planted in rich soils; however, a few of the strongest floats may be cut even in the second, but it should be done sparingly. When alparagus has advanced to the height of three or four inches above ground, it should be collected for the table; but as the floats are commonly cut about three inches under the surface of the ground, care must be taken not to injure the rising buds (for several buds rise in succession from the same root), for this reason, it is commonly cut with an instrument made on purpose, called an alparagus knife, which should be introduced close by the shoot to the requisite depth, and directed so as to cut it off obliquely.

Artichoke plants, that were eartherd up during winter, to protect them from frost, should now be exa-dressed, and; if their stems appear to put up vigorously, and the earth ought to be removed and levelled. The soil should likewise be loosened from the plants, and if many floats proceed from the same root, they should all be taken away except three of the strongest. The redundant floats, if carefully detached from the main roots, may be employed to form new plantations; the earth, therefore, should be so far removed as to allow the hand to be introduced to slip them close to their insertion.

Plantations of young artichokes are made towards the end of this or in the course of next month, as soon, indeed, as the offsets (the only way in which this plant is propagated) can be procured. For this purpose choose a plot of good ground, dig in a good quantity of rotten dung, and plant the offsets with a dibble after their tops and roots have been trimmed a little (if it appear necessary), in rows about four feet and a half asunder, and at the distance of from two to three feet in the rows. A crop of spinach, lettuce, radishes, &c. may be got from the ground the first year, without injuring the artichokes. This plantation will produce heads in September and October, and will continue to produce plentiful crops for fix or seven years. Whenever artichokes are required late in the season, young plantations ought to be formed every year, as it is from them alone that heads may be expected late in autumn; for the old plantations generally produce them in June, July, and August. There are two sorts, the large globe, and the French or green oval artichoke; the former is commonly preferred, on account of the size of the head and the quantity of eatable matter they afford.

Slips or cuttings of sage, rue, rosemary, hyssop, thyme, and savory, may be planted any time this month. They should be planted about fix inches apart, and to the depth of nearly two-thirds of their length. By next autumn they will be fit for transplanting.

Some seeds of skirrets may be sown in narrow beds, in an open situation, either in drills fix inches asunder, or regularly over the surface of the bed. After the plants have come above ground, they should be thinned out to the distance of about fix inches from one another, and allowed to remain in the place where sown. This plant is frequently propagated by offsets taken from old roots, which should be planted at the distance of fix or eight inches from one another.

About the end of the month, if the weather be mild and dry, a few early kidney-beans may be sown in a well sheltered situation, at the foot of a wall, having a south exposure. See APRIL. But as these plants are tender, they are liable to be injured by cold weather, therefore a small quantity only should be sown now.

About the middle or latter end of the month some cardoons may be sown for transplanting. For this purpose a piece of light ground should be well dug, the seed sown thinly, and raked in evenly; a few weeks after the plants have come up, they should be thinned out to the distance of about fix inches from one another, to allow them room to grow till they are strong enough to be planted out, which will be in June. See JUNE. They may be sown likewise in rows five feet asunder, and at the distance of four feet from each other in the row, and allowed to remain where sown. They are biennial, grow to the height of three or four feet, and are cultivated for the sake of the footstalks of their leaves, which are blanched by being earthed up somewhat in the manner of celery, on which account they require a good deal of room.

This is a proper time to plant chives, a small species of onion, which is used in spring as a substitute for young onions. They grow in large tufts, which are propagated by parting the roots into small tufts containing eight or ten bulbs, which may be planted with the dibble in beds or rows at the distance of fix or eight inches from one another.

You may now plant Jerusalem artichokes, a species of sunflower (helianthus tuberosus) the roots of which somewhat resemble the potato, and are to be planted much in the same manner, to the depth of about four inches, in rows three feet apart, and about half that distance from each other in the row. They are fit for the table in October, and continue good all winter and spring.

A full crop of potatoes may be planted any time towards the end of this or in the course of next month. Cuttings of moderate-sized potatoes (of the variety intended to be planted), each containing one or two eyes at least, may be put in with a blunt dibble, to the depth of about four inches, in rows two feet apart, and at the distance of about a foot from each other in the row, or in trenches or holes made with the spade. In the fields they are planted either with the dibble or in furrows made by the plough. See AGRICULTURE. They succeed best in light soil, which should be well manured. After they have come above ground, they ought to be kept clear of weeds, and have a quantity of earth drawn up about their stems. There are many varieties of this vegetable, which are obtained from seed; the principal are, early dwarf, champion, large round white, oblong red and white kidney, common kidney, small white kidney, round red, large round dark red, &c.

Any time in the course of this month new plantations of mint may be formed. This plant is propagated by parting the roots or by cuttings of the young stalks; the former is practised this month, the latter in next and following month. Procure a quantity of the roots from an old plantation of mint; part and plant them in rows fix inches asunder, and about the same distance from each other in the row, either with the dibble, or in drills about an inch deep, drawn by the hoe. These plants succeed very well in any soil, but prefer a moist one. The kinds commonly cultivated are spearmint, peppermint, orange-mint, &c.

The leaves and flowers of Indian cresses are frequent- Sow Indian- ly used for salads, and their seeds for pickling. The cresses, feeds may be sown about the beginning of the month, at the distance of two or three inches from each other, in drills, about an inch deep. If they are not sown along side of a hedge or other support, they may have sticks placed beside them like peas after they have come above ground. There are two kinds, the large, and dwarf; the former is generally preferred.

Seeds of basil, love apple (or tomatoe), and capsicum, basil, &c. may be sown any time this month. They are tender annuals, and must be sown in a hot-bed, to be afterwards planted out in the open ground in May; they must be managed like other tender annuals. See Flower Garden. Basil is used in soups and salads, and must be sown in very dry earth, otherwise the seeds will rot. Love apples are used in soups and for pickling. The capsicum, of which there is great variety, is used as a pickle, and for seasoning. The principal kinds are the long-podded, heart-shaped, bell-shaped, angular-podded, round short-podded, cherry-shaped, &c.

Sow cucumbers and melons, to be planted out under hand or bell-glafes.

Some cucumber and melon seed may be sown towards the end of this month, in any of the beds already employed; or one may be formed on purpose to raise plants to be reared under bell or hand-glafes. Those sown now will be fit for ridging out in the beginning of May. See MAY. Sect. II. Fruit Garden.

All kinds of fruit trees mentioned under this head last month may be pruned now, though it ought to be performed as near the beginning of the month as possible; for if the weather has been mild during the preceding month, many of the trees will have advanced too far to be in a state proper for pruning. Figs, however, on account of the late period at which they begin to push, may be safely pruned; indeed this is the best season for pruning them.

Fruit trees may still be planted, though the earlier in the month the better; for if mild weather prevails, the buds of the trees will have advanced so far before the end of the month, as to render transplanting less safe. For the method, see October. The duration of the planting season depends more on the mildness and severity of the weather than the time of the year.

When apricot, nectarine, and peach trees are in flower, they should be protected during frost with large garden-mats fixed to the top of the walls by hooks, and fastened at the bottom to prevent them from being agitated by the wind so as to dash off the blossoms. These mats must be removed during the mildest part of the day, unless when the weather is very severe, and without sunshine. Instead of mats, old fish-nets doubled may be used for this purpose, and need not be removed during the day; a number of small branches of evergreens (well clad with leaves) fixed among the branches of the trees in flower, will also afford shelter to the blossom and setting fruit.

Dress strawberry beds, if not done last month. See February.

Fruit trees on hot walls, in peach, cherry, and vine-houses, must be duly attended to, must receive air and water regularly, and have the fires put on every evening and cold morning.

Sect. III. Flower Garden and Pleasure Ground.

If any early annuals, such as balsams, cockseombs, &c. were sown last month, they will be fit for planting out into small pots or a hot-bed prepared for the purpose. This hot-bed should be raised to the height of two feet; and when the violent heat has subsided, covered over to the depth of fix inches with rich dry earth. The plants may be put in at the distance of three or four inches from one another, or rather in small pots, because from these they can be more easily removed into larger ones at a subsequent period. Due attention must be paid to give them water and air when requisite; and linings of fresh dung must be applied to the bed whenever the heat begins to decline. If properly taken care of, they will be fit for final transplantation in May or June.

If no tender annuals were sown in February, some may be sown any time this month.

Sow less tender or half-hardy annuals, such as China aster, Indian pink, capsicum, French and African marigold, chrysanthemum, tree and purple amaranthus, and Chinese hollyhocks.

Form a flight hot-bed any time this month, which need not be raised higher than two feet, and earth it over to the depth of about fix inches. The seed may be sown in narrow drills, at the distance of two or three inches from one another, and each kind, separately or in pots, plunged in the earth of the bed. After the plants have come up, they will require plenty of free air and moderate watering; and when they have acquired the height of two or three inches, they must be gradually hardened to bear the open air, by taking the lights entirely off in mild warm days. Instead of hot-bed frames and lights, oil-paper frames, or hand-glares, may be made use of. The plants raised now will be fit for transplanting into the flower border in May. If hardy annuals were not sown last month, they may be sown any time during the present.

Cuttings of double chrysanthemums which were planted last autumn in pots or boxes, should be planted out of into pots or flower borders if mild weather prevails, chrysanthemums and auriculas in pots should be protected from rain and frost, and should still be kept covered with hooped arches, over which mats may be occasionally thrown, for should they be exposed, to much rain or severe weather now when their flower-stalks begin to advance, the future bloom might be injured. Keep the pots clear of weeds, and give them a little water in dry weather, or expose them to a gentle shower. If the pots received no fresh earth last month, let them receive some now.

Let the hoops mentioned the two preceding months hyacinths, still continue over the beds of tulips, hyacinths, ranunculus, &c. for if severe weather occurs, the beds must be protected by a covering of mats, as already mentioned. See January. When the stalks of hyacinths, particularly double ones, have advanced almost to their full height, they are apt to be borne down by the weight of their own flowers, therefore a neat small stick ought to be fixed in the ground close to every plant, to which the flowerstalks should be fastened by a piece of bals or other soft ligature.

Ranunculus and anemones may still be planted; they will succeed the early ones, and flower in June and sometimes July.

Towards the end of the month, seeds of biennial and some perennial flowers may be sown, such as carnations, pinks, sweetwilliams, wallflowers, and stock julyflowers of all sorts, alfo rose campion, catchfly, scarlet lychnis, columbines, Greek valerian, polyanthus, auriculas, fuchsias, and Canterbury bells; likewise hollyhocks, French honeyfuckles, rockets, honesty or satin flower, tree primrose, thubby mallow, broad-leaved campanula, foxglove, snapdragon or frogmouth, &c.

Biennial and perennial plants may likewise be transplanted at this season.

Trees and shrubs, both deciduous and evergreen, may still be planted; but that work should be finished before the end of the month.

Sect. IV. Nursery.

Fruit trees, elms, &c. may be grafted; and the ingrafting shoots of trees engratad last year should be so short, and treated about the time their buds begin to swell, as to leave four or five buds, which will push out branches to form a head. The floats of last year's growth of trees budded the preceding summer should likewise be shortened, and the heads of trees budded last summer should be cut off about four inches above the bud, which will Part III.

March. Nursery.

Sow seeds of trees, &c.

Seeds of hardy trees and shrubs may be sown any time this month, in beds three or four feet wide, which should be well dug, and thoroughly pulverized. The seed may be sown either regularly over the surface of the bed or in drills, and covered in proportion to their size; the acorns and other large seeds to the depth of from an inch and a half to two inches, and the smaller ones from about half an inch to an inch. Some of the more delicate shrubs, such as the arbutus, &c. may be sown in pots or boxes, by which means they will be more easily protected from the severity of the weather in winter.

Most kinds of trees and shrubs may be propagated by cuttings this month, particularly vines.

The vine cuttings must be shoots of last year's growth, about ten or twelve inches long, and each furnished with three buds. If cut from the vines during the winter, before the sap begins to rise, and preserved in dry earth, they will succeed the better. Some leave about an inch of the former year's wood attached to each cutting, but this is unnecessary. They may be planted in rows a foot and a half asunder, and at the distance of eight or ten inches from each other in rows, and so deep as to leave only their uppermost bud above ground; they should afterwards be occasionally watered, and kept clear of weeds. Though cuttings of vines may be raised in the open air, much better plants may be obtained by striking them in a hot-bed or tan-pit in a hot-house. At pruning season select some well-ripened shoots, cut them into pieces of a convenient length, and insert them a little way into pots filled with dry earth, where they may remain till wanted for planting. Protect them in severe, but in mild weather, expose them to the free air. About the beginning of this month, if there is no room in the hot-beds already made, prepare one on purpose, which may be formed and earthed over exactly like a feed-bed for melons. See January. Fill a number of pots, about four inches deep, corresponding to the cuttings you mean to plant, with light rich earth. Take the cuttings you have preferred during the winter; select the roundest and fullest buds; cut the branch about a quarter of an inch above, and about three inches below the bud, with a sharp knife, so as to make a smooth cut, and insert each close by the side of the pot, so deep that the bud may be covered about a quarter of an inch by the earth of the pot; for it is alleged, that a cutting strikes with greater freedom when placed close to the side than in the middle of the pot. When plants are raised in this manner from a single bud, they seem as if reared from seed. As soon as the cuttings are planted, plunge the pots into the earth of the bed, give them a gentle watering, and put on the glasses. Attention must be paid to the bed, to see that the heat be not too strong; for a moderate bottom heat is all that is necessary. Air should be freely admitted during the day, and even during the night, in mild weather; but when the weather is cold, the beds should be covered with mats during the night, to protect them from frost. The cuttings should likewise be shaded when the sun shines very bright, with mats; and should receive occasional watering. When the plants are about six or eight inches high, they will require to be shifted into larger pots, which must be done cautiously for fear of injuring their roots. Take pots of about fix inches deep, and about the same width; put a little good earth into the bottom of each, and turn the cutting out of the small pot into it with the ball of earth as entire as possible, and fill it up with earth. The frames of the beds should be raised in proportion as the plants increase in height, and the heat of the bed renewed by linings of fresh dung when on the decline. Support the shoots when they are about ten or twelve inches high, and pinch off the tendrils and lateral shoots as soon as they appear. They will be fit for planting out in the end of June or beginning of July.

When dry weather prevails, give gentle waterings to feeding trees and shrubs, and keep them free from feedlings weeds.

Propagate by cuttings.

April. Kitchen Garden.

SECT. V. Green-house and Hot-house.

The plants in the green-house should receive air to be freely, unless during wet or frothy weather, and more freely and frequent and plentiful waterings than in the two former months. Dead branches or decayed leaves should be removed, and any of the larger leaved plants that appear foul should have their leaves cleaned with a wet sponge. Those also which require shifting or pruning may be managed as directed last month. Sow seeds and plant cuttings of green-house plants; for which purpose a hot-bed or tan-pit of a hot-house will be necessary at this season.

Pine apple plants will require a good deal of warmth, particularly in the tan-pit; as their fruit will now be of pine considerably advanced, they must therefore be kept in a vigorous state of growth, to secure large fruit. If the heat of the tan-bed be not very great, at least one-third of new tan ought to be added. After the tan has been procured, it ought to be spread out and dried a little, and then laid up in a heap, in some shed adjacent to the hot-house, till it begin to ferment. The plants should then be taken from the tan-bed, and a quantity of the decayed tan removed from its surface and sides, to make room for the new, which must be thoroughly mixed with the old; and as this operation ought to be completed in the course of one day, a sufficient number of hands should be employed to effect it. Both pine apples and other plants in the hot-house should be regularly watered, and have fresh air admitted in bright calm days, from about two hours before till two or three after noon.

APRIL.

SECT. I. Kitchen Garden.

If the heat begin to decline in the cucumber and melon beds, they should receive linings as directed in the former months; for these plants will not yield fine fruit, or a plentiful crop, if the beds are deficient of a proper heat. Air must be admitted every day, and a moderate watering given every four or five days, particularly to cucumbers; but melons should receive it sparingly, especially when their fruits are setting, as much water at that time would prove injurious, and make the fruit drop off. Keep the plants clear of all decayed leaves leaves and decayed male flowers. When the sun shines to bright as to caufe the leaves of cucumbers and melons to flag, it will be proper to shade them for two or three hours, during its greatest heat, with a thin mat or a little loofe hay, trefewed thinly over the glafes.

Make hot-beds on which to ridge out cucumbers or melons under hand glafes or oiled paper frames. See MAY.

Sow fome cabbage, Cilicia, imperial, and large admirable cabbage lettuces any time this month; indeed, fome ought to be fown about the beginning, middle, and towards the end of the month, to fecure a regular fucceffion. Should the lettuces that were fown laft month or in February fand too thick, they may be thinned out and tranfplanted at the diftance of about ten inches from each other, and watered occasionally till they take root.

Some early kidney beans, viz. the Battersea, fpeckled, dun-coloured, and Canterbury dwarfs, may be planted towards the end of the month, in a well-fheltered fitation, expofed to the south, in drills two feet or two feet and a half aunder, and about two inches from each other in the drills. The tall running kinds fhould not be planted till next month.

Some of the cabbage and favoy plants, which were fown in February and March, fhould be thinned and tranfplanted, when their leaves are about two inches broad, into beds, to gain strength before their final tranfplantation; and thoſe which have flood the winter may be planted out for good.

Cauliflower plants under bell or hand glafes fhould have fome earth drawn up about their stems, and fhould be expofed to the open air during the day in good weather. Thoſe fown laft month fhould be planted out into beds in the open air or into flight hot-beds, to forward their growth. Some of the strongest of the plants raifed in the early part of spring may be planted out at the end of the month, at the diftance of two or two feet and a half each way from one another, and fhould be occasionally watered till they are well rooted.

Young plants of brocoli, which were fown laft month, may be planted out at the diftance of two or three inches from one another, to acquire strength for final tranfplantation; and fome feed of the early purple, late purple, and cauliflower brocoli, may be fown to raife plants for tranfplanting in June. Some plants of laft year's fowing, which produced heads this spring, fhould be allowed to remain for feed, which will ripen in Auguft.

SECT. II. Fruit Garden.

In late feafons, pear, plum, and cherry trees may still be planted, and even apricot, peach, and nectarine; but it fhould be done as early in the month as poſſible, for if any of thefe have advanced much in growth before they are tranfplanted, they will not push freely in the courfe of the fummer, and will be liable to be injured by drought. Where pruning has been neglected, it may still be done, but the sooner the better, for many fruit trees will now be in flower.

Fruit trees in flower fhould still be protected in cold weather. See MARCH. All ill-placed fhoots fhould be rubbed off, and the young fruit on apricot trees where fet too thick fhould be thinned.

Look over the vines trained on walls about the end of the month, and rub off the young fhoots which proceed from the old wood, unlefs they happen to be fituated Drel's vines, where a supply of young wood is wanted; likewife where two fhoots proceed from the fame eye on branches of laft year's growth, let the weakest be rubbed off. Stakes fhould be placed beside the vines in the vineyard, to which they fhould be tied, and the ground between the rows fhould be kept perfectly free from weeds.

The vine was introduced by the Romans into Britain, and appears formerly to have been very common. From the name of vineyard yet adhering to the ruinous fites of our castles and monasteries, there feem to have been few in the country but what had a vineyard. The county of Gloucefter is particularly commended by Malinsbury in the twelfth century, as excelling all the reft of the kingdom in the number and goodnels of its vineyards. In the earlier periods of our history the ille of Ely was expressly denominated the Isle of Vines by the Normans. Vineyards are frequently noticed in the defcriptive accounts of Doomsday; and thoſe of England are even mentioned by Bede as early as the commencement of the eighth century.

Doomsday book exhibits to us a particular proof that wine was made in England during the period preceding the conqueft. And after the conqueft, the bishop of Ely appears to have received at leaft three or four tuns annually, as tithes from the produce of the vineyards in his diocefe, and to have made frequent refervations in his leafes of a certain quantity of wine for rent. Dr Thomas, the late dean of Ely, gives the following extracts from the archives of that church.

<table> <tr> <th></th> <th>l.</th> <th>s.</th> <th>d.</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Exitus vini</td> <td>2</td> <td>15</td> <td>3½</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ditto vineae</td> <td>10</td> <td>12</td> <td>2½</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ten bushels of grapes from the vineyard</td> <td>0</td> <td>7</td> <td>6</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Seven dolia muti from the vineyard, 12th Edward II.</td> <td>15</td> <td>1</td> <td>0</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Wine fold for</td> <td>1</td> <td>12</td> <td>0</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Verjuice</td> <td>1</td> <td>7</td> <td>0</td> </tr> <tr> <td>One dolium and one pipe filled with new wine, and fuppoſed at Ely. For wine out of this vineyard</td> <td>1</td> <td>2</td> <td>2</td> </tr> <tr> <td>For verjuice from thence.</td> <td>0</td> <td>16</td> <td>0</td> </tr> <tr> <td>No wine but verjuice made, 9th Edward IV.</td> <td colspan="3"></td> </tr> </table>

From these extracts it appears that Ely grapes would sometimes ripen, and the convent made wine of them; and sometimes not, and then they converted them into verjuice. Maddocks in his history of the Exchequer. i. 364. says that the sheriffs of Northamptonshire and Leicesterhire, were allowed their account, for the livery of the king's vinedreffer at Rockingham, and for neceffaries for the vineyard. A piece of land in London, now forming East Smithfield and fome adjoining streets, was withheld from the religious house within Aldgate by four fuccelfive constables of the Tower in the reigns of Rufus, Henry, and Stephen, and made by them into a vineyard, to their great emolument. In the old accounts of rectorial and vicarial revenues, and in the old registers of ecclesiatical suits concerning them, the tithe of wine is an article that frequently occurs in Kent, Surry, and other counties. And the wines of Gloucestershire within a century after the conquest were little inferior to the French in sweetness. It is alleged that a black grape very similar to the black muscadine was introduced from Gaul into Britain, about the middle of the third century. To these proofs of the antiquity of vineyards in Britain, we shall add the following account of the vineyard at Pains-hill, Surry, (the most extensive one at present in England), given by the original proprietor, the honourable Charles Hamilton, to Sir Edward Barry, and published in his Treatise on Wines, p. 468.

"The vineyard at Pains-hill is situated on the south side of a gentle hill, the soil a gravelly sand: it is planted entirely with two kinds of Burgundy grapes, the Auvernat, which is the most delicate, but the tenderest; and the Miller grape, commonly called the black cluster, which is more hardy. The first year I attempted to make red wine in the usual way, by treading the grapes, then letting them ferment in a vat, till all the husks and impurities formed a thick crust at the top: the boiling ceased, and clear wine was drawn off from the bottom. This essay did not answer; the wine was so very harsh and austere, that I despaired of ever making red wine fit to drink; but through that hardship I perceived a flavour something like that of some small French white wines, which made me hope I should succeed better with white wine. That experiment succeeded far beyond my most sanguine expectation; for the very first year I made white wine, it nearly resembled the flavour of Champagne; and in two or three years more, as the vines grew stronger, to my great amazement my wine had a finer flavour than the best Champagne I ever tasted. The first running was as clear as spirits; the second was eil de perdrix; and both of them sparkled and creamed in the glass like Champagne. It would be endless to mention how many great judges of wine were deceived by my wine, and thought it superior to any Champagne they ever drank; but such is the prejudice of most people against anything of English growth, I generally found it most prudent not to declare where it grew, till after they had passed their verdict upon it. The surest proof I can give of its excellence is, that I have sold it to wine merchants for fifty guineas a hoghead; and one wine merchant to whom I sold five hundred pounds worth at one time assured me, he told some of the best of it from 7s. 6d. to 10s. 6d. per bottle. After many years experience, the best method I found of making and managing it was this: I let the grapes hang till they had got all the maturity the season would give them; then they were carefully cut off with secateurs, and brought home to the wine barn, in small quantities, to prevent their heating, or pressing one another; then they were all picked off the stalks, and all the mouldy or green ones were discarded, before they were put upon the press; where they were all pressed in a few hours after they were gathered: much would run from them, before the press squeezed them, from their own weight one upon another. This running was as clear as water, and sweet as syrup; and all this of the first pressing, and part of the second continued white; the other pressings grew red-dish, and were not mixed with the best. As fast as the wine run from the press into a large receiver, it was put into the hogheads, and closely bunged up. In a few hours one would hear the fermentation begin, which would soon burst the casks, if not guarded against, by hooping them strongly with iron, and securing them in strong wooden frames, and the heads with wedges. In the height of fermentation, I have frequently seen the wine oozing through the pores of the staves. The hogheads were left all the depth of winter in the cold barn, to reap the benefit of the frosts. When the fermentation was over, which was easily discovered by the cessation of noise and oozing, but to be more certain, by pegging the casks, when it would be quite clear, then it was racked off into clean hogheads, and carried to the vaults, before any warmth of weather could raise a second fermentation. In March, the hogheads were examined: if any were not quite fine, they were fined down with common fish glue in the usual manner; those that were fine of themselves were not fined down, and all were bottled about the end of March; and in about six weeks more would be in perfect order for drinking, and would be in their prime for about one year; but the second year the flavour and sweetness would abate, and would gradually decline, till at last it lost all flavour and sweetness; and some that I kept fifteen years became so like old hock, that it might pass for such to one who was not a perfect connoisseur. The only art I ever used to it, was putting three pounds of white sugarcandy to some of the hogheads, when the wine was first turned from the press, in order to conform to a rage that prevailed, to drink none but very sweet Champagne. I am convinced much good wine might be made in many parts of the south of England. Many parts are south of Pains-hill; many soils may be yet fitter for it; and many situations must be so: for mine was much exposed to the south-west wind (the worst of all for vines), and the declivity was rather too steep; yet with these disadvantages it succeeded many years. Indeed the uncertainty of our climate is against it, and many fine crops have been spoiled by May frosts and wet summers; but one good year balances many disappointments."

In a dissertation on the growth of wine in England by F. X. Visper, printed at Bath 1786, there is a method of training vines along the surface of the ground proposed, which seems well adapted to the northerly climate of Britain, for which the Rev. M. L. Broeg obtained a patent. Mr Visper acknowledges that he took the first hint from the following passage, from Lord Chancellor Bacon: "The lowness of the fruit boughs makes the fruit greater, and causes it to ripen better; for we always see in apricots, peaches, and mello-cottens; upon a wall, the largest fruit is towards the bottom; and in France, the grapes that make the wine grow upon low vines bound to small stakes, while the raised vines in arbours make juice." He adds "It is reported, that in some places vines are suffered to grow like herbs, spreading upon the ground, and the grapes of these vines are very large; it were proper to try whether plants usually sustained by props, will not bear large leaves and fruit if laid along the ground." SECT. III. The Flower Garden, or Pleasure Ground.

Sow and transplant tender annuals. See FEBRUARY and MARCH. Protect hyacinths, ranunculus, and anemones, planted in beds, from heavy rain and frost, as directed in January and February; likewise, when they are in flower, from very bright sunlight, from about two hours before till two or three after noon; but in this case the covering should be raised a considerable height, to admit air, and allow them to be viewed.

Plant tuberous in a hot-bed or hot-house, and give them but little water till they have come above ground.

Evergreen shrubs and trees may still be planted, but the earlier in the month the better.

Gras walks and lawns should be poled, rolled, and mown. Gravel walks may be broken up and turned.

SECT. IV. Nursery.

Look over newly engrafted trees, and see if the clay keeps close about the grafts, as it is apt to crack and fall off; when you find it any way defective so as to admit the air and rain to the graft, then remove it and apply fresh clay in its stead. All shoots which rise from the stalk below the graft must be taken off whenever they are produced; for if permitted to remain, they would rob the graft of nourishment, and prevent it shooting freely.

Trees that were budded last year, will now begin to push out their first shoots. Should they be infested with insects, so as to cause any of their leaves to curl, these should be picked off, and pains taken to destroy the vermin. Shoots that proceed from the stock under the bud must be rubbed off as soon as they appear.

The sowing and transplanting of young trees and shrubs from the feed-bed, or where they stand too thick, should be finished early in the month, and if very dry weather prevail, water should be given to feed-beds, cuttings, and lately transplanted trees and shrubs.

SECT. V. Green-house and Hot-house.

Air may be admitted, and water given more freely than in the former months, because the plants will begin now to advance in growth; but in general the management must be nearly the same as recommended last month.

A proper degree of warmth, both in the bark bed and in the air of the hot-house, is requisite for fruiting pine apple plants. Water may be more frequently given, and air admitted more freely, because the weather will be milder; and in other respects they must be managed as directed in March. The succession pine apple plants, or such as are to fruit next year should be shifted into larger pots, (viz. 24s.) the size commonly made use of. When the plants are healthy, they should be turned out of the pots with the ball of earth about their roots as entire as possible, and put them into larger ones with an additional quantity of fresh earth; but should the plants be sickly, infected with insects, or appear to have bad roots, the whole of the earth should be shaken off, and the roots trimmed, a few of the under leaves stripped off the stem, and the plants then put into pots filled entirely with fresh earth.

After the plants have been thus shifted, they should have a moderate quantity of water given them frequently, which will promote their growth. The young pine apple plants which were raised from suckers or crowns last season should likewise be shifted into larger pots, if their roots appear to have filled those in which they have stood during the winter: if healthy, they should be turned out of the pots with the ball of earth entire; if otherwise, they must be treated like the succession plants as above.

This is a proper season for propagating hot-house Propagate plants by cuttings, layers, &c. or for sowing their seeds. hot-house Cuttings of green-house plants may likewise be struck plants, in the bark bed of the hot-house, and kept there till fit for transplanting.

MAY.

SECT. I. Kitchen Garden.

Melons require attention, particularly when their Treatment fruit are setting. The heat of the hot-beds must be kept up by proper linings; water must be given moderately, and air admitted regularly. In warm weather when the sun shines bright, the plants should be shaded from its rays for an hour or two about mid day, by a covering of mats or something of that nature. A piece of tile or flate should be placed under each fruit after it is set, to prevent it from coming into contact with the moist earth of the bed, which would injure it, and cause it to drop off. Ridges may be formed for the reception of the melon and cucumber plants, which were sown last or preceding month, to be raised under hand or bell glases. These ridges should be about four feet wide, and are to be constructed in the same manner as hot-beds. See JANUARY. The dung should be raised to the height of two feet and a half, and covered with fix or eight inches of rich light earth, and may be made either in trenches about a foot deep or on the surface of the ground. When more than one ridge is to be constructed, they should be placed parallel to one another at the distance of about four feet, which interval should afterwards be filled up with fresh horse-dung when the heat in the ridges begins to decline; this will both revive the heat, and when earthed over, will afford room to extend the advancing runners of the plants. As soon as the ridges are earthed over, the hand or bell glases may be put on along the middle of the bed, at the distance of four feet, when intended for melons, and three feet when for cucumbers; and the following day, or as soon after as the earth under the glases has become warm, a hole should be made under each, into which two melon or three cucumber plants are to be put with the ball of earth about their roots; the earth should then be well cloed about the ball and stem of the plant, a little water given, and the glases put on. Shade them for a day or two, and give air during the day by raising the glases. When the plants have filled the glases, the runners must be trained out from under them, but this should not take place till the end of the month, or some time in June. Oil paper frames are sometimes used for covering the ridges. These frames Part III.

May. Fruit Garden.

frames are made of thin slips of wood covered with paper, rendered transparent and water proof by means of oil. Melons reared in this way will produce plentifully in August and September, and cucumbers from the middle of June, till the cold weather in autumn set in. If no cucumber plants were raised in March or April for this purpose, some seeds may be sown in the ridges. Some may likewise be sown about the end of the month in the open ground, to produce a crop for pickling; but should cold weather prevail at that time, it should be deferred till June. Gourds and pumpkins may be sown in the open ground in a warm situation, or in a hot-bed, to be afterwards transplanted.

A full crop of kidney beans may be planted both of the dwarf and tall running sorts: the former, viz. black speckled, Battersea and Canterbury white, should be planted in drills about an inch deep, and two feet and a half asunder, at the distance of two or three inches from each other; the latter, viz. the scarlet and large Dutch white, should be sown in drills, about an inch and a half deep, and three feet and a half or four asunder. These running kinds must have tall sticks, or some support of that nature.

The capicum and love apples which were raised last out, or the preceding month in hot-beds, may be planted out into well sheltered situations exposed to the south.

Some spinach plants, both of the smooth and prickly seeded, should be allowed to run up for seed; and some of the different kinds of radishes should be transplanted for the same purpose.

The different crops should be kept clear of weeds, and thinned with the hoe. Turnips may be left at the distance of seven or eight inches from each other; carrots, fix or eight; parsnips, eight to ten or twelve; onions, four or five; Hamburgh parsley, scorzonera, and falfasy, fix or seven; and cardoons, five or fix; that they may acquire strength for final transplantation.

Plant out cabbages, savoys, cauliflower, broccoli, and bore cole.

185 Plant kidney beans.

186 Capicum, &c. planted out.

187 Sow spinach.

188 Weed and thin crops.

189 Plant out cabbages, &c.

190 Wall-trees trained.

191 Examine vines.

SECT. II. Fruit Garden.

As wall trees will now have made vigorous shoots, a sufficient quantity of the best placed lateral, and all the terminal ones, should be trained to the wall, and all foresight, ill placed, superfluous, and very luxuriant shoots, should be removed. None of the young branches should be floured, unless where a supply of new wood is wanted to fill up some vacant space. When the fruit stands too thick on wall trees, they should be thinned. When wall trees are infested with insects, means should be made use of to destroy them; the curled leaves should be picked off with a view to check their propagation: tobacco dust may be sometimes employed with advantage; but water sprinkled plentifully over the branches with an engine constructed on purpose, is the most efficacious remedy.

Let vines both on walls and in vineyards be looked over; and let all superfluous branches, which proceed from the old wood or lateral shoots, which are pushed out by the young branches, be rubbed off; indeed this must be done constantly during the summer.

June. Kitchen Garden.

SECT. III. The Flower Garden, or Pleasure Ground.

Tender annuals should be transplanted into newly formed hot-beds, when they are wished to flower early and in full perfection, particularly balsams and cockle-combs.

Let the auricula plants in pots, which are past flower, be placed in some situation where they may enjoy some free air and the sun till about ten o'clock in the morning.

Some wallflower and stock gilliflower seed may be sown about the beginning of the month; cuttings also flower, &c. of double wall-flowers and stocks may be planted under bell and hand glases, or in a shady border.

Perennial and biennial plants that were sown last March, will be fit for transplanting about the end of the month into beds, where they may remain to acquire strength.

SECT. IV. Nursery.

TOWARDS the end of the month, the clay should be removed from newly grafted trees, and the bandages grafted loose, because they might check the growth of the grafts, which will now shoot freely; and all buds under the graft should be carefully removed.

SECT. V. Green-house and Hot-house.

ABOUT the end of the month, if the weather should be favourable, the greater part of the plants may be removed from the green-house, and placed in some well-into open sheltered situation in the open air. The plants in the air hot-house should receive water and air freely, particularly in bright weather.

JUNE.

SECT. I. Kitchen Garden.

The same care of cucumbers and melons which was recommended for last month, is necessary now; the cucumbers sown in the open ground last month should be thinned, when they begin to push out their first rough leaves, and a few more seeds may be sown for the same purpose, but the earlier in the month the better. Transplant celery for blanching. For this purpose, form trenches, about a spade deep and three feet apart; lay the earth which comes out of the trenches regularly along each side; lay into each trench some well rotten dung, and dig it in: put the plants in a row along the middle of the trench at the distance of four or five inches from one another. About a month or six weeks after they have been planted, when they have acquired the height of fix or eight inches, a quantity of earth should be laid about their stems, to blanch them and prepare them for the table; this should be done during dry weather, and repeated once a fortnight, or according as the plants advance in growth, till they are blanched to the height of a foot or fifteen inches. The earlier sown celery will be fit for transplanting about the beginning of the month; the later sown, about the end.

About the latter end of the month transplant endive for: for blanching; which should be planted out in rows, a foot apart, and at the same distance from one another in the row. Some endive seed should be sown for a principal crop; the green curled is commonly sown for this purpose, because it is least apt to be injured by rain or cold.

The cauliflower, broccoli, and bore-cole plants which were sown last month, should be planted out at the distance of about three inches from one another, into beds where they may remain, to acquire strength to fit them for final transplantation in July. Some of the early cauliflowers plants, which have formed good heads, should be allowed to stand for feed, which will ripen in September.

About the middle of this month is the best season for sowing a principal crop of turnips; the different kinds commonly sown, are the yellow, white Dutch, round white, stone-turnip, Swedish, black Russian, small French round. The large white Norfolk, green topped, and red-topped, are chiefly used for field culture.

Plant out leeks in rows nine inches asunder, and about six inches from one another in the row; it is an usual practice to trim off the extremities of their leaves and of their roots before they are planted.

Plant out pot-herbs, such as thyme, savory, sweet-marjoram and hyssop; likewise angelica, marigolds, clary, &c. A rainy or dull day should be chosen, and the plants put in at the distance of six inches from one another; occasional watering will be necessary, till they have taken root. Cuttings or slips of sage, hyssop, rue, rosemary, lavender, &c. may be planted in a shady situation, and occasionally watered.

SECT. II. Fruit Garden.

Wall trees, and vines in the vineyard, require the same attention this month that was recommended last. When plantations of strawberries are wanted, the young plants that are produced at the joints of the runners, that are furnished with good roots, should be taken up about the end of this month, and planted in a shady border at the distance of about five inches from one another; by September they will be fit to be planted out at the distance of a foot or fifteen inches from each other.

SECT. III. Flower Garden, or Pleasure Ground.

The roots of hyacinths, jonquils, ranunculuses, &c. should be taken up after their stalks begin to decay, dried and preserved till planting season; the roots of narcissi, crocus, snow-drop, &c. may likewise be taken up and separated, and either planted again immediately or kept till autumn.

Take up also autumnal flowering bulbs, such as colchicum, autumnal crocuses and narcissi, Guernsey and belladona lilies, cyclamens, &c.; take off the offsets, and plant them again immediately, or keep them till next month.

Perennial plants, such as double scarlet lychnis, double rocket, &c. may be propagated by cuttings of their stalks; each cutting should consist of three or four joints, two of which, (or more than one half the length of the cutting), should be inserted into the ground; they may be either planted into a shady border, three or four inches apart, or more closely together, and covered with bell or hand glass.

Propagate carnations, pinks, and double sweet-williams, by layers. Select young shoots about five or fix inches long for this purpose; strip off the leaves from the lower Carnations, part of the stalks, and trim off the tops of those placed &c. at its extremity; make a slanting cut with a sharp knife on the under part of the stalk, which should commence at a joint near the middle of the shoot, and extend upwards almost half way to the next; make a hole in the earth about an inch or an inch and a half deep, immediately under the shoot, for its reception; fix it down with a small hooked stick, and cover it with earth, except an inch or two at its extremity. A little water should be given in dry weather, which will make the layers strike root more readily. Pinks and carnations may likewise be propagated by cuttings or pipings. These pipings are formed of the extremities of the young shoots, taken off immediately under the third joint, which should be inserted into light earth almost to their tops, (the extremities of their leaves being previously trimmed off). They should receive a little water to make the earth settle closely about them, and should be covered with a bell or hand glass. The earth is sometimes rendered quite wet, and reduced to a flate resembling mortar, before the pipings are introduced.

About the end of the month hedges should receive their first clipping.

SECT. IV. Nursery.

About the end of the month you may inoculate fruit-trees, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and roses: for the method, inoculated, see July.

If any of the trees that were budded last summer, or grafted last spring, have made very vigorous shoots, these should be fixed into the ground close to the stocks, to which both the stocks and shoots must be fixed.

Propagate both deciduous and evergreen shrubs by layers, particularly such as do not push out roots freely except from the new wood.

SECT. V. Green-house and Hot-house.

If the green-house plants were not placed in the open Exotics air last month, on account of the coldness of the weather, they may be safely trussed out now. These plants may be propagated this month by cuttings, layers, inarching, &c.

Hot-house plants may likewise be propagated now, and should receive a plentiful allowance of air and water; pine apple plants which are approaching to maturity should be sparingly watered, because too much water would injure the flavour of the fruit.

JULY.

SECT. I. Kitchen Garden.

Plant out cabbages, favours, broccoli, bore-cole, endive and celery; for the methods see the former months. Sow some brocoli seed about the beginning of the month. Sow some endive seed for a winter crop; the green curled endive is the best for this purpose, but some white and Batavian may likewise be sown. Some kidney-beans, of the dwarf kind, should be sown for a late crop. Some turnip-rooted or Spanish radish may be sown, and managed exactly like turnip; there are two kinds, the black and the white; both of which are very hardy, and stand the winter well.

Some peas and beans may be sown when a late crop is wanted.

As artichokes now advance to maturity, those who prefer one large head to two or three smaller ones, ought to cut off all the lateral heads from the stalks, before they exceed the size of a hen's egg; which will promote the growth of the principal head. It is a common practice to break down the stalks of artichokes near the ground, as soon as their heads have been cut for the table, to make them pull more vigorously from the root.

If the stalks of onions, garlic, and leek, begin to decay, which is sometimes the case about the end of this month, they should be pulled up and dried. See AUGUST.

SECT II. Fruit Garden.

As fruits advance to maturity, wall trees should be protected from birds by nets; and means should be taken to destroy snails, wasps, and other insects.

SECT. III. Flower Garden, or Pleasure Ground.

Some tender annuals may be planted out into the flower borders in the open air.

Seedling auriculas and polyanthus may be planted out, into a border not exposed to the mid-day sun, at the distance of two inches from one another, and watered occasionally.

SECT. IV. Nursery.

Inoculate apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, and pears; the first four are commonly inoculated on plum stocks, the last on pear or quince stocks. Inoculating or budding, as it is termed, may be performed on many other trees, and thubs; the method of performing it is as follows.

With a budding knife, which resembles a penknife with a flat handle, make a horizontal cut at some smooth part quite through the bark of the stock, from the middle of which make a perpendicular cut downwards, about two inches in length, so as to form a figure resembling the letter T. Take a young shoot of the tree, with which you intend to inoculate, cut off the leaves from its lower extremity, leaving a small part of the footstalk of each; then, about an inch under the lowest bud, make a cross-cut in the shoot almost halfway through, with the knife flaring upwards, and with a clean cut, bring it out about half an inch above the bud, detaching part both of the wood and bark containing the bud. Separate the small piece of the wood which was taken off along with the bud, from the bark, which is readily done with your knife, placing the point of it between the bark and wood at one end; then examine the inside of the bark, to see if the internal end of the bud be left; for if there appears a small hole, the eye is gone with the wood, and the bud becomes useless; but if no hole appears, the bud is good, and may be inserted into the stock, by raising the bark with the hand of the budding knife on each side of the perpendicular cut, immediately under the ends cut. If the piece of bark which contains the bud be too long for the incision made in the stock, it should be reduced to a proper length with the knife, and introduced between the bark and wood of the stock, and placed so as to make the bud project through the perpendicular cut. Having fixed the bud, and placed the bark of the stock closely above it, put a bandage of mat, which should be previously steeped in water to increase its tenacity, round the stock, which should extend from a little below to a little above the incision; taking care that none of the folds of the bandage cover the bud.

In three weeks or a month after the inoculation has been performed, the buds will have united with the stock, which is discoverable by the bud appearing plump; the bandages should then be removed: were they to remain, they would cramp the buds and injure them. The incisions should be made in the stocks about six inches above ground, when dwarf trees are wanted; and at the height of six feet, when standards are to be inoculated: the buds remain dormant, and require no further attention till next spring; when they begin to push out, the heads of the stalks should be cut off.

Seedling pines, where they stand too thick in the seedling feed-bed, may be transplanted; but great care must be taken to water them and shade them from the sun.

SECT. V. Green House and Hot House.

Greenhouse plants require a plentiful supply of water at this season. If the fruit have set too thick on orange or lemon trees, they should be thinned, otherwise they will not acquire a proper size.

As many of the pines will ripen their fruit in the course of this month, it is a proper time to begin to propagate these plants, which is done by planting the crowns that are produced at the top of the fruit, and the suckers which proceed from the root of the plants, about the time the fruit is ripe, or soon after they are cut.

These suckers or crowns, if properly managed, will produce fruit in two years, and then decay. Each fruit is surmounted by at least one crown, which frequently has a number of offsets at its base; and each plant, after it has produced fruit, throws out from its root one or more suckers before it decays. The crowns, when they are separated from the fruit, must lie five or six days in some dry place, till the part which was attached to the fruit is completely dried, before they are fit for planting. The suckers which proceed from the root of the plant should be taken off, when they have acquired the length of five or six inches, and when their lower extremity has become brown; they must likewise lie in some dry situation for a few days, till the part by which they were connected with the root of the parent plant be thoroughly dried. Put each crown or sucker into a small pot, filled with light rich earth, and plunge them in the bark-bed of a hot-house, or in a hot-bed made on purpose.

A method of raising pine apples in water is given by William Bastard, Esq. of Devonshire, in the 67th volume of the Royal Horticultural Society's Transactions. lume of the Philosophical Transactions. His account of this method is as follows:

"In the front part of the house, and indeed anywhere in the lowest parts of it, the pine-apple plants will not thrive well in water. The way in which I treat them is as follows:—I place a shelf near the highest part of the back wall, so that the pine apples may stand without absolutely touching, but as near it as can be; on this shelf I place pans full of water, about seven or eight inches deep; and in these pans I put the pineapple plants, growing in the same pots of earth as they are generally planted in, to be plunged into the bark-bed in the common way; that is, I put the pot of earth, with the pine plant in it, in the pan full of water, and as the water decreases I constantly fill up the pan. I place either plants in fruit, or young plants, as soon as they are well rooted, in these pans of water, and find they thrive equally well: the fruit reared this way is always much larger, as well as better flavoured, than when ripened in the bark-bed. I have more than once put only the plants themselves without any earth, I mean after they had roots, into these pans of water, with only water sufficient to keep the roots always covered, and found them flourish beyond expectation. In my house the shelf I mention is supported by irons from the top; and there is an intervening space of about 10 inches between the back wall and the shelf. A neighbour of mine has placed a leaden eifern upon the top of the back flue, in which, as it is in contact with the flue, the water is always warm when there is fire in the house, and finds his fruit excellent and large. My shelf does not touch the back flue, but is about a foot above it; and, consequently, the water is only warmed by the air in the house. Both these methods do well. The way I account for this success is, that the warm air, always ascending to the part where the shelf is placed, as being the highest part of the house, keeps it much hotter than in any other part. The temperature at that place is, I believe, seldom less than what is indicated by the 73° of Fahrenheit's thermometer, and when the sun shines it is often above 100°; the water the plants grow in seems to enable them to bear the greatest heat, if sufficient air be allowed; and I often see the roots of plants growing out of the holes in the bottom of the pot of earth, and shooting vigorously in the water.

"My hot-house, the dimensions of which it may be proper to know, is 60 feet long, and 11 feet wide, the flues included; six feet high in the front, and 11 feet at the back of the inside of the house. It is warmed by two fires. A leaden trough or eifern on the top of the back flue is preferable to my fuel; as in it the pine plants grow much faster in the winter, the water being always warmed by the flue. Of this I have seen great benefits these last two months in my neighbourhood.

"It is not foreign to this purpose to mention, that as a person was moving a large pine plant from the hot-bed in my house last summer, which plant was just flowering fruit, by some accident he broke off the plant just above the earth in which it grew, and there was no root whatever left to it. By way of experiment, I took the plant, and fixed it upright in a pan of water, without any earth whatever, in the shelf; it there soon threw out roots, and bore a pine apple that weighed upwards of two pounds."

1. The bromelia ananas, of which there are six varieties: 1. Ovatus, or oval-shaped pine apple. 2. Pyramidalis (pyramidal), or sugar-loaf pine. 3. Glaber, with smooth leaves. 4. Lucidus, with shining green leaves. 5. Serotinus, with a yellowish-coloured leaf. 6. Viridis, or green pine apple.

The first sort of ananas is the most common in Europe; but the second sort is much preferable to it, the fruit of this being larger and much better flavoured: the juice of this sort is not so astringent as that of the first; so that this fruit may be eaten in greater quantity, with less danger. This sort frequently produces suckers immediately under the fruit, whereby it may be increased much better than the common sort; so that in a few years it may be the best common sort in Britain.

The third sort is preferred for curiosity by way of variety; but the fruit is not worth any thing.

The sort with very smooth green leaves, was raised from seeds taken out of a rotten fruit, which came from the West Indies to the late Henry Heathcote, Esq. from whom Mr Miller received one plant, which produced large fruit: this is what the people of America call the king pine.

AUGUST.

SECT. I. Kitchen Garden.

Sow some prickly-fedded, or triangular-leaved spi-Sow winter nach, for a winter and spring crop; for though the crops of round-fedded produces larger and more succulent leaves, the prickly-fedded is to be preferred now, because it is by much the hardier of the two. After the plants have got their first leaves about an inch broad, they should be thinned to the distance of four inches from one another, and kept free from weeds.

Sow some cabbage seed both of the early and late kinds, to produce plants for next year.

Sow some onions, to be used when young in winter or spring, or to produce a crop of early onions this summer. The Strauburg or any other kind may be sown now, but the Welsh onion is very hardy, and stands the winter well; for though their tops should be destroyed by the severity of the weather, they will push up again from the root in the spring: this onion, however, does not produce bulbs.

Towards the end of the month sow some cauliflower feed to produce plants for an early crop next summer, which may be protected during the winter, either under hot-bed frames, bell or hand-glafles, or in a well-sheltered border exposed to the south. Between the 18th and 24th of this month is, perhaps, the best time to sow these seeds. The London gardeners, who sow great quantities, are accustomed to sow them on a particular day, viz. the 21st of this month. If they be sown too early, they are apt to button, as the gardeners term it, i.e. run up to feed without producing heads of a proper size; and if they be sown too late, the plants do not acquire sufficient strength, before winter, to enable them to support the severity of the weather.

Sow some lettuce seed about the middle of the month, both to supply the table late in the autumn, or beginning of winter, and to plant out into well-sheltered borders, or under hot-bed frames, to stand during winter. Part III.

Plant out broccoli, favoys, bore-cole, and celery, for the use of winter and spring.

The cardoons which were planted in June should have some earth laid up to their items, to blanch them and render them fit for the table. That this may be accomplished the more easily, tie up the leaves of each plant, with a piece of bals mat or small straw rope, and apply some earth close round the stem, which earthing must be repeated at intervals, till it rise to the height of two feet.

The principal crops of onions will be fit for taking up in the course of this month. Choose a dry day for taking them up; take off the stalks within two or three inches of the bulb; spread them in some dry place, exposed to the sunshine, for 10 or 12 days, that they may be thoroughly dried.

Sect. II. Fruit Garden.

Look over vines, figs, and other wall trees; remove all foreright and superfluous branches, and nail the others close into the wall, that the rays of the sun may have free access to the fruit.

Vines in the vineyard likewise should be fixed to the stakes, and cleared of all superfluous shoots.

Sect. III. Flower Garden, or Pleasure Ground.

About the end of the month, you may propagate by slips, fibrous-rooted perennial plants, such as double rose campion, catchfly, double scarlet lychnis, double rocket, double ragged robin, bachelors button, gentianella, polyanthus, auriculas, double daffies, &c. As these plants frequently grow in tufts, they may be taken up and divided, taking care that every slip be provided with some roots.

Auricula plants in pots should receive fresh earth.

Auricula and polyanthus seed may be sown any time this month, but will not come up till spring.

Layers of carnations, double sweetwilliams, and pinks, that are properly rooted, may be separated from the parent plant, and planted into borders or pots. Cuttings and pipings of pinks and carnations, may be planted out into beds or borders.

Towards the end of the month the seeds of bulbous-rooted flowers, such as tulips, hyacinths, narcissus, iris, crocus, fritillaria, crown imperial, lilies, and snowdrops; likewise, the seeds of anemone, ranunculus, and cyclamen, may be sown in beds or boxes, to obtain new varieties. They must be protected during winter from the frost; and when they appear above ground in spring, they must be kept clear of weeds.

Plant out feeding biennials and perennials

About the end of this month hedges should receive their second clipping.

Sect. IV. Nursery.

Budding may still be performed about the beginning of the month, and those trees which were budded three weeks or a month ago, should be examined. If the buds remain plump and fresh, there is reason to believe that they have succeeded; in that case the bandages must be loosened.

Sect. V. Green-house and Hot-house.

Green-house plants, in the open air, must be managed as already directed.

The plants in the hot-house must receive a plentiful allowance of air and water.

Succession pine-apple plants, that are to produce fruit next year, should be shifted into larger pots, viz. twenty-fours or sixteens, about the beginning of the month. The plants should be turned out of the old pots and placed in the new ones, a quantity of light rich earth being previously put into the bottom of each. Each pot should then be filled with some of the same earth, watered, and plunged into the tan, which, at the same time, should be turned over and receive an addition of about one-third of fresh tan.

September.

Sect. I. Kitchen Garden.

Plant some brown Dutch, cos, and common cabbage lettuces, in a well-sheltered situation, exposed to the mid-day sun, to be covered with hot-bed frames and glass, which should not be put over them till some time next month.

Plant out from the seed-bed the cauliflowers that were sown last month, into well-sheltered borders, at flowers, the distance of three or four inches from one another, taking care not to plant them too deep as to cover their hearts with earth. These plants may be either planted out again next month under garden frames, bell or hand-glases, to stand during the winter, or may remain where planted.

Plant broccoli, favoys, bore-cole, celery, and endive. Broccoli, &c.

Earth up celery and cardoons.

Tie up the leaves of endive with a piece of bals mat, or something of that nature, to blanch them, and prepare them for the table.

Mushroom beds may be formed any time this month, Preparation as spawn will very easily be procured during August, September, or October. The spawn has the appearance of a white mould shooting out in strings, which, when bruised, smells like mushrooms. It may be obtained either from old mushroom beds, old hot-beds, or dung hills that are principally composed of horse dung, and from pasture fields, indeed in any place where horse or sheep's dung has lain for some time undisturbed and not exposed to much moisture; and may be preserved for a considerable length of time, in a proper state for using. If spawn is not otherwise to be procured, some may be produced by laying a quantity of horse-dung and rich earth in alternate layers, and covered with straw to exclude the rain and air; for the more these are excluded, the sooner the spawn will appear, which commonly happens in about two months after the dung and earth have been laid together. Mushroom beds should be formed of dung that has been spread out for some time, without having been fermented, and may be made two or three feet broad, and of any length. A stratum of dung about a foot thick, should be laid first, which should be covered with rich earth to the depth of about four inches, then ano- ther stratum of dung about ten inches thick, which should be covered like the former; a third stratum of dung may be laid and covered with earth like the two former. The whole should be made to grow narrower as it advances in height, and formed into a ridge resembling the roof of a house. When the bed is finished it should be covered with straw, to exclude the rain, and to prevent the bed from being dried by the sun or wind, in which situation it should remain eight or ten days, when the bed will be in a proper temperature of warmth to receive the spawn. The spawn should be placed in lumps four or five inches asunder, in the sloping sides of the bed, and covered with a little rich earth; the whole must then be covered with a thick coat of straw. When these beds are made in spring or autumn, as the weather in those months is temperate, the spawn will take soon, and the mushrooms will appear in about a month after the bed has been made; but when these are made in winter, when the weather is cold, or even in summer when the weather is very hot, a much longer time will elapse. The principal thing to be attended to, in the management of these beds, is to preserve them in a proper degree of moisture and warmth. Therefore, when the weather is very cold or very wet, care must be taken to apply a thick covering of dry straw, and when the bed appears dry, a gentle watering must be given.

Sect. II. Fruit Garden.

Where any fruit, particularly grapes, are shaded with leaves, pains should be taken to expose them to the rays of the sun, that they may acquire proper flavour, likewise when the clusters are entangled, they should be disengaged, that each may have the benefit of the sun and air.

Strawberries may be planted any time this month when the weather is showery. If rain should not fall towards the beginning of the month, the transplanting should be deferred, otherwise they must be watered occasionally, for some time after they are planted. If any were planted into beds in June, they will be in excellent condition for planting out now; but if none were planted out then, the best rooted plants produced at the joints of the runners, or off-sets from the old plants, should be chosen, and planted at the distance of a foot or 15 inches from one another, either in beds, about four feet wide, or in rows along the borders. Most kinds of strawberries succeed best in an open situation, but the wood strawberry may be planted under the shade of trees or bushes.

The principal kinds of strawberries, are, the scarlet or Virginian, white wood, green wood, red wood, large white wood, hautboy, strawberry, large globe hautboy, oblong hautboy, royal hautboy, green hautboy, Chili strawberry, globe Chili, sugar-loaf Chili, pine apple Chili, Bath Chili, Carolina Chili, white Carolina Chili, Devonshire Chili, Royal Chili, Dutch Chili, Alpine or prolific, which produces fruit from June to November, red Alpine, white Alpine, scarlet Alpine, pine-apple strawberry, red, white, and green.

About the end of the month, most of the late pears and apples will be fit for taking down, to be laid up for keeping. See October.

Sect. III. Flower Garden, or Pleasure Ground.

Transplant and propagate fibrous-rooted perennial plants by slips.

Towards the end of the month, hyacinths, tulips, and other bulbs, may be planted. See October.

Sect. IV. Nursery.

Transplant evergreens towards the end of the month, such as Portugal laurels, laurustinus, arbutus, &c.

Both evergreens and deciduous trees and shrubs may be propagated by layers or cuttings about the end of the month.

Sect. V. Green-house and Hot-House.

About the end of the month, if the weather be cold, orange and lemon trees, and many of the tenderer kinds of green-house plants, should be removed into the house.

About the end of this month or beginning of next, tan-bed in the hot-house should be refreshed with a renewed quantity of new tan, one half or two-thirds according as the old tan may be more or less decayed.

October.

Sect. I. Kitchen Garden.

Plant out some of the lettuces that were raised in August, into a well sheltered border, or into a hot-bed lettuce frame, to supply the table during winter and spring.

Cauliflowers that were planted out last month from the seed-bed, may now be planted under hot bed frames, at the distance of about four inches from one another, or under bell or hand glasses. Four or five plants may be put under each hand glass, all of which (should they survive the winter) may again be planted out in the spring, except one, or at most two, of the strongest, which should be allowed to remain and produce heads. See February.

Propagate aromatic vegetables by slips, such as thyme, mint, balm, fage, &c.

Asparagus beds should receive their winter dressing, i.e. their stalks should be cut down, and the alleys be-ragued between the beds should be dug, and a little of the earth from the alleys spread over the surface of each bed. Asparagus beds require some dung once every two years, which should be applied at this season. Before the alleys are dug, a little well rotten dung should be spread over the surface of the beds, dug in with a fork, and covered with a little of the earth from the alleys. Where forced asparagus is required early in winter, a hot-bed may be made any time this month. See January.

Plant some early Mazagan beans, and hotpur peas, about the end of the month, to stand the winter, and produce a crop early in summer.

Sect. II. Fruit Garden.

Winter pears and apples should in general be gathered this month. Some will be fit to take down the winter beginning. Part III.

October. beginning of the month, others will not be ready before the middle or towards the end. To know when the fruits have had their full growth, some of them should be tried in different parts of the tree, by turning them gently upwards; if they quit the tree easily, it is a sign of maturity, and time to gather them. But none of the more delicate eating pears should be permitted to hang longer on the trees than the middle of the month, especially if the nights prove frosty; for if they are once touched with the frost, it will occasion many of them to rot before they are fit for the table: and therefore, in general, let neither apples nor pears remain longer on the trees than the middle or the end of this month, for they will not improve by hanging on the trees after that time. The best apples and pears which are intended for long keeping, should be taken down one by one, on a dry day, and carefully put into baskets, to be carried to the fruitery, or place where they are to be stored up. The fruit themselves should be dry when taken down from the trees, therefore should not be gathered too early in the morning, before the dew on their surface has evaporated. They should be laid in a heap for ten days or a fortnight, that their watery juices may transpire; each should then be thoroughly dried with a cloth, and laid on the shelves of the fruitery, or in boxes or hampers well covered with dry straw or hay.

About the end of the month, apricots, peaches, and nectarines may be pruned. See January.

All sorts of fruit trees may be planted, such as apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries, apples, pears, quinces, vines, figs, mulberries, medlars, services, filberts, &c. The ground for this purpose should be trenched to the depth of one or two spades, and should be well manured. If the borders on which the fruit trees are to be planted have not a sufficient depth of soil, a quantity of good earth may be added. Peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, and cherries, are commonly planted at the distance of about fifteen feet from one another. Pears and apples when grafted on dwarf stocks may be planted about the same distance, but those which are on free stocks, about eighteen or twenty feet. Cherries and plums for standards should be planted at the distance of twenty or twenty-five feet from one another. Apples and pears, on free stocks, should be planted in rows, thirty or forty feet asunder, and at the distance of twenty-five or thirty feet from one another in the row. Dwarf apples and pears, however, may be planted at less than half that distance.

The principal kinds of apricots are, the early muscadine, Turkey, Bruffels, Roman, Breda, orange, Algiers, royal, Moor-park, alberget, transparent, Dunmore, or apricot peach, and Portugal.

The principal sorts of peaches are, the red magdalen, white magdalen, red nutmeg, white nutmeg, nobles, early Newington, old Newington, great French migonne, small mignone, admirable chancellor, Millet's mignone, incomparable, violet native, purple native, Royal George, Montauban, teton de Venus, round transparent, Catharine, and bloody peach.

The principal kinds of nectarines are, early nutmeg, Newington, red, Roman, violet, mulf, golden, scarlet, Elrige, Temple, Murray, Brugnon, white Italian.

The principal sorts of plums are, the Primordan or early white, Precoce or early black, early Morocco, Orleans, green gage, la royale, damas de Tour, damas violette, white bonum magnum or egg plum, red bonum magnum or Imperial, Perdrigon white, Perdrigon violet, Monsieur plum, drap d'or, royal dauphin, Fotheringham, azure native, or early blue gage, queen mother, myrobalan, apricot plum, red, white, diaprée, Monsieur native, Roche carbon, Jaune native, große queen Claude, petite queen Claude, imperiale violette or blue imperial, petite mirabelle, damas musqué, diaprée noire, diaprée violette, imperatrice blanche or white empreis, imperatrice noire or late black, Spanish damas, damas of September, St Catharine, common damson, Bullace.

The principal kinds of cherries are, the early May, May-duke, arch-duke, Harrison's duke, white heart, black heart, bleeding heart, Adams's crown heart, Hertfordshire heart, ox heart, Turkey, carnation, amber, Kentish or Flemish, Portugal, morella, white croflian, black coroum, small black guigne or geen, small red guigne, smallest wild black of the woods and hedges, ditto red.

The principal kinds of apples are, the common codlin, Apples. Kentish codlin, Dutch codlin, Margaret, golden pippin, gold rennet, Holland pippin, Kentish pippin, nonpareil, royal russet, Wheeler's russet, golden russet, gray russet, winter pearmain, scarlet pearmain, Loan's pearmain, aromatic russet, pomme d'Appis, Newton pippin, English rennet, autumn rennet, winter queening, margille, noneuch, gray Leadington, Marget, tender rennet, kitchen rennet, large white, Italian, Spanish rennet, Canada rennet, grosse rennet de Normandie, Fears pippin, white French rennet, cluffer pearmain, lemon pippin, French pippin, winter greening, winter pippin, Flanders pippin, white coffin, Kirton pippin, stone pippin, courpendu or hanging body, courpendu red, rambour summer, rambour winter, rennet grife, French rennet, cat's head, leather-coat, russet of winter, pomme de glace, Siberian crab, American cherry crab, two years apple hanging on the trees, if permitted, till the second year.

The principal kinds of pears are, the green miffal, Pears. Catharine, jargonelle, cuisse madame, Windfor chamonette, créfaine, echaflére, grasse blanquette, beurre de roi, white beurre, winter beurre, colmar, St Germain, lent St Germain, Martinsee, grasse muscat, autumn muscat, orange bergamot, Hambden's, bergamot, red beurre, golden beurre, brown beurre, great roulelet, petit roulelet, Holland bergamot, verte longue, winter bonchretien, summer ditto, Spanish ditto, Messieur Jean, Green sugar, la marquis, swan egg, virgleufe, Portugal, gray goodwife, citron de carmes, ambrette, royal d'hiver, St Michael, Louise bonne, summer orange, winter orange, Swif's bergamot, devionett.

Baking pears. Large black pear of Worcester, Parkinson's warden, Uvedale St Germain, cadillac. The principal kinds of quinces are the Portugal, apple quince, pear quince. The principal kinds of mulberries are the common black, white, red, medlars, Dutch, Nottingham or English. Services. Common wild service, bervey, sweet service or ferb, apple-shaped, pear-shaped, berry-shaped.

The principal sorts of figs are, the common blue, Figs. early long blue, early white, large white, large Genoa, Brunswick, Marcellis, Cyprian, brown Ithia, brown Malta. November. Malta, Filberts. Large red skinned filbert, white Kitchen skinned, common hazel nut, Barcelona nut, cob nut, clutler nut, Byzantine nut.

Goofeberries, currants, and raspberries, may likewise be planted about the end of this month. See JANUARY.

SECT. III. Flower Garden, or Pleasure Ground.

Bulbous-rooted plants, such as tulips, hyacinths, narcissi, jonquils, crocus, dens-canis, crown imperial, sword lily, ixia, Persian and English iris, ranunculus, and anemone, may be planted any time this month, either in beds by themselves, or in flower borders, together with other flowers; but the finer sorts of tulip, hyacinths, ranunculus, and anemone, are commonly planted in beds, fix or eight inches distant, and two or three deep.

Plant out deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs. The method of planting all these is to open a circular hole, wide enough to receive the roots, and about a fjaade deep, more or less, according to the length of the roots.

Thorn and other hedges may be planted towards the end of this month, or any time in the course of the next.

SECT. IV. Nursery.

Sow haws, holly berries, hips, barberries, yew-berrries, acorns, beech-masts, maple and ash-seed, cherry and plum stones, in a bed about four feet wide. It is a common practice to keep haws and hips, in heaps covered over with earth for twelve months; for those which are sown without this preparation frequently lie a whole year in the seed-bed without coming above ground. Plant cuttings of laurels and evergreens.

SECT. V. Green-house and Hot-house.

The harder kinds of green-house plants should be all removed into the green-house, when they should have plenty of air, except in very cold or wet weather.

The succession pine-apple plants should be removed into the fruiting house, which should previously receive a quantity of new tan, as directed last month. The younger succession plants likewise should be moved into the place of those that have been transferred into the fruiting house, air should be given freely in mild weather, and water very moderately.

NOVEMBER.

SECT. I. Kitchen Garden.

Blanch endive, &c.

Tie up endive for blanching, continue to earth-up cardoons, and dress the plantations of artichokes, i.e. cut down their larger leaves, and lay some earth about the plants, to protect them during winter.

Carrots and parsnips may be taken up, and preserved in sand during the winter.

Some more peas and beans may be sown to succeed those that were sown last month, or to supply their place if they should be cut off by the severity of the weather.

SECT. II. Fruit Garden.

The best time for pruning vines is immediately after the fall of the leaf, because the greatest possible time in that way is allowed for healing the wounds. Vines that are cut about the time of the rise of the sap in the spring, are apt to bleed profusely; this happens sometimes even to those that are pruned in the course of the winter. It is a common error, in pruning vines, to allow the branches to grow too close together, particularly in those varieties which grow vigorously, and have very large leaves; for, in summer, when the leaves are fully expanded, they are so much crowded together as to exclude the rays of the sun from the fruit. When pruning is properly performed, the young branches should be left at the distance of from one foot or two feet, and even upwards, from one another; but this in a great measure must be regulated by the size of their leaves. The Syrian grape has leaves about a foot and a half broad, with foot-stalks fix inches long. The black Hamburg has leaves twelve or thirteen inches broad, with foot-stalks seven inches long. The black cluster on the contrary has leaves five inches broad, with foot-stalks three inches long. Blue frontignac and claret grape have leaves six inches broad, with foot-stalks about four inches long. When vines are weakly, each shoot should be shortened so as to leave only three or four eyes; when they are moderately vigorous, each should be left about a foot long. When very vigorous, some of the shoots may be left three or four feet long or more; the shoots of vines, however, that are trained to the rafters of a vinery or pine-love may be left eighteen or twenty feet long. It has been observed, that both the largest grapes and finest clusters are produced on shoots of a considerable length. When vines have been allowed to run into confusion, much time and pains are requisite to reduce them to regularity; but when they have been trained regularly from the beginning, pruning is easily and expeditiously performed.

If the following directions for training vines in a vinery be observed, they will easily be kept in order, for training and plentiful crops of good fruit may be expected.

Vines may be planted both on the back wall and front of a vinery; those on the back wall should be planted from fix to twelve feet aflunder, according to the vigour of growth of the particular sort, and in such a position that the two uppermost buds may point east and west; those on the front should be planted so as one may be trained to each rafter. When the vines begin to grow, all the buds except the two uppermost must be rubbed off from those on the back wall, and all except the uppermost from those on the front wall. If any of the plants show fruit the first year, the clusters should be rubbed off, as well as the tendrils and lateral shoots, and the principal shoots should be trained regularly to the trellis as they advance in growth. Fires should be put in the vinery during the spring, to encourage an early growth in the vines, that they may have full time to ripen their wood. In the month of June the gafies may be taken off altogether, but should be put on again in September, and continued till the fall of the leaf, when the vines should be pruned. The two shoots which each vine on the back wall was permitted to push, should be cut down to their third or fourth bud, according. Part III.

November. according as either of them appears fullest and strongest, and then bent down as near as possible to a horizontal position, forming a figure resembling the letter T. Plants in front that are trained to the rafters, should be cut down almost to the bottom, and no more left than is merely sufficient to train them to the rafter. Only two shoots should again be permitted to grow on each plant on the back wall, and one on those of the front, and these may be allowed to run the whole height of the house before they are stopped. After the vine shoots are flopped (which is done by pinching off their tops), they will in general push out laterals at three or four eyes, on the upper part of the shoot. These laterals should not entirely be taken off, as it would cause more eyes lower upon the shoots to push out. It would therefore be prudent to permit the first laterals to grow twelve or fourteen inches, and then to pinch off their tops. These laterals, in their turn, will push out secondary laterals, which should be pinched off at the second or third joint, and in that way the sap may be diverted till the end of the season.

The shoots of the plants on the back wall must be brought down to a horizontal position, and cut so that the branches of each plant may reach within a foot of the other. If all the vines on the rafters have pushed vigorously, it will be proper to prune every other plant down to three or four eyes, and the rest to from twenty to twenty-five eyes each, the latter being intended to produce fruit, and the former to make bearing wood against another year. When the vines begin to push in the spring of the third year, the shoots of those on the back wall should not be allowed to stand nearer one another than a foot or fifteen inches, all the intermediate buds being carefully rubbed off. The shoots ought to be trained up perpendicularly, and however vigorous they may be, no more than one cluster should be allowed to remain on any of them: all of them may run up to the height of five or fix feet before they are stopped. The shoots on the rafters, that were pruned to twenty or twenty-five eyes each, will probably push at all of them; but not more than five or seven shoots should be permitted to remain, even on the frontage; viz. a leading shoot, and two or three on each side. Care being taken to leave one shoot as near the bottom as possible, as the whole branch will require to be pruned down to this shoot next winter. Only one shoot should be left upon those vines that were pruned down to three or four eyes, at every other rafter; and this must be trained up the rafter as in the preceding year. At next pruning season all the shoots proceeding from the horizontal branches of the vines in the back wall should be pruned down to three or four eyes. The vines on the front which produced fruit should be pruned to their lowest shoot, which should be shortened, so as to leave four or five eyes. Those at every other rafter which were shortened the preceding year, and which were allowed to push one shoot, should now be pruned like the bearers of the former year; i.e. twenty or twenty-five eyes should be left on each. In the following and all succeeding seasons, these vines on the front will require a similar management, with this difference, that, as they acquire more strength, they may be permitted to push more shoots, and more clusters may be allowed to remain on each shoot; for, as the vines advance in age, they will certainly be enabled to produce every year for a certain period, a larger crop of fruit. The spurs of the vines on the back-wall, i.e. the shoots that were shortened to three or four eyes, should be allowed to push up one shoot: these shoots at next pruning season must be cut so as to leave a long one, viz. about four feet, and a short one, alternately. The long ones should be allowed to push five shoots (all the other buds being rubbed off), the four lateral of which should be cut down to two or three eyes each, at next pruning season, and the terminal one should be left about a foot and a half long. The short shoots between the long ones must constantly be pruned down to two or three eyes each, in order to keep up a proper succession of bottom wood. The pruning following season must be the same, with this difference, that the upright shoots, as they have acquired a foot and a half additional length, may be allowed to push seven shoots instead of five.

The principal kinds of vines (x) are, * the white muscat of Alexandria, * black damacus, * golden kinds of gallician, *† white frontinac, *† grilly frontinac, *† black grapes, or purple frontinac, ‡‡ blue or violet frontinac, ‡‡ red frontinac, * white sweet water, * black Hamburgh, *† red Hamburgh, or Gibraltar grape, * white Hamburgh, *† malvoise or blue tokay, *† genuine tokay, *† flame-coloured tokay, ‡‡ brick grape, *† white mulcadine or chafelas, *† royal mulcadine or d'arboyece, *† Malmfey grape, *† claret grape, * Syrian, ‡‡ Burgundy or Munier grape, ‡‡ small black cluster, + large black cluster, ‡‡ early black July grape or morillon, noir natif, † white parsley-leaved.

Gooseberries and currants may be pruned any time from the fall of the leaf, till their buds begin to grow berries in the spring. If these bushes be not well pruned, the currants will neither be large nor well-flavoured. The principal thing to be attended to is, to keep them open; for they are very apt to become over-crowded with branches: all suckers therefore which arise from the root, or shoots which proceed from the main stem, should be removed, because they would only create confusion, by growing up into the heart of the bush. When last summer's shoots stand too thick, on the main branches, which is frequently the case, particularly with gooseberries, they should be thinned, and few either of them or of the main branches should be shortened, because the more they are shortened the more liable they are to run to wood. They who make use of garden-haars, for sake of expedition, which is too frequently the case, may save time, and make neat-looking bushes, but will be disappointed with respect to the quantity and quality of their fruit.

Sect. III. Flower Garden, or Pleasure Ground.

Fibrous-rooted perennial plants may still be planted; likewise bulbous-rooted plants, such as tulips, hyacinths, &c. Shrubs and ornamental or forest trees may be transplanted

(E) Those marked * are for a hot-house; those marked † are for a vinery; and those marked ‡ are for a common wall. December, planted now or any time during the winter when the weather is open.

SECT. IV. The Nursery.

TRANSPLANT young trees and shrubs, and protect tender seedlings during severe weather.

SECT. V. Green House and Hot-House.

The plants in the green-house should have air during the day, whenever the weather will permit, and should receive but little water. The plants in the hot-house should likewise receive air during the day in favourable weather, and fires must be put on every evening, but seldom need to be continued during the day, except the weather is very severe.

DECEMBER.

SECT. I. Kitchen Garden.

The cauliflower plants and lettuces planted under hot-bed frames, or under bell or hand-glases, should be exposed to the air during the mild days, and protected during severe weather with a covering of mats or straw. In dry weather celery and cardoons should be earthed up, and endive tied up for blanching.

In this month there is nothing to be done either in the fruit garden, nursery, green-house, or hot-house, that has not already been taken notice of in the preceding months.

Here we shall add some observations on the construction of green-houses and hot-houses.

A green-house constructed for the protection of such vegetables as cannot stand in the open air during winter, may vary in form and dimensions according to the fancy of the proprietor, and the number of plants it is intended to contain. When the front only is of glass, which formerly was the only, and even still is the prevalent, mode of constructing green-houses, the pillars between the glases ought to be as narrow as the weight they have to support will admit of, and formed so as to give the least possible obstruction to the light; they may be either of stone, brick, wood, or cast iron. The height of the glases should equal if not exceed the width of the house, that a sufficient quantity of light may be thrown on the plants which stand near the back wall, otherwise they will lose colour, become unhealthy and deformed; for not only the colour, but the vigour, and even the form of vegetables, depends on the light. When one half or the whole of the roof is of glass, which ought to be the case, there is no necessity for attending to the proportion the height ought to bear to the width of the house. The ends of the house should also be of glass, unless when it is connected with a series of other buildings. The pots containing the plants are commonly set on benches, which gradually increase in height as they recede from the front; however, when the roof is of glass, the arrangement may be different. Every green-house ought to be furnished with flues; for though many winters may occur in which the application of fire heat may not be necessary, yet such intense frosts at times prevail as would infallibly kill a great many of the plants: external coverings, it is true, are frequently made use of as a protection against the severity of the weather, but they do not answer the purpose equally well, for when the frost continues long they cannot be applied day and night without doing injury, by excluding air and light; the application of fire-heat is likewise necessary for banishing the damp, which very much injures and frequently destroys the plants, during long-continued, dull, rainy weather. The flues in green-houses are frequently confined to the back wall, but they ought to pass in front of the house likewise, because the plants situated there are most liable to be injured by the severity of the weather.

As fires are seldom required, and those but very slight ones, merely to banish frost and damp, it will not be necessary from economical motives to construct the flues so as to throw off the greatest possible quantity of heat; they may therefore be concealed, that they may not affect the appearance of the house.

Hot-houses for rearing plants which grow in warmer climates, or for forcing at an early period such vegetables as grow in the open air, vary considerably according to the different purposes for which they are intended. 1st, Conservatories, or dry stoves, so called because they are constructed without pits for containing tanners bark, oak leaves, or other fermentable substances, and in which the plants grow in the earth which forms the floor of the house, and not in pots. These are commonly of a considerable width and height, and are either covered entirely, or at least on the front, roof, and ends, with glass. 2dly, Hot-houses for rearing exotic plants, furnished with a pit containing tanners bark, oak leaves, heated sand, &c. in which pots containing the plants are plunged: these likewise are of considerable breadth and height, and have their front, roof, and ends, covered with glass. 3dly, Pine-houses, which are furnished with a pit, as above: these are low, the roof being within a few feet of the surface of the pit, that the pine plants may be as near the light as possible, and the roof and part of the front only need be of glass.

Vine-houses are commonly constructed without pits, and are generally about 12 or 14 feet high, sometimes very narrow, at other times of considerable breadth; the former answer best for forcing at a very early period, and in both houses the vines are commonly trained both to the back and front.

Peach-houses are almost always constructed without pits, are of a moderate height, and vary in breadth. The peaches are trained either to the front or back, or to both; and sometimes they are planted in the middle of the house, and allowed to grow like standard fruit trees, in which case the house should be capacious.

Cherry and fig-houses are constructed nearly in the same way as peach-houses. The flues for warming all these ought to pass round the front as well as the back of the house, and ought to have as much of their surface exposed as possible; for the more of the surface of the flue comes in contact with the air of the house, the more readily the house will be warmed: therefore they ought not to be built in contact with the front or back walls when that can be avoided, but ought to be supported on pillars of brick to keep them from resting on the ground.

The furnaces for containing the fuel are placed sometimes Part III.

times in front, sometimes at the end, but most frequently behind the house. They ought to be situated so far below the level of the flue, as is necessary to cause a sufficient draught; if this be not attended to, the smoke will not pass through the flues to warm the houses, but escape some other way. When the furnaces are about 18 inches high (a common size), they ought to be placed about two feet below the level of the flue, that the heated air may have an ascent of about fix or eight inches, which will be sufficient to give the requisite draught.

When the hot-house is of considerable extent, it is better to employ several moderate, than a smaller number of strong fires, for violent fires are apt to crack the flues, in which case the smoke escapes into the house, and injures the plants. Some are partial to large fires, from an idea that they consume less fuel in proportion; but this is a mistake, for two moderate fires are found to heat the same extent of hot-house to an equal degree, and more equably, with a less expenditure of fuel than one large one. One moderate fire will be sufficient for an extent of 500 or 600 square feet of glass, but if the house is protected with coverings during the night, it will be sufficient for 700 or 800; thus the number of square feet of glass being known, the requisite number of fires may be easily ascertained. The fires employed for warming hot-houses may at the same time be converted to other useful purposes. At Billing in Northamptonshire, the seat of Lord John Cavendish, the furnaces are constructed to burn lime at the same time that they heat the hot-house. One furnace can burn four bushels of lime, and consume about three-fourths of a hundred weight of coal, when lighted only at night and in the morning.

Hot-houses are sometimes protected during the winter nights by external coverings of wood or canvas, &c. This renders less fire necessary; but the saving in point of fuel is more than overbalanced by the original expense of the covering, by the trouble of taking it off and putting it on morning and evening, and by the quantity of glass broken, particularly when the covering is made of canvas, which is apt to be dashed against the glass by the wind. When light coverings of cloth are applied internally they are not liable to the last-mentioned objection, but there are few hot-houses where they can be so applied.

INDEX TO PART III.

A. ANNUALS, when sown, No 51, 76, 100, 101, 154 Apple trees, when pruned, 38 Apples, when gathered, 249 different kinds of, 251 Apricots, different kinds of, 250 Artichokes, when earthed up, 31 when dressed and planted, 136, 137 Jerusalem, when planted, 143 Asparagus, how sown and managed, 133 beds dressed, 248

B. Beans, when sown, 23 when earthed up, 30 early kidney, 66 full crop of, 185 Blanch endive, 29 Bulbous roots, how protected in beds, 49 when planted, 59 when taken up, 205

C. Cabbages, when planted, 26 when transplanted, 27 Cardoons, when sown, 141 Carrots, when sown, 18, 44 Cauliflower, when to examine, 25 raised in a hot-bed, 69, 170, 224, 236 Celery, early crop, how raised, 73 Cherry trees, when pruned, 39 Vol. IX. Part II.

Cherry trees, different kinds of, No 250 Crops, full, for the kitchen garden, 129 Cucumbers, early, how raised, 67, 91

E. Engrafting of fruit trees, when performed, 113 history of, 114 method of performing, 115 different kinds of, 116—124

F. Fig, method of pruning, 97 different kinds of, 253 Flowers, how protected in pots, 48 forced in hot houses, 52 Fruit trees, how to force the growth of, 46, 99 pruning of, 96 engrafting of, 113 planting, 150 protecting the flower, 151, 173

G. Garden, kitchen, 17 Garlic, when planted, 86 Grapes, different kinds of, 259 Green-houses, construction of, 260

H. Hot-houses, construction of, 260 Hot-beds, method of preparing, 32

I. Inarching of fruit trees, 122 Inoculation of fruit trees, 215

L. Lawns, dressing of, No 54, 106 Leeks, how raised, 83 Lettuce, when sown, 24, 79, 107

M. Melon seeds, when sown, 33, 91, 92, topping, 93 impregnation of, 94 observations on, 95 treatment of, 184, 198 Mushroom-beds, how to manage, 32 preparation of, 238

N. Nectarines, when pruned, 40 different kinds of, 250 Nursery, 59 Onions, how raised, 83 early crop of, 223 time of taking up, 227

P. Parsley, when sown, 21, 84 Peach trees, when pruned, 40 different kinds of, 250 Peas, when sown, 22 late crop of, 211 Pear trees, when pruned, 38 different kinds of, 252 Pine apples, management of, 65 stove for, 126 heat for, 182 how propagated, 218

Pine apples, raised in water, varieties of, 219 Plum trees, when pruned, different kinds of, 39 Potatoes, early, when planted, full crop of, 250 Pot-herbs, when sown, planted out, 144 85 223 Radishes, when sown, horse, how propagated, 17 89 Raspberries, when pruned and planted, 43 Salad, small, S. Seedlings, Shrubs, how managed, 33 Spinach, when sown, winter crop of, 19 221 Strawberries, forcing of the growth of, time and mode of dref- sing, plantations of, made, different kinds of, 47 98 204 241 Trees, roots of, how protected, time proper for planting, 45 44

Trees, propagated by layers, cuttings, suckers, air cautiously admitted to, Turnips, full crop of, V. Vines, how propagated, dressed, history of, pruning and training of, W. Walks, grass and gravel, dressing of,

Index. No 61 62 63 64 201 162 174 175 257, 258 107

G A R