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trivance, and much cost; but greater sums may be thrown away without effect or honor, if there want sense 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 of 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 regard of common expense. 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 those 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 lie, as I remember, about 300 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 terminating with two other summerhouses 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 is 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 unnatural flights of steps and shady cloisters covered with lead! Le Nautre, the architect of the groves and grottoes of Versailles, came hither on a mission to improve our taste. He planted St. James's and Greenwich parks—no great monuments of his invention."

'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 inuch 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 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 lineal terrace or a parterre.

Having thus cleared our way by ascertaining what have been the ideas of gardening in all ages, as far as we have materials to judge by, it remains to show to what degree 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 mottos, in yew, box, and holly. Absurdity could go no farther, and the tide turned. Bridg man, the next fashionable designer of gardens, was far more chaste; and whether from good sense, or that the nation had been struck 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 reformation gained footing, he ventured, in the royal garden at Richmond, to introduce cultivated fields, and even morsels of 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 fosses-an attempt then deemed so astonishing, that the common people called them Ha! Ha's! to express their surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check to their walk. No sooner was this simple enchantment made, than levelling, mowing, and rolling, fol

lowed. The contiguous ground of the park without the sunk fence was to be harmonised with the lawn within; and the garden in its turn was to be set free from its prim regularity, that it might assort with the milder country without. The sunk-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 slope, and remarked how loose groves crowned an easy eminence with happy ornaments; 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, 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 reserving it to a farther advance of the spectator's step. Thus selecting favorite objects, and veiling deformities by screens of plantations; sometimes allowing the rudest waste to add its soil to the richest theatre he realised 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 serpentize seemingly at its pleasure; and, where discontinued by different levels, its course appeared to be concealed by thickets properly interspersed, 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 progress, and framed the distant point of light

under which it was lost, as it turned aside to either hand of the blue horizon.

'Succeeding artists have added new masterstrokes to these touches; perhaps improved or brought to perfection some that have been named. The introduction of foreign trees and plants contributed essentially to the richness of coloring 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 nor faults. Pope undoubtedly contributed to form his taste. The design of the prince of Wales's garden at Carlton House was borrowed from the poet's 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 ed up to his mother's tomb, were managed with exquisite judgment; and though lord Peterborough assisted 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 exerts 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. 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 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 satisfaction on those days which do not invite strangers to come and see their improvements.'

Thus we have brought down the history of this elegant art to the present period. And from what has been said, it must be evident that gardening, in the perfection to which it is now brought in Britain, is entitled to a place of considerable rank among the liberal arts. 'It is,' says Mr. Wheatley, as superior to landscapepainting as a reality to a representation: it is an exertion of fancy; a subject for taste; and being released now from the restraint 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 regulates also the disposition and embellishments, of a park, a farm, a forest, &c., and the business of a gardener is to select and apply whatever is great, clegant, or characteristic, in any of them; to discover, or 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.'

Enough nas been said upon the large scale of ornamental gardening. We shall now restrict ourselves to the description of such a plan of gardening as will be found to answer best for those who prefer the utile to the dulce, and regard usefulness and convenience more than or

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When you have the choice of a place proper for a garden, the most essential points to be considered are, general situation, soil, exposure, water, and prospect.

The situation ought to be moderately elevated: if a garden be too high it will be exposed to the winds, which are very prejudicial to trees; if it be too low, the dampness, the vermin, and the creatures that breed in ponds and marshy places will add much to its insalubrity. The best situation is on the side of a hill, especially if the slope be easy; if a good deal of level ground be near the house; and if it abound with springs: for being sheltered from the fury of the winds, and the violent heat of the sun, a temperate air will be enjoyed; and the water that descends from the hill, either from springs or rain, will not only supply fountains, &c. for ornament, but, when it has performed its office, will water the adjacent valleys.

A good soil is next to be considered; for it is scarcely possible to make a fine garden in a bad soil. There are indeed methods of meliorating ground, but they are expensive; and sometimes, when the expense has been bestowed of laying good earth three feet deep over the whole surface, a garden has been ruined, when the roots of the trees have reached the natural bottom. To judge of the quality of the soil, observe whether heath, thistles, or such like weeds, grow spontaneously. in it; and, if there be large trees near, whether they grow crooked and ill shaped; and are of a faded green, and full of moss, or ver

min: in all such cases the place is to be rejected. But, if it be covered with grass fit for pasture, the depth of the soil may be tried by digging holes three or four feet deep; and if there be three fee. of good earth it will do very well, but less thar two will not be sufficient. The quality of good ground is neither to be stony nor too hard to work; neither too dry, too moist, nor too sandy and light; nor too strong or clayey, which is the worst of all for gardens.

The next requisite is water; the want of which is one of the greatest inconveniences that can attend a garden, and will bring a certain mortality upon whatever is planted in it, especially in the droughts that often happen in a hot and dry situation in summer; add to this, its usefulness in making fountains, canals, cascades, &c., which are the greatest ornaments of any garden.

The last thing to be considered is the prospect of a fine country; and, though this is not absolutely necessary, yet it is one of the most agreeable accompaniments of a garden; besides, if a garden be planted in a low place that has no kind of prospect, it will not only be disagreeable but unwholesome.

SECT. III.-OF LAYING OUT AND PLANTING GARDENS. Gardens are usually distinguished into Flower, Fruit, and Kitchen Gardens. The first, being designed for pleasure and ornament, is generally placed next the back front of the house; and the two latter, being designed for use, are less conspicuous. But, though the fruit and kitchen gardens are here mentioned as distinct, they are often united; they equally require a good soil and exposure, and should both be placed out or the view of the house. According to Miller, the area of a handsome garden may take up thirty or forty acres, but no more; and the following rules should be observed in the disposition of it. There ought always to be a descent of at least three steps from the house; this will render the house more dry and wholesome, and the prospect on entering the garden more extensive. The first thing that should here present itself should be an open lawn of grass; which ought to be considerably broader than the front of the building; and, if the depth be one-half more than the width, it will have a better effect: if on the sides of the lawn there are trees planted irregularly, by way of open groves, the regularity of the lawn will be broken, and the whole rendered more like nature.

For the convenience of walking in damp weather, this lawn should be surrounded with a gravel walk, on the outside of which should be borders three or four feet wide for flowers; and from the back of these the prospect will be agreeably terminated by a slope of ever-green shrubs; which, however, should never be suffered to exclude agreeable prospects, or the view of handsome buildings. These walks may lead through the different plantations, gently winding about in an easy natural manner; and, as no garden can be pleasing where there is a want of shade or shelter, they should lead as soon as possible into plantations

Narrow rivulets, which have a constant stream,

if they are judiciously led about the garden, have a better effect than large stagnating ponds or canals. When wildernesses are intended, they should not be cut into stars and other ridiculous figures, nor formed into mazes or labyrinths, or any thing which in a great design might appear trifling.

In a word, the several parts of a garden should be diversified; but, in places where the eye takes in the whole at once, the two sides should be always the same. The general disposition of a garden and of its parts ought to be accommodated to the different situations of the ground, to humor its inequalities, to proportion the number of sorts of trees and shrubs to each part, and to shut out from the view of the garden no objects that may become ornamental.

size of the ground: these in a small garden should be six feet broad, but in a large one ten, and on each side of the walk there should be allowed a border three or four feet wide between it and the espalier. In these borders may be sown small sallads, or any other herbs that do not take deep root or continue long; but they should not be sown or planted with the same plants two years together.

In the quarter nearest to the stables, and best defended from the cold winds, should be the hotbeds, for early cucumbers, melons, &c., and to these there should be a passage from the stables, and a gate through which a small cart may enter. The most important points of general culture consist in well digging and manuring the soil, and giving a proper distance to each plant, according to their different growths: as also in keeping them clear from weeds; for which purpose, always observe to keep the dunghills free from them, otherwise their seeds will be constantly brought in and spread with the dung.

Practical attention to a garden is by some esteemed a degrading employment. It is true, indeed, that pastoral and agricultural manners, if we may form a judgment from the dignified descriptions of Virgil, are greatly degenerated. The employments of shepherds and husbandmen are now become mean and sordid, and the work of the garden is usually left to a peasant. But the operations of grafting, of inoculating, of is pruning, of transplanting, are curious experiments in natural philosophy; and, that they are pleasing as well as curious, those can testify who remember what they felt on seeing their attempts in these branches of practical gardening attended with success. Among the employments suitable to old age, Cicero has enumerated the superintendance of a garden. It requires no great exertion of mind or body; and its satisfactions are of that kind which please without violent agitation. Its beneficial influence on health is an additional reason for an attention to it at an age when infirmities abound.

A very limited tract, properly attended to, will furnish ample employment for an individual. Nor let it be thought a mean care; for the same hand that raised the cedar, formed the hyssop on the wall. Even the orchard, cultivated solely for advantage, exhibits beauties unequalled in the shrubbery; nor can the green-house produce an appearance to excel the blossom of the apple and the almond.

The kitchen garden ought to be situated on one side of the house, near the stables, whence the dung may be easily conveyed to it; and, after having built the wall, borders should be made under them, which, according to Mr. Miller, should be eight or ten feet broad. Upon these borders, exposed to the south, many sorts of early plants may be sown; and, upon those exposed to the north, may be sown some late crops; taking care not to plant any deep-rooting plants, especially beans and peas, too near the fruit

trees.

Next proceed to divide the ground into quarters; the best figures for these are a square or an oblong, if the ground will admit of it. The size of these quarters should be proportioned to that of the garden; iftoo small, the ground will be lost in walks, and, the quarters being enclosed by espaliers of fruit trees, the plants will draw up slender, for want of a more open exposure. The walks should also be proportioned to the

SECT. IV. THE GARDENER'S KALENDAR.

Under this head we proceed to point out what proper to be done in the different months of the year, in the Kitchen-Garden, Flower-Garden, Orchard, &c. The arrangement is drawn up for the climate of the midland counties of England; but will suit more northern parts where the climate is mild, equally well, upon allowing a difference of ten or twelve days later for sowing or planting. Where the seasons are still more backward, a proportional allowance will be made by the judicious gardener.

JANUARY.

In January every thing should be done that the weather and circumstances will permit (even if not absolutely necessary), in order to lessen the work of next month, which, when it happens to be an open season, is a very important one, in which the loss of a single day is of consequence.

Kitchen garden.-Asparagus, in this season, being one of the greatest rarities which the art of gardening affords, ought to be planted every month, to have a regular succession of it till April,

as it is above three weeks before it will be fit to cut, and the fourth hot-bed should now be made. Beans of the early mazagan sort must be planted for the second crop. Beets and cabbages of every sort, intended to procure seed from, should now be planted, if this was omitted in October. Carrots, to draw young, for the first crop, should now be sown; and those intended for seed should be planted. Cauliflower plants under glasses and frames should be covered with peastraw, or mats, to defend them from the frost. Celery should be digged up as soon as the frost begins, for daily use, and the other covered with straw. Cress, mustard, radish, and rape, should be sown every week on a hot-bed. Cucumbers, for the first crop, to come early in March, should now be sown. As soon as they are three or four days' old put each into a small pot, and every week sow more to have plenty of plants. Dung should be wheeled into the kitchen-garden in frosty weather, when other work cannot be done. Endive should be digged up, like the celery, as

soon as the frost begins, and the rest covered with straw. Ground lying vacant should be digged up, if omitted in October, and thrown up into ridges. Hot-beds and loam should be prepared for asparagus, cucumbers, and melons. Lettuces under glasses should be examined, and, if they be killed, sow more on a hot-bed. Mint should be planted in pots, and, if there be no hot-bed, it will grow in a warm room. Mushroom beds will require regular attendance, and frost and rain must be kept out by dry straw and mats. Onions, to draw young, should be sown on a warm border. Peas under the south wall, for the first crop, should have the earth drawn up to them in a dry day, and sticks placed to them to defend them from the violence of the winds; and sow the second crop. Plant asparagus for the fourth crop. Beans for the second crop of Mazagans. Beets, cabbages, carrots, parsnips, for seed. Mint and potatoes on a hotbed. Onions for eschalions and seed. Radishes for the second crop, sow in a warm situation, and the first crop on a hot-bed. Small sallading, as cress, mustard, rape, radishes, sow every week on a hot-bed. Sow carrots for the first crop, and the second of peas. Sow on hotbeds, carrots and cucumbers for the first crop. Cress, mustard, radish, and rape for sallads: sow likewise turnips.

Flower garden and shrubbery.Anemones which were planted in the autumn, will require to be covered with pea-straw, rotten tan, or mats. Auricula and polyanthus seeds may now be sown in boxes or pots in mild weather. Auriculas should be sheltered from violent rains and frost by mats; and at the end of the month fresh earthed. Beds for bulbous roots should be digged and thrown up into ridges, that they may be planted the first fine weather, if any roots remain unplanted; but it is bad policy not to plant them in October or the beginning of November. Bulbous rooted flowers in boxes or glasses should be removed in frosty weather, before night, from the windows; nor should they be set on chimney-pieces until they are in flower, for shade draws all flowers up very weak. Boxes under five inches deep, eight wide, and sixteen long, filled with light sandy earth, without any dung, are better than glasses, and will not require so much trouble. Stir up the earth often with a table fork. Carnations must be sheltered from violent rains and frost by mats. Plant at the end of the month, or sooner if the weather be mild, all sorts of bulbous roots, as crocuses, jonquilles, narcissuses, polyanthus-narcissuses, snowdrops, tulips, &c. Plant flowering shrubs, which are hardy, and flower early, as almonds, doubleflowering cherries, honeysuckles, lilacs, mezereons, roses, &c. Shrubs and trees of all sorts may be planted at the end of this month.Trenches should be cut to carry off the water, if it stands any where after heavy rains.

Fruit garden and orchard.-Apple-trees should be pruned as soon as the violent frosts are over. Espaliers ought always to be repaired before the buds of the trees begin to open. The fruit room should be often examined, to pick out all fruit which begins to decay; and nail mats before the windows to keep out the frost. Ground for

planting should be prepared by digging the holes ready; and, if wettish, a cart load of good loam should be brought for each standard tree, and formed into a little hill before the tree be planted. Scrape off the moss from all fruit trees. Orchards in general are much neglected, by not cutting out the dead wood and branches that cross each other, Pear-trees require pruning, both standards, espaliers, and against walls, as soon as the weather becomes mild. Prune currants, gooseberries, and raspberries. Strawberries in pots may be placed on hot-beds for forcing. Vines should not be pruned till towards the end of the month.

Greenhouse.-Air may be given to the plants. if the weather be mild. Fire must be made if it freezes, and particularly when it begins to thaw, or if it is foggy weather, to dry the house; for dampness is as prejudicial as cold; and, if there be no flue, light a few candles in frosty weather. To know for a certainty when it begins to freeze, set a pan of water near the windows. Leaves, which are any way decayed should be constantly picked off, particularly from the geraniums. Succulent plants, such as aloes, ficoides, &c., should not have any water this month. Water for all sorts of plants should be the softest that can be got; rain-water is the best; the chillness should be taken off by letting it stand in the house some days before it is used; and this month it should be given very sparingly. Windows in frosty weather should be kept very close, by pasting strips of paper where the wind blows in, for that contributes to the frost; and, if the windows must be covered with mats, take them down in the daytime to admit the light; for, if plants he shut up in the dark, their leaves will soon fall off; and the outward door should be opened as seldom as possible; but, to have it proper, there should be another door leading through a shed.

FEBRUARY.

When the ground can be conveniently worked, this is a very busy month, and no time should be lost, nor hands spared, that every thing may be The last week is purdone in its earliest season. ticularly important; some full crops should then be sown, and many other things be done which are frequently neglected.

Kitchen garden.-Asparagus should have the mats taken off the glasses, except when it snows; for without light it will not be green; and the fifth and last crop should be planted on a hotbed. Beans of the early sorts must now be planted for the third crop, and at the end of this month the first crop of the large sorts, as Windsor, long-podded, &c. Sow beets, but let the ground be digged very deep. Boorcole or kale, and broccoli, will want earthing up, but let the dead leaves be first picked off. Sow cabbages, for the second crop of sugarloaf, and the first of red, and plant out those sown in August. Sow carrots at the end of the month for the general crop, on a deep sandy soil. Cauliflowers under glasses must be examined, all the dead leaves picked off, and the earth stirred up. In mild weather give them air, and plant some out, leaving only the two strongest under each glass.

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