166 



JOUENAL OP HORTICULTtTRE AST) COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ September 1, 18G3. 



verj- useful for salads and other things in winter. In spring 

 pot jilants should be "watered carefully in such a pit, so as 

 not to soak or jjuddle the siu'face of the border ; and in 

 summer and early autumn it would be well to have notliing 

 in the pit tft all, in order that the sun may beat unobstruct- 

 edly on the soil. 



If you prefer a tank, and it is all sound and kept close at 

 the top, it will want replenishing with water very seldom. 

 If out of sight, the best jilan is to have a gauge-stick in it 

 standing in an open pipe, and that supplied with bung, and 

 the appearance of the stick will always show the depth of 

 water, and through that tube or pipe water may be supplied 

 at pleasm-e. If you leave oi>en spaces in the tank, of com-se 

 the water wiU go otf by evaporation, and a fi-esh supply 

 must be given. The same holds true as to pipes. The fresh 

 supply will chiefly depend on what is lost by evaporation. 

 Of coiu-se, jf the water is forced out by expansion by heat, 

 fresh water will be needed, as that in the heating medium 

 has cooled. 



You are more hkely to know what Memel timber will 

 cost in your neighljoui-hood than we can tell you. Fre- 

 quently in our advertising columns the price of lights for 

 houses is given. The more jointed the wood and the 

 smaller the glass, the more the expense for wood. Tlie 

 cheapest way for such a house would be to have a fixed roof 

 — no sashes, but strong rafter sash-bars. If the place U 

 much exposed, perhaps it woidd be advisable not to have 

 glass above 10 or 12 inches wide ; but even with a fixed roof, 

 and the rafter sash-bars 10 inches apart, you wmUd want 

 double the wood that Mr. Elvers uses with glass 20 inches 

 in width. The cost of timber, therefore, depends entirely 

 on matters of detail. — E. P.] 



THE GEAPEEIES OF ME,. MEEEDITH AT 

 GAESTON. 



The fashionable suburbs of a large town often present 

 many featm-es of interest to the tourist. Dwellings more 

 or less commodious, and all more or less ornamented ex- 

 ternally, give tokens of the wealth and comfort that reign 

 within ; whUe the diversity of taste by which one villa "or 

 residence contrasts with its neighbour-, affords many a 

 lesson which it would be well to study. That occasional 

 deviations fi-om good taste meet the eye cannot be doubted ; 

 but these cases are so few that they raay be taken as the 

 exceptions of rare occurrence. And contemporary with the 

 ar'ehitectural display evinced in the dwelling-house and 

 its appendages, as the fences, gates, itc, the plot of ground 

 facing the public highway has often claims to notice which 

 call for something more than a careless approval; and, 

 perhaps, no branch of cultural art has made greater ad- 

 vance than the one which has worked so much improvement 

 in the limited plots of ground that many occupiers only 

 possess. It is certainly creditable to all concerned, that 

 the small plots alluded to present so many features of in- 

 terest, and, though often differing widely from each other, 

 they are all, nevertheless, beautiful, and 'many of the most 

 important featm-es of ornamental gardening are represented 

 here— as the bedding system, rockwork, shrubbery, and 

 very often a glass structiu-e, and all carefully and studiously 

 managed. That such houses are som-ces of unalloyed 

 pleasm-e to the man of business after the mental toil of "the 

 day is over cannot be doubted ; and their external appearance 

 leaves little doubt that the interiors are equally well fur- 

 nished with every requisite for comfort. 



The moral beai-ing of these vUla. homos might be dilated 

 on to some length ; but it is needless to pm-sue the subject 

 fm-ther than to say that such dweUings abound on the 

 fashionable outskirts of most, if not all, of our large com- 

 mercial and manufactm-ing towns, of which Lancasliu-e pre- 

 sents as many as, perhaps, any other eo-anty, not even ex- 

 empting the metropolitan one. And as most towns have 

 their " west end," or fashionable side, in like manner has 

 Liverpool, although in its ease it is the east and not the 

 west side. 



TheiM-etty village, or rather town, of G.arston forms one of 

 those beautifiil subm-bs to the great sliipping city of the 

 west coast by which it is connected by a long chain of 

 villas, foi-miug, as it were, a continuous street of some foui 



or five miles. Many of them are hidden amidst healthy and 

 vigoroiis-growing trees and shi-ubs, showing, that although 

 they are but a very short distance from the Irish Sea, the 

 soU, climate, and other conditions favomable to their growth 

 are tolerably abundant ; and I confess being agreeably sur- 

 prised to find this the case, as the highway from Liverpool 

 to Garstou rises about parallel with and but a very short 

 distance fi-om the noble estuary of the Mersey, which at 

 G.irston seems two mUes wide or more. That much of the 

 verdure found here is in a measure due to the shelter from 

 the south-westerly gales which the Cheshire hills on the 

 opposite coast afford I have no doubt ; but it is not my place 

 to enter into the question, but to point out one of the 

 features of a neighbourhood where one of the most suc- 

 cessful Grape-growers of the day has located himself. As 

 the gardening world must be familiar with the name of 

 Meredith, of Gar-ston, and his Grapes, a few notes on the 

 situation and the other features of his extensive and inter- 

 esting glass structures and grounds will, no doubt, be ac- 

 ceptable to the general reader. 



On the outskirts of the village of Garston, and about half 

 a mUe or more from the northern shore of the river or 

 rather bay of the Mersey, Mr. Meredith has fixed liis vine- 

 yard. The situation is one of those slight elevations which 

 merely afford sufficient fall for what drainage might be 

 wanted from stokeholes and such places, the ground of the 

 district generally being of that slightly undulating character 

 which distinguishes it fi-om the flat rich jiasture lands which 

 border the river Mersey in the upper part of its course. 

 Tlie soil, too, at Garston is much paler in colour, though in 

 its component pai-ts it seems to contain as much sand as is 

 found in the rich market-gai-dening districts to the north of 

 Altrincham and else-.vhere. The subsoil seemed a ib-y com- 

 pound, of which sand rather than gravel formed the most 

 important part. It certainly was not of that hungry per- 

 nicious character which some sandy or gravelly subsoils 

 often are. On the contrary, I should say the subsoil was, 

 perhaps, as agreeable to vegetation as any which I ever 

 met with that did not contain stone ; for, be it obsei-ved, that 

 many stony subsoils are the favourite abode of tree roots, 

 even when the surface soil is a good one ; but in the case of 

 those at Garston, from what little I could hear, I shoidd 

 think that stone was but very sparingly met with. At the 

 same time I believe the subsoil contained within itself all 

 the elements necessary for effective di-ainage ; but whether 

 additional modes of carrying off the superabundant moisture 

 fi-om the various borders existed or not, I am not prej^ared 

 to say. 



I may here observe that the whole of the glass houses 

 were, with very few exceptions, devoted entirely to the cul- 

 tivation of the Grape Vine ; and when I say that there were 

 upwards of twenty such houses, and many of them of lar-ge 

 size, besides pits and smaller structures, it will be easOy 

 supposed that Grape-gi-owing on an extensive scale was 

 being pm-sued. Most of the glass houses were new, the 

 oldest, perhaps, not being more than six or eight years old, 

 while some were of more recent date ; and two new ones 

 of the i:ire3ent year, each 144 feet long by 28 feet wide, 

 were not quite finished, although nearly so. These fine 

 houses, of which some notice wlU be taken hereafter, were, 

 nevertheless, occupied, as were all the others, with the 

 favourite I'hmt which seemed to thrive so marvellously 

 under Mr. Meredith's care. 



There is nothing remai-kable in the structure of the 

 houses, the most of them being span-roofed, the site not 

 affording a high garden wall to lean them against, as is 

 often the case in private places. The gTouud was in a 

 great measm-e covered with span-roofed houses, placed in 

 some cases parallel to each other, and at a convenient dis- 

 tance apart to allow sufficient room for the borders. The 

 glass used was in some cases rough plate, and in others 

 sheet, the squares generally large, though not remarkably 

 so ; whilst the pitch of roof, mode of ventilation, and other 

 features differed but little from those to be met with else- 

 where. Some mechanical ingenuity certainly was shown in 

 the movement of the ventilation by a crank-rod that was not 

 so much paraded in \'iew as some similar contrivances are ; 

 but with the exception of the workmanship being good, 

 useful, and plain, there was nothing in the outwai-d character 

 of the houses that differed fi-om the generality of glass 



