44 NOTES UPON 



high, had made a shoot 2J feet this season. A Pinus insignis, 

 phinted in 1838, was upwards of 35 feet. A tree of Abies 

 Doughisi on the lawn measured 54 feet in height. 



The Kitchen Garden, whicli is walled in, contains about 5 J 

 acres ; but besides this, as the family is very large, there are 7 

 or 8 acres of vegetable ground, including an orchard. The 

 subsoil of the gai'dens is as bad as can be, a coarse sand, with 

 clay full of iron, and water rising evei'ywhere to within three feet 

 of the surface. This is owing to the substratum being rock, 

 through the fissures of which the water rises in all directions, even 

 to the top of the highest ground. It is very difficult to drain 

 under these circumstances. Tlie large percentage of iron in the 

 subsoil is very unfavourable to vegetation, which positively 

 refuses to grow in it. Hence a great part of the borders is 

 artificial, made with difiiculty owing to there being no suitable 

 loam near. Loam for the Vine-borders was procured from the 

 Downs, a distance of six miles. It is a turfy loam, moderately 

 strong, lying immediately on the chalk. 



Some of the walls are 1^ feet, others 14 feet high. Their 

 copings project 4 inches. Copings of wood, which project 11 

 inches, are put up over Peach-trees, &c., and at every 30 or 40 

 feet there are wind-breaks. By these means, and with artificial 

 soil, very good crops are obtained. A very large Plum was 

 growing on the walls, called the Fonthill Plum, and it is also 

 cultivated near Bath under tlie same name. It appeared to be 

 the same as Pond's Seedling. It is red and much larger than 

 the Pi,ed Magnum Bonum. Along the sides of some of the 

 walks intersecting the kitchen-garden. Currants and Gooseberries 

 are ti'ained to slight espaliers. 



There are six Vineries, including a large pit for Muscats, and 

 in all of them excellent crops are produced. The sort of Muscat 

 chiefly grown by Mr. Spencer, is one introduced by him, and called 

 the " Bo wood Muscat." He states that it is a freer setter than 

 the common one, grows weaker, and breaks much later in the 

 spring. There was a fine crop of this sort in the large pit above 

 mentioned. The earliest Vinery and two others are heated by 

 flues ; the other three by hot water. There are two Peach- 

 houses : and three houses for Pine-apples, one of which is used 

 as a Strawberry-house in spring. In one pit the Pine-apples are 

 grown on the Meudou plan, and very successfully ; Queens are 

 grown by this mode to the weight of fi lbs. and upwai'ds, the average 

 being 4 lbs. The winter-house has heat applied from below by 



