WALLS. 
WALLS. 
footing of brickwork, stone, or oak 
plank, they will last many years. 
Shelters, as substitutes for walls, 
are formed of panels of reeds cover- 
ed with trellis-work ; or sometimes 
in Russia with wicker-work, the in- 
terstices being calked with moss ; 
and both these kinds of substitutes 
for walls last a number of years 
when protected from perpendicular 
rains by copings which project at 
least a foot on every side, and when 
placed on footings which secure 
them from the damp of the soil. 
Walls have also been formed for 
training on, by inserting large slates 
or thin flag-stones, such as the 
Caithness pavement, either in the 
soil (in which case the walls are not 
above four or five feet in height), 
or in fraraes of timber or iron, in 
which case they may be of any 
height required. Such walls are 
always covered with trellis-work, to 
which the trees or plants are attach- 
ed. The most generally applicable 
kind of walls, however, and those 
which are by far the best for garden 
purposes, are, as before observed, 
those formed of brick. When the 
wall is not intended to be more than 
four or five feet in height, it need 
not exceed nine inches in thickness ; 
and the thickness of fourteen inches 
will admit of ten feet in height; the 
wall in both cases being built with- 
out piers, which are great impedi- 
ments to good training. With piers 
the height with any given thickness 
may be increased one-fourth. In 
no case, however, ought garden 
walls, or indeed division or fence 
walls of any kind which have not a 
load to support perpendicularly, or 
a pressure to resist on one side, to 
be built with piers. The same ob- 
ject may always be obtained by 
building the walls hollow; each side 
seing of the thickness of four inches, 
and the two sides being joined to- 
gether by cross partitions of four- 
inch work. An excellent garden- 
ee 
—_ eS ; 
wall may thus be raised to the 
height of twelve or fourteen feet, 
with the same quantity of bricks 
that would raise a nine-inch wall 
to that height, with the addition 
only of the bricks necessary to form 
cross partitions at every three or 
four feet. The width of the wall 
may either be fourteen or eighteen 
inches, the vacuity in the former 
case being five inches, and in the 
latter nine inches. Where it is 
desired to save the expense of a 
coping, the sides of the wall may 
be gradually contracted towards the 
top, so as to finish with a coping of 
bricks set on edge crosswise; but 
no wall intended for fruit trees or 
for tender-flowering shrubs should 
ever be built without a protecting 
coping, because the rains run down 
the face of the wall and render it 
moist and cold at those seasons 
when dryness and heat are most 
wanting, viz: in spring, when the 
buds are bursting, and in autumn 
when the young wood is ripening. 
The same moisture, and its alterna- 
tion with dryness, rots the mortar 
in the joints of the bricks, and 
greatly injures and disfigures the 
face of the wall. When, therefore, 
walls are built without projecting 
copings, the exterior joints ought 
invariably to be pointed with stucco, 
as in France and Italy, or with Ro- 
man cement. Walls of nine inches 
in thickness, and even four-inch 
walls, if built in a winding or zigzag 
direction, may be carried to a con- 
siderable height without either hav- 
ing piers or being built hollow; and 
such walls answer perfectly for the 
interior of gardens. Hollow walls 
of every description may also be 
built at less expense by placing the 
bricks on edge instead of being laid 
flat; and not only garden walls but 
those of cottages and farm-buildings 
may be constructed in this manner. 
Lengthened details on this subject 
will be found in Mr. Loudon’s En- 
