64 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



at sucli intervals as suit the poles. Two poles, one a foot and 

 a half from the ground, and one thi-ee feet, or somewhere 

 thereabouts, will make a fence sufficiently strong to keep off 

 cows, bullocks, or horses ; and nothing is so cheap in the way 

 of a fence against large cattle. If sheep have to be kept out, 

 there must be a third rail. This kind of fencing is often used 

 when a border of kitchen garden is made in a paddock, or 

 cattle have to be kept from plantations ; but the most elegant 

 fence is the iron hurdle, which may be calculated at a shilling 

 a foot, and which is a completely invisible fence at a little 

 distance. 



Brick Walls. — As, however, an external boundary to a 

 garden, there is nothing so good, so clean, so effective, so 

 useful, and so durable, as a brick wall. It is of immeasurable 

 value for fruit-trees. It should not, however, be less than ten 

 feet high to be of the full value and use. Eight will do, nine 

 is better, but ten best. In building a brick wall it 

 is best to build to the extreme edge of the property. There 

 are exceptions ; and many old estates exhibit the ditch outside 

 the wall, although next the pubKc highway. This is in- 

 evitable when the adjoining land has the ditch on the 

 premises, while you also have it on yours ; the only way to 

 avoid building within then, would be to arch it over, which, 

 if there were any length, would cost more than the value of 

 the ground recovered ; and, if short, would not be worth 

 touching. It is the builder's business to regulate the founda- 

 tion according to the soil ; but, if he has to go deep, you may 

 lessen the intended height, or even lower the ground con- 

 siderably on the inside, for the sake of gaining as much 

 height as you can for the trees there. I^evertheless, if you 

 lower the border next the wall, you must still slope it lower 

 for ten feet from the wall ; and the path must be made lower 

 yet. The ground may be raised here and there with the soil 

 you may have removed, as you may make in any part of the 

 ground a bank for endive, or for strawberries. An external 

 wall must not be less than nine inches in thickness ; but, 

 as we have already observed, where they are built within the 

 premises, merely to part off a place, and are for fruit, we have 

 known them to be built six feet high with single brick, or 

 four-inch work, with nine-inch piers at distances of five or 

 six feet, and such walls have answered every purpose for many 

 years. We should not like to trust to such frail concerns ; for 



