290 PRACTICAL GaRDEXING. 



objectionable to the eye than holes and lumps ; and if the 

 former have been made by excavating for gravel, or soil, or 

 chalk, and present, by their extent and number, direct ob- 

 stacles to the filling up, there is nothing left for ns but to 

 plant and conceal them ; whereas very extensive hollows, 

 large enough to be turned to good account, may be made very 

 interesting features : by breaking their perpendicular sides 

 into fragmental ledges and rocky projections, by supplying 

 them with appropriate plants, by reducing the bottom to 

 some picturesque form, that which would otherwise be a most 

 exceptionable blemish may be converted to one of the most 

 interesting features. It is impossible to convey lessons to 

 meet such a case, because there are no two such places aUke 

 in anything. The design would depend altogether upon the 

 depth, the extent, the nature of the material, and the situa- 

 tion : all such places have roads sloping to the bottom, which 

 have been used to draw out the material, and this road must 

 be rendered picturesque, by the breaking of the sides and 

 plantmg them, — by turning it if straight, by widening if too 

 narrow.^ There must be some object when we get there— a 

 gipsy hut, a hermit's cave, a grotto, a fountain, or some other 

 object, if it be but a garden-seat, or the tomb of a favourite 

 dog, or, as Pope had, in his underground passage which com- 

 municated between the premises on either side the road, the 

 busts of literary and bosom friends. Such a place might be 

 devoted to some such purpose, and embrace memorials of 

 departed great men. But all this is fancy; if the places are 

 of noble size, and the banks or sides capable of forming 

 extensively picturesque features, there would be no occasion 

 for any half so gloomy. At Eosher^dlle, the premises are 

 nearly all excavation — the high portions are in the minority, 

 and are the exceptions ; but there are portions from which 

 useful lessons may be taken as to the best means of treatment, 

 from upright rocky sides, to deep and extensive hollows. 

 Notliing could be more appropriate than to turn^ the sides of 

 such a place into a Eockery, which would beat in effect any- 

 thing that could be attempted in an artificial way alone. The 

 breaking down of the sides must be judiciously managed; 

 but this belongs rather to another section of our work. 



Gravel pits are of the same nature as chalk or marl pits, 

 cr stone or slate quarries ; the sides are frequently as perpen- 

 dicular, but not nearly so easy to manage, for they can onl)' 



