FORMATION OF GARDENS. 121 



Walls. — As garden walls may be regarded as horticultural 

 structures, we will here make a few remarks upon them. 



In Europe, walls are built around gardens of all kinds, 

 whether the enclosed space be one or twenty acres. Their 

 chief use is for training the more tender kinds of fruit-trees 

 upon their southern aspect. The enclosed space is generally 

 appropriated to the growth of culinary vegetables, and contain- 

 ing also the hot-houses, which occupy a part of their south 

 aspect. These gardens are of various forms, and we have seen 

 them circular, oval, square, and oblong. The latter shape, with 

 the angular corners cut off, is undoubtedly the most desirable 

 shape for a vegetable garden. The oval and polygonal forms 

 are preferred by some, on account of their affording a more equal 

 distribution of sun and shade. But we are at a loss to find out 

 how this can be the case, as, however a wall may be placed, 

 it can only obtain a certain amount of direct sunshine during 

 the day, and the inconvenience resulting from the adoption of 

 these forms is very considerable, both in the management and 

 culture of the interior compartments, and in the training of the 

 trees. Moreover, an equal distribution of sunshine is not so 

 desirable as may appear; as, while the warmest portion of the 

 wall may be appropriated to the more delicate and early fruits, 

 the coldest, or northern portion, may be as profitably appropri- 

 ated to late sorts, or for retarding earlier kinds, both of which 

 purposes are as useful as an early aspect. 



In this country, walls have been little employed in the forma- 

 tion of gardens, and only in a few places have they been 

 adopted, as at the fine gardens of Mr. Gushing, at Watertown, 

 and Col. Perkins, at Brookline, in the vicinity of Boston, — two 

 of the finest gardens in this country. Some other places have 

 also portions of walls surrounding the garden, but we have seen 

 none where any principles of design have been adopted and car- 

 ried out so much as at the former place."^ 



* In Hovey's Magazine of Horticulture, pp. 50 — 53, vol. xvi., we 

 have described the beautiful gardens at this place, from a visit which 

 we gave them at that time. We have subsequently visited them, as 

 well as many other places, and still consider them the finest gardens we 

 have seen in America. They are made precisely in the style of moderu 



