FEB.] THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 119 



secure ; these fences may be six or seven feet high in the back or north 

 side, with both the side fences sloping gradually to about five feet 

 high in front, which should always be lowest to admit the sun freely. 



With regard to the borders and walks of this garden, the outer 

 borders adjoining the walks should be neatly formed, the edges made 

 firm and straight, and the walk gravelled, or laid with other dry ma- 

 terials. 



The edges of the borders in small gardens are frequently planted 

 with box, &c., especially in gardens where the kitchen and pleasure- 

 ground are all in one } sometimes part are edged with under shrubby 

 aromatic herbs, as thyme, savory, hyssop, and the like, but unless 

 these are kept low and neat they appear unsightly ; some, however, 

 use no planted edgings at all in kitchen gardens, only have the edge 

 of the border made up even, treading it firm that it may stand, then 

 cut it straight by line ; sometimes along the top of this edging is 

 planted a row of strawberries, a foot or fifteen inches asunder ; they 

 will bear plentifully and have a good effect, observing to string 

 them several times in summer to preserve them neat and within due 

 compass. 



Sometimes grass-walks are used, but these are rather improper for 

 general use in kitchen gardens, especially in such parts of the gar- 

 den where wheelbarrows are obliged to come often, which would cut 

 and greatly deface them ; besides, they are apt to be wet and dis- 

 agreeable in all wet weather and in winter ; but if any are intended 

 for summer's walking, they should be only in some dry part of the 

 garden, and never let them be general, for besides the aforementioned 

 inconveniences, they are apt tp harbor slugs and other crawling ver- 

 min, to the detriment of the adjacent crops. 



The espaliers should be planted in one range round each main 

 quarter, about four or five or six feet from the outer edge of the bor- 

 der, in proportion to its width, and from about fifteen to twenty feet 

 asunder, according to the sorts of fruit-trees you plant. 



Within the espaliers in the quarters, you may plant some standard 

 and fruit-trees of the choicer sorts, at fifty feet or more distance each 

 way, especially the large growing standards, that they may not shade 

 the ground too much. 



Likewise in the quarters may be planted the small kinds of fruit- 

 shrubs, as gooseberries, currants and raspberries, in cross rows, so as 

 to divide the quarters into breaks of twenty or thirty feet wide, or 

 more ; others in a single range along near the outward edges, or some 

 in continued plantations, placing the bushes nine feet asunder in each 

 row, and if kept somewhat fan-spreading the way of the rows, they 

 will not encumber the ground, and will bear very plentiful crops of 

 large fruit ; besides, between these rows you can have various early 

 and late crops of vegetables. 



In many places, however, as formerly noticed, there is but a small 

 compass of ground, or so limited as to be obliged to have the kitchen, 

 fruit, and pleasure-gardens all in one, or at least often all within the 

 same general inclosure, in which case, if any distinct part of the 

 ground is required for ornament, a portion of it next the house may 

 be laid out in a lawn or grass-plat, bounded with a shrubbery, beyond 



