596 Garden Calls : — Ashtead Park, 



seven simple ones {h to k), and is thus planted : b, pinks ; c, heliotropes ; 

 d, o-reenhouse plants of various sorts ; e, carnations ; /, dwarf roses, migno- 

 nette, and standard roses, every e ft, ; g, standard roses and mignonette ; 

 h, pelargoniums ; i, herbaceous plants of choice sorts, with bulbs intermixed, 

 an equal number for every month of three fourths of the year; k, a collec- 

 tion of cistuses and helianthemums. 



There are two pine and grape stoves heated by hot water, by Mr. Cot- 

 tam ; the vines are spurred in, and have produced remarkably large leaves 

 and berries, and a regular and most excellent crop. We do not know that 

 we ever saw the sjmrring in method of pruning attended with so few super- 

 fluous summer-shoots; though we could not find that Mr. Hislop did any 

 thing more than pinch off these at the first leaf, in the usual manner, and 

 always on their very first appearance. He had lately lifted the plants, and 

 placed the whole of their roots in a bed of new soil, on which he has placed 

 turf and a few beds of flowers. We hope he will give us a detailed account 

 of the manner in which he performed this operation. The pines looked as 

 well as the vines. The wood of certain fig trees, trained against a wall, 

 grew so luxuriantly that it never ripened, and of course little or no fruit 

 was produced. Though the trees were covered every winter, the points of 

 the young shoots were generally found rotten when the covering was taken 

 off in spring. Mr. Hislop thinned out the wood of these trees, and cut off 

 and walled up their roots about 3 ft. from the wall; the consequence of 

 which is, that the supply of nourishment being limited, the trees now make 

 but little wood, but that little being perfectly ripened, it requires no cover- 

 ing in winter, and every year a crop of fruit is ripened. The fig trees in the 

 Duke of Northumberland's forcing-houses at Syon are walled in a similar 

 manner by Mr. Forrest. The garden being too small for the consumption 

 of the family, Mr. Hislop is obliged to put slight crops on his borders ; but 

 he entirely disapproves of the practice, and would not even dig them, but 

 do every thing in his power to encourage the roots to come to the surface ; a 

 practice, as Agronome advises (Vol. IV. p. 478.), which deserves adoption in 

 orchards, and wherever fruit trees are grown on a bad sub-soil. In such a 

 garden as this we think the mode we have suggested (p. 595.) of forming 

 the walks of flag-stones would be decidedly economical ; because the stones 

 being laid on brick piers, founded sufficiently deep in the soil, and the sur- 

 face of the soil being kept 3 or 4 in. under the flags, the width of the walks 

 might be considered as so much added to the width of the fruit-tree borders;. 

 By placing the flags a quarter of an inch apart, instead of close-jointing 

 them, the rain would run through the joints to the soil below ; and there 

 being no danger of ice being formed in the joints, the stones would not be 

 displaced by the operation of frosts and thaws. In a garden of an acre, 

 with a surrounding walk and two cross-walks, the saving of ground by such 

 walks would often be about one-sixth part ; besides the saving of labour in 

 trimming the box or other edging, weeding, and rolling the gravel. We 

 hope some gardener in a district where flag-stone abounds will try this de- 

 scription of walk, and let his brethren know the result. In steep slopes the 

 flags might be laid like broad oblique steps, with rises of half the thickness of 

 the flag, in the manner of the broad staircase to the Monte Capitolino in 

 Rome. A wheelbarrow is easily wheeled up and down such steps, and they 

 are walked over as easily as a common slope. 



The borders in this kitchen-garden are without fruit trees or bushes, and 

 wholly devoted to herbaceous and annual-flowering plants, with which they 

 are at present exceedingly well stocked. The soil is particularly favourable 

 for the growth of carrots and parsneps, which attain a very large size, but 

 do not keep. The crops in the melon-ground are good, and the succession 

 pine-plants in excellent health. Every part of the back sheds was orderly 

 and neat, and more especially the tool-house, which is a shed, open in front, 

 in which every tool, and even the ladders were suspended from the back 



