KITCHEN GARDENS AND ORCHARDS. 



should be the subsoil from the bottom of the trench, and not the fertile top soil, and 

 it should be relaid at the bottom of the trench on the lower portion of the ground 

 which it is intended to raise. In this way, the good soil is always kept to the top. 



Much can be done to improve a poor soil by draining when water-logged, by Improving 

 incorporating lime, road scrapings, burned ballast or sand where it is heavy or clayey, the S H- 

 by the use of clay where the ground is sandy, and by deep and careful trenching as 

 described above, adding to the soil already on the ground that taken from the site of 

 the house when house and garden are being made together, also that from the new 

 walks, the site of the glasshouses or potting sheds, or anywhere it can be spared. To 

 enrich the subsoil, add liberal supplies of manure, cow manure for light land and horse 

 manure for heavy land, and old lime and screened rubbish from old buildings for 

 heavy clay or peaty land. 



For convenience in working, the garden should be divided into plots or " quarters " 

 approximately ninety feet long by sixty broad. The length should, if possible, run 

 East and West, so that the cropping may be the short way of the quarters. This 

 reduces labour, and at the same time ensures to the crops the greatest amount of 

 sun. 



After the ground formation will come the walls. Brick walls are undoubtedly the Fruit walls. 

 best, but where stone is the prevailing building material of the district, the garden 

 walls will look more becoming in the latter material. Brick is, however, the best con- 

 structionally for it allows of a cavity wall which will give greater warmth and dryness 

 and so help the ripening of the fruit. It is also more necessary and more expensive 

 to wire a stone than a brick wall as brick facilitates nailing. Both stone and brick 

 walls should be cement pointed, as otherwise they harbour garden pests, and where the 

 foundation rests on clay, either wall will require a damp-proof course, placed some two 

 or three brick courses above the ground level. For training the fruit trees successfully 

 it is desirable that the walls should have a plain, unbroken face on the side facing the 

 kitchen garden, but, on the other side facing the pleasure grounds, the appearance is 

 improved by introducing such features as pilasters, or buttresses, to harmonize with the 

 terrace walls or other adjacent structures, and it is even possible, of course, to build 

 the wall so as to show a brick surface on the inside and stone 

 on the outside, while in a district where large flints abound, the 

 outside might be built in the flint work which looks so quaint in 

 old country churches, with piers of roughly squared stone or brick. 



The doorways, especially those leading to the pleasure grounds Doorways. 



and house, should receive careful treatment. Suitable arrangements 

 will be found in illustrations Nos. 299 and 300, while for certain 

 positions, such a quaint little gate-house as that shown in illustration 

 No. 71 would give an added charm. 



The heights suitable for fruit walls vary according to the aspect 

 and the amount of shade they will throw on to the garden, those 

 on the North, East and West being higher than that to the South, 

 the North side of which would face the garden. The North that 

 is the wall with a Southern aspect might be twelve or fourteen 

 feet high, the West and East walls, nine to ten feet, and the South 

 wall seven to nine feet high. Many fruit walls are only nine inches 

 thick, but a far better result is obtained by building them fifteen 

 inches thick, and hollow for at least the first two feet of their FRUIT WALL 



height, as shown on the accompanying sketch (111. No. 301) . FIG- 30I 



For copings, a hard flag-stone two and a half to three inches in 

 thickness, projecting two and a half inches on each side of the wall and having a 



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