290 OF A GARDEN. 



horse-dung be ever used, it must be completely 

 rotted, otherwise it will burn up the crop the first 

 hot weather. 



With regard to the form of a garden, there are 

 various opinions, and it sometimes depends on 

 the situation ; but where you are at perfect liberty 

 I would prefer a square or oblong. As to the 

 size, it may be from one acre to six or eight within 

 the wall, according to the demand for vegetables 

 in the family. It should be walled round with 

 a brick wall from ten to twelve feet high : but 

 if there be plenty of w^alling, which there may 

 be when you are not stinted wuth respect to 

 ground, I would prefer walls ten feet high, to 

 those that are higher, and I am convinced they 

 will be found more convenient. The garden 

 should be surrounded with a border, or slip, 

 from forty to sixty feet wide, or more, if the 

 ground can be spared ; and this again inclosed 

 with an oak paling, from six to eight feet high, 

 w^ith a cheval-de-frise * at top, to prevent the 

 people's getting over : it will also strengthen the 

 paling. 



* A very good cheval-de-frise may be constructed as follows: 

 Take a piece of wood of a convenient length, about four inches 

 broad, and one inch and a quarter thick, and plane the upper 

 edge into the shape of the roof of a house of a low pitch ; then 

 draw a line on each side, from end to end, about an inch and a 

 quartfer below the upper edge, and through these lines drive 

 twelve-penny nails, about four inches distant from each other, 

 bo as to come out near the upper edge on the opposite side. 

 Each nail should be opposite the middle of the space between 



