BOOK IV. TRANSFERRING DESIGNS OF GARDENS. 369 



plot as are foreign to those cultivated there. In this sense every plant may become a weed 

 relatively ; but absolute or universal weeds are such as are cultivated in no department of 

 gardening, excepting in that purely botanical. Weeds are drawn out of the ground by 

 the hand or by pincers (Jig. 146.), or they are dug or forked out by weeding tools. 

 Aquatic weeds are necessarily drawn up by pincers. The best season for weeding is after 



CHAP. II. 

 Operations of Gardening in which Skill is more required than Strength. 



1894. Operations of skill require the end to be known and kept in view by the operator, 

 during the operation. The labors which we have enumerated in the foregoing chapter, 

 may almost all be performed by the laborer without reference to any plan or design ; but 

 those which come next to be enumerated, require a greater or lesser degree of reference 

 to the ultimate object. Of this, even the simple operations of digging a drain to carry off 

 water, planting in a row, or forming a bed of earth, may be mentioned as examples. 

 Previously to proceeding to these operations, it becomes necessary to consider the subject 

 of transferring designs from ground to paper, or to memory, and from paper or memory 

 to ground ; we shall then be prepared to treat of executing designs. 



SECT. I. Of transferring Designs from Ground to Paper or Memory. 



1895. The subject of taking plans or designs of objects is to be considered as part of a 

 gardener's general education, since none who aspire to any degree of eminence in their 

 art ought to be ignorant of the first principles of geometry, land-surveying, and drawing. 

 We shall merely, therefore, touch on a few points with a view to assisting a gardener in 

 bringing the knowledge he has so acquired into action. A gardener may require to take 

 plans of gardens, or parts of gardens, or of implements or buildings, for his own instruc- 

 tion, or to execute similar objects for his employer. It is as requisite, therefore, that 

 a gardener should be able to copy a garden, as a carpenter a gate or a roof. 



1896. The dimensions of simple objects, as of a bed of earth or dung, border or other 

 plot, he may retain in memory, and transfer from memory to the imitation or copy ; but 

 in general he will require the assistance of graphic memorandums, either of the pen or 

 pencil, or both. The instruments necessary for taking measurements and angles so as 

 to transfer plants from the ground to paper, are the measuring-line or chain, the measur- 

 ing-rod, and occasionally the theodolite ; but for all ordinary purposes the chain and rod 

 are sufficient. 



1897. The simplest form of surface-plan to transfer from ground to paper is a circle ; 

 for here it is only necessary to find the diameter. The next is a parallelogram or bed, in 

 which it is only requisite to take the length and breadth. Most of the details of the plans 

 of kitchen-gardens, may be reduced to parallelograms, so that they are transferred to paper, 

 or even taken down arithmetically, as in the land-surveyor's field-book, with great ease. 



1898. Irregular figures, as parterres, outlines of picturesque plantations (Jig- 348.), or 

 water ; or the plans of winding walks, require greater nicety. In such cases, temporary 

 or imaginary lines (jig. 348. a, b, c), forming parts of regular figures (as d with b, 



Jig. 348.), are first to be formed, or partially indicated around, or through the plot to be 

 transferred ; and dimensions are next to be taken relatively to these known and simple 

 lines or figures. Of all temporary or skeleton figures, the triangle is the most simple, 

 the most correct, and the most generally used. The skeleton or temporary figure (e) or 

 line (a b, &c.) being transferred to paper, the dimensions (d) are set off from it, and the 

 irregular plot and all its details are thus correctly protracted. 



348 



1899. Raised or dejrressed surfaces, whether naturally or artificially so, require a sort of 

 double measurement ; first, horizontally, by true horizontal lines, to get the surface-plan ; 

 and next, to measure their elevations or depressions from these lines, in order to find their 

 height or depth. Few gardens of any description are made perfectly flat ; the borders of 



Bb 



