1022 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



Part III, 



and these, we must previously acknowledge, are so intimately blended, that we hardly 

 know how to separate them, and give a distinctive character to each ; every country- 

 gentleman, from the occupier of the palace to the cottage, adopting such luxuriant scenes 

 as suit his particular taste, without reference to any thing but his own desires ; and this 

 happy circumstance contributes, perhaps, as much as the difference of situations, to the 

 variety in the beauty and style of British country-residences. Mansions, villas, tempo- 

 rary residences, cottages, and public gardens, may be said to include the leading dis- 

 tinctions. Public gardens are much less various than private ones, because there are 

 fewer publics than individuals. 



Sect. I. On laying out Private Gardens, or Residences. 



7270. The specific distinctions of private residences may be considered as the mansion 

 and demesne, the villa, the farm, the temporary residence, and the cottage ; but each of 

 these branches out into a number of subspecies and varieties. 



7271. The mansion and demesne. The characteristic of the mansion and demesne, is the demesne or 

 surrounding lands in tenancy. Any residence of which the dwelling-house is of a higher character than 

 that of the mansion and demesne, as the castle, abbey, and palace, has the same general arrangement in 

 the grounds, and differs chiefly in extent, and in the arrangements of the courts and other exterior ap- 

 pendages of the house. 



7272. As a specimen of this style, we shall give the arrangement at Michel Grove in Sussex, the residence 

 of R. Walker, Esq. from the works of Repton : 



7273. In determining the situation for a large house in the country, there are other circumstances to 

 be considered besides the fences and appendages immediately contiguous. These have so often occurred, 

 that I have established in imagination certain positions for each, which I have never found so capable of 

 being realised as at Michel Grove. 



7274. I would place the house, with the principal front, towards the south-east. 



7275. I would place the offices behind the house ; but as they occupy much more space, they will of 

 course spread wider than the front. I would place the stables near the offices. I would place the kitchen- 

 garden near the stables. I would put the home-farm buildings at rather a greater distance from the 

 house ; but these several objects should be so connected by back roads as to be easily accessible. 



7276. I would bring the park to the very front of the house. 



7277. I would keep the farm or land in tillage, whether for use or for experiment, behind the house ; 

 I would make the dressed pleasure-grounds to the right and left of the house, in places which would 

 screen the unsightly appendages, and form a natural division between the park and the farm, with walks 

 communicating to the garden and the farm. 



7278. The villa may be nothing more than a park with a house of smaller size 

 than that of the mansion and demesne, surrounded by a pleasure-ground, and with 

 the usual gardens. Moderate extent and proximity to other villas, constitute the cha- 

 racteristic of this class of residences; but though adjoining lands are not necessary 

 to the character, they do not, where they exist, change it, unless their extent be con- 

 siderable. Two villas joined together often mutually aid each other in effect, especially 

 as to water and trees. (Jig. 720.) 



7279. The villa farm. A villa being originally a farm-house, we think that the 

 Roman arrangement, in which the farm-offices were joined to, or at least so near, as to 

 form with it and the domestic offices one group of buildings, might be adopted as the 

 characteristic distinction of this class of residences. The farm-buildings should, in that 

 case, be dignified with more architectural design than when placed at a distance j but 



