Dalhousie Gardens. 253 



(/) Vineries. ( o ) Coal-shed. (u) Four divisions of the flued 



( g } Peach-houses. ( p) Open-shed. wall. 



(h ) Fruit-room. (q) Bank of Rhododendrons, («) Stock-holes. 



( i ) Mushroom house. &c. (w) Shrubbery borders. 



(k) Potting shed. (r) Line of variegated'Hollies (x) Walk towards the Castle. 



(I) Gardener's room. ( s ) Flower - plots and short (y) Cart-road to the Garden. 



( m ) Water-house. grass. fas) Road to Dalkeith. 



( n ) Tool-house. ( t ) Sunk-fence. (# ) South-Esk. 



The greater part of the soil in the garden is a very strong 

 clayey loam, consequently unfavourable for early cropping, 

 but producing excellent crops of vegetables for Autumn and 

 Winter. 



The peach and nectarine trees and vines in the houses have 

 generally been very productive. In one of the vineries, how- 

 ever, a defect took place several years ago, and was getting 

 worse every succeeding season ; about the time when the 

 grapes began to colour or approach to maturity, the berries 

 got shrivelled ; sometimes the shoulders and lower extremities 

 of the clusters, and occasionally whole bunches were rendered 

 useless in this way ; the several sorts of Frontignac were most 

 subject to this failure, and a great proportion of the vines in 

 that house, are of the different varieties of this grape ; viz. 

 white, black, red, and grisley. Many and various conjectures 

 were formed as to the cause, one of which was, that the roots 

 had in all probability got through the border, which was 

 formed fully three feet deep, was well manured and mixed by 

 repeated trenching, and into the subsoil, which is gravel and 

 sand ; I accordingly determined to make the following trial, 

 and in the Spring of 1824, took the breadth of four sashes in 

 the centre of the house, and removed all the surface soil to 

 the depth of eighteen inches, and to the whole breadth of the 

 border outside the house, working with forks for the safety 

 of the roots ; all of which were then brought up, and cut 

 back to various lengths, most of them being totally desti- 

 tute of small fibres ; I had been correct in supposing that they 

 had gone very deep. I now proceeded to lay them in differ- 

 ent strata, none of them deeper than eighteen inches, among 

 the surface soil, having previously mixed with it some well 

 rotted cow-dung, and decayed leaves of trees. In consequence 

 of this severe check, the vines made very weak shoots the 

 following Summer, and bore a scanty crop, but none of them 

 were shrivelled ; last Autumn they bore a full crop, both the 

 fruit and wood ripened sooner than in the other parts of the 

 house, and no shrivelling appeared. 



Having left his lordship's service in November last, owing 

 to an alteration and reduction having taken place in the 

 establishment, I was prevented from treating all the rest in 

 the same way, which I intended to do. The above hint, I 

 hope, may not be entirely useless, as I have often heard the 



t 2 



