584 Garden Calls ; — Westdean House, 



being filled with geraniums and other showy articles, and immediately under 

 the eye of the Duchess, who is known to be a lady of great taste, and much 

 devoted to floriculture. Good and rare things are wanting; some trumpery 

 rustic structures are not worth keeping up, and there are rather too many 

 rustic boxes in the Dropmore manner. 



The kitchen-garden is large, surrounded by excellent old walls, but with- 

 out any of the modern improvements in glass structures. Tht soil is very 

 bad. When the present kitchen-gardener came there twenty years ago, 

 the peach trees and borders were in a very bad state. He removed the 

 earth from above and from under the roots, laid a bottom of lime rubbish 

 sloping from the wall, replaced 18 in. of soil, mixing it with chalk and some 

 manure, and he has never since either dug or cropped the borders, but 

 occasionally covered them with a thin coat of rotten leaves ; and once a 

 year he stirs the surface with a fork about 2 in. deep. In a few years the 

 trees began to do well, and have continued in a good state ever since. This 

 practice in like cases, and also that of not cropping and not digging in every 

 case, ought to be imitated by every gardener who has front walls and bor- 

 ders. There is a row of standard fig-trees of different sorts, which bear 

 most abundantly. Nothing is ever done to them, excepting thinning out a 

 few branches ; and some years ago, as the row was rather crowded, every 

 other tree was removed. It might be an improvement to pick off the sum- 

 mer figs in September, and thin out a few of the leaves, in order to favour 

 the ripening fruit; but it has been found that they bear and ripen very well 

 without these operations. The asparagus here is grown in single rows, 4 ft. 

 apart, and attains a good size. Some vines are trained in single shoots 

 v/ithin 1 8 in. of the top of the wall ; and short upright shoots, led up from 

 these as bearers, are spurred in, and produce freely. One of these vines is 

 upwards of 100 ft. long, and all of them are healthy and excellent bearers. 

 The head-gardener, whose name we regret to have forgotten, is a man of 

 sound sense, and master of his profession : his house, which is in the garden 

 wall, is not inconvenient, but the floor is on a level with the walks; so that 

 it is deficient in that degree of dignity which ought ever to distinguish the 

 habitations of men from those of cows and horses, and it must be rather 

 damp. On one side of the garden is an immense tennis-court, much out of 

 repair. The melon ground is in a hollow pit in the centre and lowest part 

 of the garden, the very worst spot within the walls in which it could be 

 placed for the purposes of early forcing ; since the cold air being the 

 heaviest, that of the whole garden will gravitate to the lowest surface. 



We were much gratified with a view of the house, which we enjoyed 

 unexpectedly, and under very favourable circumstances, it being the week 

 of Goodwood races. The dining-room, drawing-room, and Duchess's room, 

 with the exception of the fire-places and grates, are equal to any thing we 

 ever saw. The dining-room is an oblong, lighted from one side ; the walls 

 are painted in imitation of Sienna marble ; the furniture, though magnifi- 

 cent, retains still a certain degree of simplicity, which gives the idea of habit- 

 ableness : the dining-table was laid out to its gi^eatest extent for the visitors 

 during the races ; and the row of gilt vases, all won by the Duke's horses 

 at different times, contrasted with the silver and crystal, had a splendid 

 effect. At one end of the room is the side-board, and at the other the door 

 into the drawing-room. This room is apparently the same in shape and 

 size as the dining-room. The end opposite the door from the dining-room 

 terminates in an alcove, the floor of which is raised one or two steps ; and 

 in the angle to the right is the door to the Duchess's cabinet, and to the 

 left a door to the hall and staircase. The walls are hung with yellow satin, 

 striped ; the curtains and sofas, &c. are of the same material, and the wood- 

 work and cornices are gilt. The effect of the gold and yellow satin is good. 

 The whole appeared to us, if the expression is allowable, chastely magnifi- 

 cent, habitable, and occupied as it ought to be. The only things we should 



