On Sloping Hollow Walls. 303 



lead progressively to that higher degree of excellence, which 

 we are desirous of pointing out as the ultimatum. 



It is less the business of science or philosophy to call things 

 good or bad, than to call them by their proper names, to 

 describe the phenomena" that attend them, and the state of 

 civilisation, culture, and refinement which they indicate. There 

 is no taste which may not have been good under certain circum- 

 stances of time, place, age, and country, for almost all truths 

 but those of mathematics are relative. The love of tulips and 

 roses is one stage in the progress of botanical taste ; a second 

 is the love of showy herbaceous plants and shrubs in general ; 

 a third stage is the love of the curious or fantastic, succulents, 

 monsters, &c; another stage is the love of the minute, mosses 

 and ferns ; then comes partial love, such as of one tribe or 

 kind, as grasses, bulbs, — now begins the dawning of the 

 love of system ; — after a great many steps the Linnean man- 

 ner is arrived at, — and, beyond that, as the ultimatum, the 

 natural system. The difference in kind between a taste for 

 plants as ornamental or curious, and a taste for them as parts 

 of a grand whole, is no doubt very great ; but a judicious 

 botanist will not limit his views, or the plants in his garden, 

 either to the one extreme or the other, nor because he has 

 arrived at the discovery of beauty in mosses and ferns, or 

 resolved on planting a systema naturae, will he forget the 

 tulips and chrysanthemums, which perhaps first caught his 

 attention to the subject. — Cond, 



Art. XIX. Remarks on the Sloping Hollow Wall proposed 

 to be erected by J. A. B., Esq. By H. G. ; and farther Re- 

 marks on the same Subject. By W. H. 



Dear Sir, 

 Your correspondent, J. A. B., Esq. (Gard. Mag. vol. ii. 

 p. 7.) proposes to erect two walls of twelve feet high, five feet 

 apart at the base, and gradually approaching to the top, 

 thereby having a sloped surface on either side. He calcu- 

 lates he will by that means have an advantage by additional 

 exposure to the sun, and that in part may be very true ; but 

 the great object of a wall for trees is to retain during the 

 night the heat gained in the day. Now I fear he will find, in 

 the first place, that the heat obtained in the day will pass off 

 much quicker from his wall than from a common one ; and as 

 heat has a tendency to rise perpendicularly, it will pass off 

 without benefiting the upper shoots, whereas in a common 

 wall it of course must pass all the shoots in its passage up- 



