e"' General Results of a Gardening Tour : — 



boards, latlis, and for other purposes, and sold in this miinu- 

 flictured state at very moderate rates ; thus at once creating a 

 market for the article, and tempting the farmers and owners of 

 cottages to increase their comforts. Mr. Menteath has formed 

 many miles of excellent roads, some of them on the principle 

 of alternate levels and inclined planes, with stone wheel-tracks 

 on these planes, by which he has found that one horse can 

 draw from thirty cwt. to two tons in small four-wheeled wag- 

 gons (Enci/. of Jgr., 2d edit. § 3540-1.) He uses exten- 

 sively bone manure; and, as an Englishman, has of course 

 practised his country's method of making hay : but, though he 

 lias done this for nearly half a century, his neighbours still 

 continue the old practice of withering it in the field. (Vol. VII. 

 p. 534.) Schools have been established by Mr. and Miss 

 Menteath ; and, in short, there is no good work that can be 

 expected from a resident landed proprietor of great intelli- 

 gence and the most active benevolence, that has not been 

 engaged in (and that, too, with success) by this family. 



Munches affords an example of agricultural improvement, 

 combined with great taste in landscape-gardening, as far as 

 the latter art has been called into use. The line of approach, 

 though over a flat surface, is one of the most perfect things 

 of the kind in this part of the country, and the trees seen 

 from it, whether those formerly existing or recently planted, 

 are all in natural combinations ; the groups in the foreground 

 varying with every change of the spectator, and all seeming to 

 belong to larger masses ; which, in their turn, appear to con- 

 nect themselves with an interminable forest, which carries the 

 eye to the woods that clothe the sides of the neighboui'ing 

 granitic mountains. On arriving at the house, we found it 

 imexpectedly close on the bank of a winding river, near which 

 there are some very singular masses of naked granite, which 

 rise abruptly in the lawn, and remind us of the rocks some- 

 times observed in Chinese drawings : when the place comes to 

 receive its finish, these masses will afford fine opportunities 

 of displaying rock plants, trailers and creepers, with various 

 half-hardy shrubs of rarity or ornament. We were informed 

 by Mr. Maxwell, that, in his gardening improvements, he had 

 received considerable assistance from the hints of his friend, 

 the Rev. Mr. Carruthers of Dalbeattie; a gentleman whose 

 taste and general views, judging from some hours passed in 

 his company, and from his own beautiful litde residence, 

 St. Peter's, appeared to us entirely to coincide with our own. 

 The kitchen-garden at Munches was in the most perfect order 

 and keeping : there was a little too much raking on the gravel 

 walk, as at Terragles, for our taste ; but not a weed, nor a 

 decayed shoot or leaf, was to be found ; the walls were well 



