Aldine Cottage^ Gimnershurij Home. 519 



spending in width with the outer one. The effect is highly 

 artificial, and appropriate to this description of flower-garden. 

 The arcade of trelliswork consists of arches of iron wire, 

 alternately rising and reversed, so as to give the idea of a fes- 

 tooned wreath of flowers. The only defect we found in this 

 circle of festooned work was the want of breadth, which 

 might be easily supplied by means of a few cross wires, so as 

 to retain a more ample mantle of vegetation. Among the blue 

 flowers in this flower-garden were ^nagallis MonelU' and 

 A. latifolia, the common convolvulus, Tradescant/ff, the 

 blue verbena, the blue lobelia, and the heliotrope. Various 

 little circular beds of mesembryanthemums were eminently 

 beautiful as the sun happened to shine full upon them while 

 we walked round. The piece of water is almost the onl^-- 

 formal part of the pleasure-ground. At whatever point you 

 stand, you see the entire outline, which is what botanists 

 would call orbiculate, or, m common language, shaped like a 

 horsepond. It would be easy to vary it by one or two 

 narrow islands along the sides, being careful not to destroy 

 breadth of effect by placing any near the centre, or equidis- 

 tantly along the margin. Among the commendable practices, 

 of which we saw a number at this place, we may mention that 

 of using the vaults under a summer-house as a place for 

 growing mushrooms. We found an excellent crop on these 

 beds, even at this diy hot season, and were informed by 

 Mr. Mills (the head gardener) that he had them in abundance 

 all the year. In the drying ground we observed copper 

 wires, about three sixteenths of an inch in diameter, instead 

 of lines. The poultry yard and rabbitry are very complete ; 

 but the latter facing the south, and having a thin slate roof 

 immediately over the hutches, the rabbits are found not to thrive 

 quite so well in the summer time, as they do in the winter. 

 The worst thing about Gunnersbury is the kitchen-garden. 

 The soil is thin, on a gravelly bottom, and the compartments 

 are interspersed with fruit trees, which neither bear fruit nor 

 permit the soil beneath to bear good crops of well-flavoured 

 vegetables. In consequence of the compartments being thus 

 occupied, the wall borders are obliged to be cropped, and the 

 trees, consequently, are rendered little better than useless. All 

 these matters, however, are undergoing substantial reforms 

 by Mr. Mills, well known to be one of the best practical gar- 

 deners of the day. In the course of the twelve or thirteen 

 months which he has been here, he has not only brought the 

 place into good general order, but has effected most extensive 

 permanent improvements. The gardener's house is very pro- 

 perly placed in the kitchen-garden, detached, in a high and 



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