Design for laying out a Kitchen-Garden, 373 



of the present century to our stock of plants, is less advan- 

 tageous to landscape-gardening than to botany. It certainly 

 appears to me, that the landscape-gardener and the botanist 

 have very opposite views, which it is not always easy to reconcile : 

 the former looks upon plants as mere materials of picturesque 

 beauty in the garden ; while the latter is too apt to look upon 

 his garden solely as a receptacle for botanical rarities. I have 

 seldom seen these opposite interests so well combined as at Cob- 

 ham Hall, in Kent. I cannot help thinking that, where pictu- 

 resque beauty is the principal object, the size of the flower-garden 

 is often extended much beyond the economical point ; that is to 

 say, the effect produced is not in proportion to the expense and 

 trouble incurred. A much better effect might frequently be ob- 

 tained, if one half of the ground occupied by flowers were to be 

 turfed, or judiciously planted with shrubs, and this in small gar- 

 dens as well as in large. The beauty of a garden, like that of a 

 picture, does not depend upon magnitude, but upon proportion 

 and keeping; and the human eye is so constituted that no beauty 

 can please, unless due attention is paid to what is, with great pro- 

 priety, called repose. In the parks and shrubberies of many of 

 the nobility and gentry of this country, we find that, if the size 

 of the flower-garden be more than very moderate, it is divided 

 into a series of pictures, by means of the judicious disposition of 

 shrubs or ornamental trees. It seems to me that a flower-garden, 

 considered only with reference to beauty, is too large when the 

 flowers produce effect only as masses of colour; when, for 

 instance, the common marigold and Calliopsis bicolor are con- 

 sidered as alike producing a tint of yellow. There is an elegance 

 of form and growth in many flowers, quite as pleasing as their 

 colour, but which becomes lost, or unavailable to effect, when 

 the whole garden is too extensive. 

 June 16. 1834. 



Art. VIII. A Series of Designs for laying out Kitchen-Gardens. 

 By Mr. T. Rutger. Design 3., Containing an Acre and a Half 

 within the Walls, and about the same Quantity in the Slips. 



The plan (fg. 70.) is intended to enclose within the walls, 

 including the forcing department, about an acre and a half, and 

 the slips will add nearly an acre and a half more. The slips 

 may easily be curtailed, if thought too large; but, by the width 

 shown on the plan, room is afforded for standard apple trees, &c, 

 as particularised irr the references. Instead of espaliers, dwarf- 

 trained fruit trees are here introduced by the side of the walks ; 

 and, if this be not approved, gooseberry and currant trees may 

 take their places. 



Vol. X. — No. 53. dp 



