472 Notes on Gardens and Country Seats. 



the beds on the lawn. Mr. Saunders applied it to the latter 

 purpose in our presence ; and we must say, that, independently 

 of its use, it is even entertaining as an exhibition. 



The kitchen-garden has been neglected ; but it is now under 

 a system of renovation by Mr. Saunders; who, judging from his 

 acquirements and ideas, we have no doubt, will make it what it 

 ought to be. There are several pineries, vineries, peach-houses, 

 pits, and other conveniences; and a good gardener's house, 

 though rather low and damp. Mr. Saunders has discovered an 

 excellent loamy soil for pines in the sheep pastures ; and also, in 

 one of the fox-covers, a bed of yellow gravel, like that at Ken- 

 sington, both of immense value in a part of the country where 

 formerly neither had been found. The park is varied by single 

 trees and small groups, transplanted, under the direction of Mr. 

 Page of Southampton, by Mr. Wallace, a former gardener. 

 Some of these trees are of great age and size ; and one walnut, 

 which has a trunk 18 in. in diameter, is supposed to be above a 

 century old. They were not prepared in Sir Henry Steuart's 

 manner, but were taken up with as great a length of ramose 

 roots as could be done : they are all doing well. The plantations 

 on the rising grounds were also made by Mr. Page ; and their 

 effect promises to be excellent. In one of these plantations, a 

 tower, with a turret, has been built for the purpose of watching 

 the progress of the late system of incendiarism, which has greatly 

 intimidated most of the nobility and gentry of this part of the 

 country. To the same cause (viz., the dread of the spread of 

 incendiarism) is to be assigned the establishment of the steam- 

 engine, the well, the reservoir, and the system of delivery-pipes 

 round the house. 



The dog-kennels are on the top of a hill, adjoining the well 

 and steam-engine, and consist of three circular lodging-rooms ; 

 with a feeding-house at one end, and the huntsman's house at the 

 other. All the buildings are thatched; and the lodging-rooms have 

 ventilators in the summits of their conical roofs, and a circular 

 bedstead in the centre of each room, and occupying the greater 

 portion of it, for the dogs. These bedsteads, when we saw them, 

 were covered with rye straw ; the beds fold up in the centre like 

 a lady's reticule, to admit of their being cleaned beneath. The 

 cribs for retaining the straw are covered with tin, to prevent the 

 dogs from gnawing them ; and the whole bedstead is painted of 

 a stone colour. The floors of these lodging-rooms are paved 

 with brick, as are the square courtyards in the centre of which 

 they stand. These yards are washed with water from a cock in 

 one corner of each, even as often (as the huntsman, Mr. Burton, 

 informed us) as twenty times in one day. Near the cock there 

 is a slate cistern, from which the dogs drink. In one house were 

 old hounds ; and, in the other two, young ones, the males and 



