Retrospective Criticism. 45 



Then, for enclosing. It would perhaps be the most expeditious and the best 

 way, for a gentleman situated any distance from Sydney (the only place where 

 there is at present a botanical or horticultural garden established), to enclose 

 the space fixed on for his garden with a post and rail, and a sheep net, such 

 as is used for folding sheep. This would form a cheap and quick protection 

 from cattle, &c, within which he could commence sowing his seeds, pips, 

 stones, &c, for raising the stocks for his fruit trees, &c; correct lists of which, 

 together with lists of seeds for raising shrubs and flowers applicable to that 

 climate, would be requisite for the uninitiated, also their culture and manage- 

 ment. He could also be raising his culinary vegetables, as well as the mate- 

 rials for permanent hedges, round his lawn and shrubberies, and round the 

 kitchen-garden. In two or three years the materials for forming these hedges 

 would be ready to plant out, and thus his garden would have an effectual 

 boundary, and be ready to receive in their proper places the trees when graft- 

 ed ; the stocks of which he has been bringing forward. The cuttings for these 

 grafts he would, of course, have to procure from Sydney, when his stocks were 

 ready ; and they could be sent to him without danger, packed in dry earth or 

 sand. 



After his hedge had stood a year or more, he could remove his first tem- 

 porary fence of post and netting ; and by this time he should have felled and 

 cut up a sufficient quantity of timber for forming his garden paling, or wall, 

 8 or 10 feet high. A brick wall being, of course, out of question in the country 

 parts, at least for many years. This paling he ought, of course, to put up 

 15 or 20 feet inside of his garden hedge, to leave a place for an outside border, 

 compost heaps, sheds, &c. ; this paling would all be finished by the time his 

 wall trees required nailing to it, they having been headed down close to the 

 graft, after planting them out. 



His garden would thus be completed with wall or paling, and outside hedge, 

 and he would have raised his trees from pips, stones, &c, not only in tin. 

 most expeditious, but also in the most certain and economical, manner. 



The foregoing is not given, except to show the kind of information and 

 instruction that emigrants would require to teach them how first to form 

 their gardens in Australia. The great amount of comfort and happiness 

 which you would be the means of dispensing through that vast continent, 

 will, I hope, induce you to take this matter into your consideration. 



A gentleman with a square mile or two of land, with 200 or 300 acres of 

 it cleared, though far away from any professional men, architects, gar- 

 deners, or builders, might, with the assistance of your two excellent works, so 

 superintend his workmen, as to lay out, enclose, plant, and cultivate his 

 gardens and grounds, shrubbery, &c, to afford him and his family an abun- 

 dance of comforts, and a high degree of happiness, as well as setting an ex- 

 ample and pattern to those who might afterwards settle near him ; and, by 

 such means, a taste would be formed at the first rising of towns, which would 

 remain in them for all time to come, and would soon be taken up by the cot- 

 tagers and labourers. 



It will doubtless occur to you that the knowledge of cultivating a garden 

 will avail but little to an emigrant, unless he first knows how to set about 

 forming it, and also stocking it with the necessary vegetables, fruits, shrubs, 

 and flowers ; and if you imagine him without any garden previously enclosed, 

 any seeds, &c, to put into it when enclosed, and from a week to a fortnight's 

 journey from the only place at which any of these can be procured, you will 

 then see the exact situations of ninety-nine out of every hundred emigrants 

 in Australia. Now, what you yourself would do under these circumstances, 

 in order to form a good garden for fruit, vegetables, and flowers, and in the 

 shortest time possible> is precisely the advice that is needed by the Australian 

 landowner. 



I have got your very excellent work the Suburban Gardener, or Villa Com- 

 panion ; and I feel certain that it will be of immense value to the people of 



