392 Present State of Garden Architecture. 



mass, which, when covered with bloom, as it is every summer, must 

 be a truly magnificent object. The grounds at Lancing would 

 be wonderfully improved by thinning out two clumps, and substi- 

 tuting a wire fence for a clipped hedge which surrounds a paddock 

 embraced by the pleasure-ground. The effect of removing the 

 hedge would be to allow the eye to penetrate among the trees 

 and shrubs, which, in consequence of glades of turf among them, 

 would exhibit an indefinite picturesque boundary, adding at 

 once beauty, variety, and apparent extent. 



( To be continued.) 



Art. III. On the present State of Garden Architecture. 

 By Alexander Forsyth. 



I beg leave, through the medium of your widely circulated 

 Magazine, to point out to garden builders some of the absurdities 

 practised therein, and regret, for the credit of British gardening, 

 that " we gardeners " are such a long and weary way behind in 

 our architecture. Hothouses, all over the country, have been 

 erected, and are now being built, of a splendour and magnitude 

 hitherto unknown in the land ; and it is not to retard this praise- 

 worthy work that I now address you, but only to caution, as a 

 friend, those who are thus engaged " to stop and think " a little 

 " before they further go," lest they be compelled to confess with 

 sorrow and to their cost, when the work is completed for them, 

 " that the builder lost his pains." I have long ago, in this 

 Magazine, pointed out the uselessness of having a strong brick 

 wall to support a lean-to-roofed hothouse and a lean-to-roofed 

 shed, instead of coupling the rafters at the apex, as in cottage 

 roofs, and thus making them both stand in their " strength 

 alone ;" and, if farther argument were deemed necessary on this 

 head, I would invite any one to look at the extent of the apart- 

 ments roofed without inner walls at the Derby railway station. 

 Now the space lost at the apex of the roof of a hothouse is the 

 very best in the whole house, the cream of the artificial climate, 

 for in that particular spot the air is hot, moist, and in motion in 

 a greater degree than in any other place in the whole house ; 

 and instead of using this fine climate, by having the trellis run- 

 ning parallel with every inch of the roof, the strong brick wall 

 steps in, and, forming an acute angle, requires the trellis to be 

 shortened in order that the sun may shine upon the barren lime- 

 washed wall. There are, I must allow, some beautiful exceptions 

 to this sweeping criticism, where the back wall is covered with 

 peach trees, and a quadrant-shaped trellis occupies the front 

 floor, for in this instance the surface of trellis exceeds the sur- 



