582 Recollections of a Gardening Tour. 



branches of young larch trees ; their ends being stuck in the 

 ground so as to form a circle round the plant, and their points 

 woven into one another, as in the finishing of a common wicker- 

 work hamper. There are a new church, new parsonage, hand- 

 some new factor's house, lodges, cottages, farm offices, all seen 

 more or less from the public road, and all most substantially 

 built of stone, and in good taste, at the earl's expense. The 

 Edinburgh approach to the castle is excellent, but the other is 

 less fortunate, showing only one side of the house, instead of 

 coming up to it diagonally, so as to show two sides. Additional 

 to the main door, there is a side or subordinate one, called the 

 luggage door ; a characteristic of Scotch mansions, arising, no 

 doubt, from the hospitable habits of the country. 



Preston Hall ; Dick, Bart. The park is crowded with 



magnificent trees, of a number of which we were promised the 

 dimensions. There are a large and very superiorly designed 

 kitchen-garden, and an excellent gardener's house of three stories, 

 large enough for a farmer ; but, as we generally enquire into 

 details, we found this house, like many, we may say most, other 

 gardeners' houses in Scotland, without a convenience essential 

 both to delicacy and cleanliness. The number of large and 

 commodious gardeners' houses in Scotland which are altogether 

 defective in this particular would not be credited in England. 

 Forty different kinds of fig are cultivated in the garden here, 

 and, by the aid of glass and artificial heat, figs are sent to table 

 from the middle of May till winter. 



Newbattle Abbey ; the Marquess of Lothian. The abbey is 

 finely situated in a bottom, surrounded on every side by high 

 banks covered with wood. It stands close to the Esk, with a 

 considerable portion of level ground on one side, varied by old 

 trees ; the whole expressive, in a high degree, of the peaceful 

 combined with the grand. There are many fine trees, both on 

 the level ground and the declivities, the most remarkable of 

 which are, an immense beech, a sycamore, and a Scotch elm, 

 the dimensions of which are given in our Arboretum. In the 

 kitchen-garden, which, with the gardener's house and some 

 flower-garden scenery, is most picturesquely situated, we found 

 a raspberry plantation which had not been renewed for forty 

 years, and which still continued to bear abundant crops. 



Dalkeith Palace ; the Duke of Buccleugh. As we had not 

 time to see this place properly, we shall say little about it. 

 There is an excellent kitchen-garden, newly formed ; but the 

 walls, in our opinion, are altogether deficient in architectural 

 dignity. We would have had rich Elizabethan gateways and 

 doorways, an architectural coping, and various other details, 

 which, without interfering in any way with culture, would have 

 lent dignity and character to what, speaking always with refe-? 



