Lawn, Shrubbery, and Fluioer-Garden. 371 



I have mentioned the cow-hair netting, as the material employed in the 

 cases adverted to, and it is possible that vegetable fibre, similarly employed, 

 might produce a different effect ; at least, there is room for enquiry. 



The atmosphere being made up of so many, and, after all, of so little 

 understood, elements, it is impossible to say what changes may take place 

 by its passing through such an obstruction as even a suspended net ; and 

 considering, also, the incomprehensible agency employed in the fertilisation 

 of plants, this change may be more serious than at first sight would appear 

 credible. If electricity, which so universally pervades space, bears an active 

 hand, the material used becomes momentous, and renders it not improbable 

 that the millions of hirsute points protruding from a hair net exercise an 

 influence, injurious or otherwise. But all this I would leave to abler hands, 

 satisfied with merely naming such points as worthy of being taken into 

 account in the investigation. 



Folkstone, May 13. 184.2. 



Art. V. On Laying out and Planting the Laivn, Shruhhery, and 

 Floiver- Garden. By the Conductor. 



{Conthmed frovi p. 308.) 



The design Jig. 89. is for a flower-garden in the Elizabethan style, in a sunk 

 panel; the beds are separated by grass paths 2 ft. wide, and the surrounding 

 gravel walks, a and b, are 6 ft. wide. The walk a is six steps of 6 in. each, 

 or 3 ft., above the level of the border d, and lower walk b. The ground is 

 kept up to the higher level by the parapet wall c, which has piers at regular 

 distances surmounted by vases ; and at each of the flights of steps there are 

 two statues ; one on each side of the entrance at the upper steps, and a vase 

 at each side of the lower steps. To harmonise with these statues there are in 

 the flower-garden four, in the centre of as many beds, one of which is marked k. 

 There is supposed to be a fountain in the centre of the basin g, which may 

 be either a jet or a drooping fountain, according to the height and abundance 

 of the supply of water. If the supply is direct from a hydraulic ram, a 

 drooping fountain will be preferable, and the effect of the regular pulsations 

 of the ram will be found very interesting. The border within the para- 

 pet wall is supposed to be planted with low-fiowering shrubs, chiefly rho- 

 dodendrons, azaleas, and other i'ricacese, including also mahonias, daphnes, 

 cistus, genista, cytisus, coronilla, &c., selected so as to exhibit a show of 

 flower from April to September. All the beds of the form e may be planted 

 with white flowers ; those of the form / with purple flowers, one plant of a 

 species or variety, and so selected and disposed as to have as nearly as prac- 

 ticable an equal number of species in flower throughout the season, and the 

 highest plants in the middle of the bed, sloping gradually to the margins. 

 There ought, however, neither in this bed nor in any other of this design, to 

 be any flowers planted which grow higher than 18 in., and all the smaller 

 beds ought to be planted with flowers which do not exceed 9 in. in height. 

 In all the beds every plant ought to stand distinct, and there ought not to be 

 two of a kind throughout the whole flower-garden. Hence there will be no 

 plants in this garden that want either pegging down or tying up ; and if it is 

 planted with perennials, without either bulbs or annuals, it will occasion very 

 little trouble to keep it in order, and will look well all the year. Each bed 

 may have a number, and a list may be kept of the plants contained in it, which 

 will be less formal than numbering or naming each plant separately, and will 

 be a better exercise for persons desirous of knowing the names. 



The beds of the form marked g may be planted with yellow flowers simi- 



B B 4 



