36 THE MINIATURE FRUIT GARDEN. 



My walls Lave a niiic-incli foundation of three 

 courses of brickwork in the ground, and they are 

 carried up to four feet aljove the surface (it is scarcely 

 safe to build them of a greater height), with nine-inch 

 piers fifteen feet apart. The coping for them i.s made 

 of boiling coal-tar mixed with lime and sand to the 

 consistence of mortar, which is placed on the top of 

 the walls thus -^- so as to carry off the water. This is 

 a most cheap and efficacious covering — it can scarcely 

 be called a coping, as it does not project over the 

 edge of the wall. A coping of Portland cement is 

 even better, as it holds the wall together. 



The best description of bricks for these lij^ht walls 

 are the patent perforated bricks, but common stock 

 bricks will do. The very best lime should be used • 

 (I have found the gray Dorking lime cxceUentj, but 

 any kind of lime made from limestone will answer 

 well ; that made from chalk in this county is not strong 

 enough. Their cost, as I learn from my bricklayer, 

 is about six shillinpjs the yard in length ; thus a wall 

 of the above heit^ht, twenty yards long, should cost 

 six pounds. In i)laces where bricks are cheap, they 

 may be built for less ; if they are dear and at a dis- 

 tance, their carriage will add to the expense. My 

 walls are six feet apart, and stand endwise, X. E. and 

 S. W. ; so that one side of each wall has a S. E. aspect, 

 the other a A'. AV. ; on the former may be grown the 

 late-keeiiing pears, on the latter the earlier sorts, that 

 ripen from October till the cud of November. Wo 

 thus have one exi'ollent aspect — the S. E. ; and one 

 tolerably good — the N. W. : so tliat no wall sjiace is 

 lost. 



