73 



CASSELL'S POPULAR GARDENING. 



whole, tie test stock for Teas ; that the Manetti is 



admirable for Hybrid Perpetuals. Roses on this last 



stock are also earlier than on any other, with the 



exception of the Gloire de Dijon, which is one of the 



earliest as well as very best stocks for early Roses. 



But a halt must be called, lest the region of fact be 



iorsaken for that of fancy ; as the question of special 



stocks for particular Roses is as yet in a, nebulous 



state, and what is here stated is ahead rather than 



simply abreast of what is absolutely proved on the 



subject. The time may probably come when, instead 



of being dependent on wilding Dogs, the art of 



raising and selecting Rose stocks will have been so 



perfected, and their natural or acquired afSnities so 



thoroughly understood and appreciated, that almost 



every leading type of Rose will have its own stock, 



and thus be mated to the foster-mother that suits it 



test. „ ™ . . 



*• This IS an Art 



"Wliicli does mend Nature j change it rather ; but 



The Art itself is Nature." 



GAEDEN WALKS AKD EOADS. 



BOADS AND LARGER WALKS. 



TO make a garden without providing sufficient 

 ineans of ingress and egress, i^ like hanging 

 'pictures in a cellar with only one narrow staircase 

 leading down into its dingy light. The pictures 

 may be gems of art, but they cannot be, seen to 

 any advantage, nor visited with any ease or com- 

 fort. It is just so with not a few gardens. They 

 are fuU of gems of art and fine examples of natural 

 beauty, but they cannot be visited with any pleasure, 

 •unless during exceptionally fine weather. Even in 

 summer, when the gardens are full of beauty, a pass- 

 ing shower or day's rain renders the walks that lead 

 to them soft and miry, and at times veritable sloughs 

 of despond, from which ladies have been only too 

 glad to escape, leaving their shoes behind them. 



Admitting that such very bad walks are rare, 

 it is to be hoped that for all future time they 

 wiU become impossible. A demesne without good 

 roads, as a garden without good walks, is shorn 

 of fully one-half its charms. Eacile and cleanly 

 access to and return from house and garden are 

 vital factors to their full enjoyment. Much has 

 been said and written about the line of beauty 

 in both, and that we will endeavour to illustrate 

 alike by precept and example ; but the direction is 

 of far less moment than the quality. It is very 

 much a matter of taste whether walks or roads 

 shoidd be straight or curved, sti£E or meandering, 

 ■offensively formal or softly melting into flowing lines 

 ■of beauty ; but it is an affair of absolute necessity 



that they should be hard and dry, and inadhesive iu 

 aU weathers. Even the Garden of Eden would have 

 failed to give pleasure had our first parents had to 

 walk through its blissful bowers handicapped with 

 haU a stone of sludge on either foot. 



The radical fault in road and walk making consists 

 in trusting to the material employed rather than to the 

 proper preparation of the ground as the basis of per- 

 fection in either : because stones, brickbats, builder's 

 refuse, burnt earth, gravel, are hard and porous, and 

 a foot or more of these is used to form good roads or 

 walks, therefore these must continue good and dry. 

 This popular error has caused more failures in this 

 useful branch of civil engineering than all other 

 fallacies put together. To give another extreme 

 example to illustrate our point : try these hard ma- 

 terials on a swamp ; they would simply disappear, ' 

 like the mountain of earth that George Stephenson- 

 tipped into Chat Moss before it would carry his rails 

 or carriages across. In a lesser degree, but by virtue 

 of the operation of similar laws, millions of tons of 

 road and walk materials are being lost or utterly 

 ruined 'every year through resting on wet bottoms. 

 The process of deterioration is slower, but equally 

 sure as if the stones were cast into a. morass ; they 

 simply sink into the mire ; or, by virtue of the con- 

 stant filtration of earthy particles from the upper 

 strata of the road or walk, or the passage of rain- 

 water, the mass of the road materials become assimi- 

 lated to the character and consistency of mud. 



The Poundation. — Another almost equally 

 common and mischievous fallacy is that the materials 

 are, in fact, the road, and bear the weight of the 

 trafiic ; on the contrary, these are so much dead weight 

 added to the foundation of the road; that is, the 

 earth. It is the latter, not the former, that carries 

 the entire burden of the traffic, whether carriage 

 or pedestrian, plus the weight of the rubbish, 

 stone, gravel, employed in making and maintaining 

 the roads. Hence the vital importance of strength- 

 ening the foundation of our roads and walks before 

 proceeding to make them. Just as the stability 

 of our noblest buildings depends on the solidity 

 and massiveness of their foundations, so also does 

 the excellency and durability of our roads and 

 walks. As to mass of base, we have a sufficiency, 

 for the wide area of garden or demesne is at our 

 disposal. But we may add to the durability and 

 buttress the solidity of our base in two ways : by 

 intercepting the surface water from above, and 

 cutting off the rising water from below. The first 

 is done by as nearly as possible rendering our road 

 materials waterproof, and so placing surface drains 

 as to remove quickly any excess of surface water 

 that may lodge on the surface. Both of these, how- 



