of making Garden Walls. an 



practice, I was convinced of its great merit for the construction of 

 capital garden walls. In many soils the gravelly subsoil may be 

 quickly thrown into the form of walls ; on all clays " ballast" will 

 do equally well, and while we are burning it for the purpose of 

 making garden walls, we may at the same time do so for the sake 

 of ameliorating the texture of the soil, and for walk-making, &c. 

 In many places the very clinkers and like rubbish that people do 

 not know what to do with may be used for this purpose, and that 

 by the aid of the roughest labourers, under the superintendence of an 

 intelligent gardener, who will quickly become acquainted with the 

 working of the method. Thus in many places, where the expense 

 may have deterred people from surrounding their fruit and vegetable 

 gardens with walls, they may be erected without such fear ; and in 

 the numerous gardens inclosed by walls, but not half sufficiently 

 furnished with them, cross walls may be made (as at Frogmore and 

 other large gardens), to throw them into convenient sections. 

 They will thus be sheltered efficiently, while enough of wall space 

 may be had to plant every suitable kind to furnish us with a 

 splendid crop of the finest fruit, and, more than all, to make it 

 worth our while to devote skilled labour to the walls at all seasons 

 when they require attention. This last is a greater advantage than 

 may appear at first sight. To have well-managed wall trees we 

 must have a good and intelligent gardener to attend to them. Now, 

 in numerous gardens, there is not wall space enough to make 

 it worth our while to do this, and the result is that trees get 

 neglected, and consequently nearly useless. The head gardener has 

 so much to do with houses and many other things, that his time 

 cannot be given to wall trees ; he cannot afford to spare a man to 

 attend to the walls at all times, and therefore they become profit- 

 less. But where there is a good deal of wall surface, and the pro- 

 prietor or head gardener will make it the duty of one or more in- 

 telligent men, who have had some instruction in the subject, to 

 attend to the trees upon it, it will be found very profitable to do 

 so ; and there can be no doubt that by paying full attention to walls 



p 2 



