16 HORTICULTURAL TOUR. 



by the sea. It is attached to a small house, to which the 

 Earl of Liverpool, as Governor of the Castle, has at pre- 

 sent a right. The garden consists merely of four succes- 

 sive terraces, cut in the shelving chalk and flint rock, and 

 communicating by flights of steps. Great pains appear to 

 have been bestowed, informer years, in cultivating this ro- 

 mantic spot ; but we are sorry to say that at present it is 

 verging to a ruinous state. The perpendicular face of the 

 chalk-rock is built up with flints in the form of a wall, ten 

 feet high. To this are trained some vines, which are 

 healthy and vigorous, the extreme points of the shoots be- 

 ing still in a growing state, although so late in the season. 

 A White Muscadine shewed some bunches, and we under- 

 stood that the grapes generally ripen here ; we were told 

 that they came to maturity even in the very unfavourable 

 season of last year (1816). Two plants of the Black 

 Cluster vine cover about 70 feet of wall, and also produce 

 some fruit. Were the plants judiciously pruned, they 

 would doubtless be much more productive ; but they 

 are grossly mismanaged. The local situation of these vines 

 could not fail to remind us of what we have often read, 

 concerning the rocky banks of the Rheingau, and recesses in 

 cliffs in Italy, being planted with vines which yield the finest 

 grapes. But although the soil is very scanty, it seemed 

 evident that a considerable degree of moisture must be 

 constantly supplied, without stagnating ; and to this regu- 

 lar supply, the invariabh success of the crops is probably 

 to be ascribed. There are also in the garden two or three 

 apple-trees and cherry-trees : a few morellas had been pro- 

 duced this season, but no apples. The soil and situation 

 appeared more congenial to some small standard fig-trees, 

 of the variety called Blue-fig, which had fruit on them, 

 already of a large size, and which, we were told, ripen in 

 October. On the shallow and light chalky soil, the roots 



