476 PRACTICE OF GARDENING. Part III. 



are easily kept; for when moss or weeds begin to grow, they may b-> cleaned with a 

 horse-shoe, or scuffled over with a Dutch hoe, in dry weather, and raked a day or two 

 after, by which they will be made always to look neat and clean. I, however, give the 

 preference to sea-coal ashes, which, in my opinion, make the best walks for a kitchen- 

 garden, and they are easier kept than any others, being firm and dry, and cleaner to walk 

 on than sand, especially after frost." 



2493. Grass walks may do lohere gravel is scarce ; but the latter is so clearly preferable, 

 that, except for a little variety in laj-ge gardens, where there are many walks, grass walks 

 will hardly be made choice of, as they are troublesome to keep in order ; and if much 

 used are apt to get bare, and out of level, especially when narrow : they are also fre- 

 quently damp to the feet. Chamomile has been used also to form green or carpet 

 walks, planting it in sets about nine or ten inches asunder ; which, naturally spreading, 

 the runners are fixed by walking on them, or rolling. 



2494. Edgings to walks are essential to the beautt/ and completeness of a kitchen-garden, 

 though, in some cases, verdant edgings are dispensed with. According to Marshall, the 

 borders should have their outer edges, in contact with the walks, made up firm and even. 

 Where the design or intimate communication with the house requires edgings, box is 

 superior to every thing else. In extensive kitchen-gardens, edgings of vegetables, 

 particularly of box, are dispensed with as inconvenient, and apt to harbor slugs. At 

 the same time the margins of the beds and main walks should be kept even and 

 well defined ; for this purpose, nothing is more neat and lasting, or better fitted to save 

 trouble, than narrow edgings of brick a single course wide. In the interior compartments, 

 parsley may be sown for an edging ; so slips of thyme, winter savory, hyssop, and other 

 aromatic herbs, may be planted ; as long as such herbs flourish, or remain ungathered, 

 they form a verdant edging, in character with the kitchen-garden. (^Introd. to Gard. 

 p. 5.) Border-edgings, Neill observes, are not in use, excepting for the walks next 

 the walls, and the cross w^alks in very large gardens j for these, dwarf-box is almost 

 universally employed. 



2495. In laying out the slip or exterior area of the kitchen-garden, those parts not occu- 

 pied as the melonry or compost-ground are disposed of in two borders : the one for fruit, 

 surrounding the wall, and of suitable breadth and composition as to soil ; the other next 

 the boundary, of such breadth as the width of the slip allows. The walk between these 

 borders should, in gardens of one or more acres, be made of suflScient width to admit a 

 one-horse cart, to make the circuit of the garden so as to bring in manures, soils, fuel, 

 &c. to any of the wall-doors, for the purpose of being wheeled into the inner garden. 

 The outer border is commonly occupied by low fruit-shrubs, or common kitchen-crops ; 

 but in small places, and where the garden is of a mixed character, it is arranged as a 

 shrubbery, and, where Forsyth's advice is taken, the shrubs are mixed with the more 

 hardy fruit-trees. 



2496. A reserve and nursery department should always be formed in the slip, at 

 least in gardens where any thing like beauty or perfection is aimed at. The use of this 

 compartment is to preserve or raise plants, some in pots, others in the open ground, to 

 supply vacancies within the w^ills. Whatever crop is sown or planted in the garden, a 

 small portion of it should, at the same time, be sown or planted in the nursing depart- 

 ment, some in pots, and others in the open ground, by which means, when any blanks 

 occur in the former, they can be filled up from the latter. One part of this department 

 should be^devoted to propagating fruit-trees and fruit-shrubs for the same purpose, and 

 also for giving aw^ay to poorer neighbors, and for stocking and encouraging cottage and 

 farm gardens. 



2497. The best seasons for forming a garden are the spring and summer; but, at 

 all events, at whatever time the operations are begun, they should be arranged so as to 

 be finished early in autumn to admit of planting the fruit-trees and laying the edges of 

 the walks at that season, or very early in the spring. 



Chap. II. 



Of the Distribution of Fndt-trees in a Kitchen-garden, 



2498. To select and arrange a proper collection of fruit-trees, and plant them in their 

 appropriate situations, is the next step in forming a kitchen-garden. This subject 

 naturally comprehends, 1. Wall-trees; 2. Espaliers audi divaTf-standards for the borders ; 

 3. Standards for the compartments ; 4. Fruit-shrubs. As a point of practice common to 

 each of these divisions of fruit-trees, we may mention that of registering their names either 

 in series (1388.) on a plan of the garden, or by reference to numbers attached to the 

 trees, cut in tallies placed by them, stamped in lead and hung on them, or nailed to the 



