Book I. 



PRIVATE BRITISH GARDENS. 



1045 



long building-lease, and in being situated in or around large towns. Tlie iTiost re- 

 markable gardens of this description for riches, order, and beauty, are at Norwich, where 

 they first originated (373. ) ; at Spitalfields, near London, among the residences of the 

 silk weavers ; at Manchestei-, and other Lancashire and Cheshire towns ; and at Paisley 

 and Glasgow. The occupiers are generally their own masters, having their looms or 

 other implements of trade within their dwellings, and being employed by merchant- 

 manufacturei-s, or taking their goods to a common market. They are generally an intel- 

 ligent, industrious class of men, who take great delight in their gardens, and the point of 

 practice in which they excel is in the production of florists' flowers. Norwich is, or used 

 to be, noted for carnations. Spitalfields is still noted for all the competition flowers, 

 but especially for auriculas and tulips. Manchester for auriculas and polyanthuses, and 

 also for the production of new varieties, and large specimens of gooseberries ; and Pais- 

 ley and Glasgow for pinks. The florists in Lancashire, indeed, excel in every branch of 

 tlieir profession, and are also famous for their success in cultivating the potatoe, which 

 was in general use in this county long before it was known in many others. The artisans 

 of Paisley are, perhaps, the most intelligent of their order in the world ; even the speeches 

 of what were called the radical reformers of this town, astonished by their argument and 

 style ; and the success of the florists, and the laws of their association, are not less surpris- 

 ing. (See Lancashire and Renfrewshire, in the succeeding chapter.) 



7423. The farmer s garden (7293.) varies in extent from an eighth part to a whole acre 

 or upwards, according to the kind of farm. Lord Kames {Gent. Farm. 297.) considers 

 a fruitful kitchen-garden as the chief accommodation of a farm ; yet farmers in general 

 pay very little attention to their gardens, even where the best systems of agriculture are 

 preserved. They are managed in the smallest farms by the farmer himself, with the oc- 

 casional assistance of his men, and. of the female part of his family ; in those of a 

 higher kind, where the farmer is not personally an operator, they are managed by a 

 laborer, who is generally kept on the farm for cleaning hedges, clearing out furrows, and 

 doing such extra field-work as cannot be performed by the regular hands of the farm. 



7424. In tradesmen's farms, large, or what are called gentlemen's farms, villa farms, and fermes ornees 

 the gardens are commonly managed by a gardener, who is expected to assist in the field during the hay 

 and corn harvests; and, therefore, he seldom ranks high in his profession. 



7425. The products of common farmers' gardens are of the most useful and hardy kinds ; but those of 

 villa and ornamental farms contain hot-houses, and often produce many of the luxuries of regular villa 

 or mansion gardens. Indeed, were farmers disposed to excel in gardening, no class of country residents, 

 excepting landed proprietors, have an opportunity of indulging their taste so variously atul extensively, 

 and at so little expense. In the first place, supposing a farmer to have a lease for twenty-one years, at a 

 fair rent ; whatever state he finds the farm in ; if it be enclosed and subdivided, he may render it a ferme 

 ornee, by leaving strips of pasture round all the arable fields, and connecting these by gates in such a way 

 as that he may form a drive or riding (7280.) round and through the whole. Secondly, he may form, or 

 enlarge and arrange, the kitchen-garden, flower-garden, orchard, and the portion of lawn and pleasure- 

 ground round or beside the farm-house, at pleasure. Thirdly, he may heat hot-houses, pits, and hot-beds, 

 at the expense of labor only, by fermenting his farmyard-dung in such pits as West's {fig. 230 in such 

 vineries as Anderson's {Jig. 461.), or in other vaults for pines {fig. 462 ), or behind walls or pales, to force 

 fruit-trees. Perhaps one of the simplest modes for a farmer to take the benefit of his fermenting dung 

 would be to have a line of pales to serve as a wall for training on, hinged at the surface of the ground. 

 On these, when placed in a position forming an angle with the ground of 45°, the trees should be trained. 

 Then, when the dung is to be placed behind, the pales should be elevated to the perpendicular, and the 

 dung dropped down in cart-loads, and laid up in a regular ridge, sloping towards the pales, but perpen- 

 dicular on the north side. This being formed, the pales should be folded back on the slope, and the ad- 

 vantage of this plan over that of fixed upright pales would be, that as the dung sunk the pales would 

 sink with it, and by being always in close contact, would receive more heat than by the usual mode, in 

 ivhich, when the dung sinks, it separates from the pales, and then the whole surface of the dung being 

 exposed, the heat ascends, and is lost. But an exceeding good plan for every description of forcing or 

 exotic culture, would be to construct houses on the plan of West's pit, with all that part of the north 

 v/all under the level of the earth or floor for the pots substituted by cast-iron or stone pillars, and wooden 

 gates between. These would facilitate the putting in and taking out of the dung, and, being shut close, 

 no part of the heat would escape. These plans are only for amateur, or proprietor farmers, for thei 

 common commercial or market farmer could not devote either sufficient capital or attention to the 

 subject. He, in general, leaves the care of his garden to his wife, whose taste and ambition does not 

 often carry her ideas farther than a cucumber-frame ; though a small green-house, and even a vinery, as 

 it requires so very little attention (see 3041.), might often be added, in order to enhance the enjoyments of 

 this class of society. 



7426. Street-gardens, and the smaller suburban gardens (7287. to 7292.), are the next 

 classes in point of number. They diflfer from the former in being almost always gardens 

 of pleasure, consisting of a grass-plot {complot, Fr. a design or device,) with a border, 

 or a few patches of flowers in front of the house, and a gravel-plot or grass-plot behind, 

 sometimes substituted by a plot for culinary vegetables and small fruits. Their 

 extent may be from an eighth to half an acre, and they are managed by jobbing-garden- 

 ers by the day or year. As the plants and turf are soon injured by the smoky and con- 

 fined atmosphere incident to their situations, the finer plants and trees do not thrive in 

 them, and the sorts which do succeed, and even the turf, require frequent renewal. 

 Evergreens and early spring flowers, both of the tree and herbaceous kinds, are most 

 to be desired as permanent plants for these gardens ; and in summer a display of an- 

 nuals is made from transplanted plants furnished by the jobber, whose great object ought 

 to be to keep up a succession of flowers, and to keep the grass and gravel in order, and 

 the whole perfectly neat. 



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