146 TREATISE ON THE CULTURE AND 



to level it ; for by that unevenness, and any little difference 

 there may be in the quality^, you will have a greater variety of 

 soil adapted to different crops. The best soil for a garden is, 

 a rich mellow loam ; and the worst, a stiff heavy clay. A 

 light sand is also a very unfit soil for a garden. 



Sea-coal ashes, or the cleaning of streets and ditches, 

 will be found very proper to mix with a strong soil ; and if 

 the ground should be cold, a large quantity of coal-ashes, sea 

 sand, or rotten vegetables, should be laid upon it, in order to 

 meliorate and loosen the soil, and render it easy to work. 



Lime rubbish, or light sandy earth from fields and 

 commons, will also be found of great service to stiff clayey 

 ground. 



If the soil be light and warm, rotten neat's dung is the 

 best dressing that you can give it. If horse-dung be ever used, 

 it must be completely rotted, otherwise it will burn up the 

 crop the first hot weather. 



With regard to the form of a garden, there are various 

 opinions, and it sometimes depends on the situation ; but 

 where you are at perfect liberty I would prefer a square or 

 oblong. As to the size, it may be from one acre to six or 

 eight within the wall, according to the demand for vegetables 

 in the family. It should be walled round with a brick wall 

 from ten to twelve feet high : But, if there be plenty of wall- 

 ing, which there may be when you are not stinted with respect 

 to ground, I would prefer walls ten feet high, to those that 

 are higher, and I am convinced they will be found more conve- 

 nient. The garden should be surrounded with aborder, or slip, 

 from forty to sixty feet wide or more, if the ground can be 

 spared ; and this again inclosed with an oak paling from six 

 to eight feet high, with a cheval-de-frise* at top, to pre- 

 vent people's getting over : It will also strengthen the paling. 



By making slips on the outside of the garden wall, you 

 will have plenty of ground for gooseberries, currants, straw- 

 berries, &c. You may allot that part of the slips which lies 



* A very good clieval-de-frise may be constructed as follows : Take a 

 piece of wood of a convenient length, about four inches broad, and one inch 

 and a quarter thick, and plane the upper edge into the shape of the roof of a 

 house of a low pitch ; then draw a line on each side from end to end, about 

 an inch and a quarter below the upper edge, and through these lines drive 

 twelve-penny nails about four inches distant from each other, so as to come 

 out near the upper edge on the opposii-e side. Each nail should be opposite 

 the middle of the space between two nails on the other side. The nail heads 

 should be sunk in the wood, and small strips nailed over them ; then drive in 

 tenter-hooks between the nail points, and nail the whole firmly on the outside 

 of the top of the paling. In this manner proceed till you have finished the 

 whole of the fence. 



