GARDEN WALLS. 



139 



lines ill which garden walls should be built. Some 

 projectors advised, that they should be built in a 

 zigzag form, to obtain a greater variety of aspect, 

 by means of which they expected the fruit season 

 would be prolonged. Others, embracing the same 

 principle, advised the garden wall to be built cir- 

 cular; in order to meet the direct rays of the sun in 

 every hour of the day. Others again advised the 

 south walls to be built straight, but with (at short 

 intervals) segments of circles bowing backwards, to 

 form recesses for every tree. All this was contrived 

 with a view to obtain a greater variety of the effects of 

 light, or greater shelter from the withering winds of 

 March. These notions, however, are all now forgot- 

 ten ; experience proving, that these fantastically-built 

 walls created so many eddies and sudden gusts of 

 wind, that, instead of genial warmth and quiet shel- 

 ter, they caused cold and bleakness. 



Hot walls, that is, walls heated by internal smoke- 

 flues, have been extensively built in the north of 

 England and Scotland ; but, without some other 

 covering over the trees, to keep in the heat and pro- 

 tect the excited flowers from sudden changes of 

 weather, the trees seldom bear an earlier crop than 

 those on the common walls. Such structures are 

 therefore not so much in fashion as formerly, as a 

 very little more additional expense will build a 

 proper forcing-house that may be depended upon. 

 For the perfectly ripening of late French pears, hot 

 walls have been often found useful ; but for which 

 purpose alone, they are seldom built. 



