94 



GARDEN WALLS. 



where their utility in this respect may be 

 questioned, we would dispense with them 



Fig. 85. 



altogether, unless in connection with 

 other architectural buildings. 



Sunk walls are not so frequently met 

 with as they ought to be. We believe 

 that we were amongst the first to direct 

 attention to them, and certainly the first 

 who published diagrams of them, (vide 

 Practical Gardener, p. 36.) In high and 

 exposed situations, where shelter might 

 be difficult to provide, their utility must 

 be obvious. The trees should be planted 

 on the sloping bank, and bent so as to 

 reach the wall ; and for this purpose half 

 standards are the best. To guard against 

 damp, a drain should be carried along close 

 to the bottom of the walls, as shown in the 

 diagrams ; and in 

 the case of fig. 86, 

 the trees may be 

 planted behind the 

 top and trained 

 downwards. Ob- 

 jections have been 

 made to sunk walls, 

 on account of their supposed liability to be- 

 come damp, and consequently cold. This 

 objection cannot holdgood so far as regards 

 fig. 87, for it is to all intents and purposes 



Fig. 87. 



as dry as one built on the surface, if not 

 more so. As regards fig. 86, no damp 

 will affect it if, in the course of construc- 

 tion, it is drained, or packed behind with 

 loose rubble stones, flints, or brickbats, 

 and small openings are left near its bot- 

 tom for the admission of air and drainage 

 of water, should such ever be required. 

 Sunk walls are not an idea of our own ; 



we have seen them in use, and had as 

 fine fruit from them as from any other, 

 and certainly much earlier. 



The only instances of sunk walls we 

 know of, were those once existing at 

 Abercairney, in Perthshire ; those at 

 Walton, near Felixstow, Suffolk ; and at 

 Silverton Park, in Devonshire. 



Inclined walls. — We have already 

 noticed that Nicol used wooden walls, 

 and approved of them having an incli- 

 nation, so as to present a better aspect 

 to the sun than erect ones do. The 

 inventor of inclined walls appears to 

 have been De Douillier, tutor to the 

 Marquis of Tavistock. He exemplified 

 his theory in the then celebrated gardens 

 at Belvoir Castle, about the beginning 

 of the eighteenth century, and also wrote 

 a book upon their supposed merits. They 

 were opposed by Switzer, Lawrence, and 

 Millar, but have to a certain extent been 

 approved of by some writers of more 

 modern times. M. Stoffels of Mechlin, 

 or Malines, states, in the " Horticultural 

 Society's Transactions," " that he had an 

 opportunity of comparing the effect of 

 a sloping and a perpendicular wall in 

 the same garden, for the growth of peach 

 trees, and that the result was greatly 

 in favour of the former." A correspon- 

 dent in the " Gardener's Magazine," 

 (vol. ii. p. 7,) suggested a wall of this 

 kind. It consisted of two 4-inch walls, 

 worked in cement, 5 feet apart at the 

 bottom, and inclining on both sides, so 

 as to meet at the top in the width of a 

 single brick. He proposed planting the 

 trees inside, and taking them through 

 a hole about the middle of the wall, 

 and to heat the interior with fermenting 

 material — plans not very reconcilable 

 with good practice. 



Inclined walls may very readily be 

 Fig. 88. 



constructed upon the principle exhibited 

 in fig. 88, which represents a sloping 



