9G 



GARDEN WALLS. 



surrounded the whole, thickly planted 

 with pines and shrubs of lower growth : 

 a situation suitable for the purpose could 

 not have been more perfectly made by 

 art. So much in advance were the fruit 

 trees upon the inclined walls in this 

 situation, to what they were upon per- 

 pendicular ones in every respect the very 

 counterpart of them, that the fruit ripen- 

 ed invariably — so said the proprietor — 

 from a month to six weeks earlier upon 

 the former than upon the latter. An old 

 gravel pit, chalk pit, or stone quarry, if 

 the aspect is towards the south, is an 

 excellent situation for forming inclined 

 fruit-tree walls — inasmuch as the grouud 

 occupied is of little or no account, and 

 the elevations formed, whether by the 

 operation of previous excavations or by 

 the hand of nature, cost nothing; whereas, 

 to provide the same by artificial means 

 would be attended with considerable ex- 

 pense, and in all probability would not 

 answer the purpose so well. The sides 

 of such excavations being smoothed, and 

 brought to the desired form, require no 

 further preparation than paving the sur- 

 face with bricks laid flat and in mortar. 

 We know of few purposes to which such 

 places as are named above could be so 

 well applied as that of planting them 

 with fruit trees. The advocates for the 

 proper inclination of walls will ask, To 

 what angle were these walls referred to 

 set 1 We believe that little attention was 

 paid to this particular point, but it 

 would be reasonable that they should 

 be placed so as to be perpendicular to 

 the sun's rays at the time, or perhaps 

 a little before the fruit may be expected 

 to ripen. A species of inclined wall 

 may be seen in almost every village in 

 England, where the branches of fruit 

 trees or vines are allowed to grow and 

 are trained over the roofs of houses ; and 

 the precocity of the fruit under such cir- 

 cumstances is well known. In estimating 

 the value of inclined walls, we may ob- 

 serve that they present a better angle to 

 the suns rays at certain seasons of the 

 year than perpendicular ones; but whe- 

 ther this is equal to the cold produced by 

 dampness, and by perpendicular frosts, is 

 extremely doubtful. Damp they must 

 be, compared with perpendicular walls, 

 whether reclining entirely on the ground 

 or partially elevated above it. 



Walls of slate, glass, Arbroath, Caithness, 

 or Yorkshire pavement. — These, although 

 new features in garden architecture, 

 might be used with great advantage ; but 

 of course, like cob or mud walls, they 

 would require to be trellised for the pur- 

 pose of conveniently attaching the trees 

 to them. These materials can be got of any 

 reasonable size. The mode of constructing 

 them is as follows: Upon a solid founda- 

 tion, erect cast-iron uprights, or standards 

 like a a or b b in figs. 90, 91 — between these 



Fig. 90. 

 a a 



Fig. 91. 

 b b 



set the slates or pavement on edge, either 

 grooved as in fig. 90, or plain as in 

 fig. 91. For a 6-feet wall, slates or pave- 

 ment can readily be procured, so that one 

 piece shall form the height of the wall, or 

 two pieces a 12-foot one, or, of course, 

 any intermediate height. It would, how- 

 ever, be better, for appearance sake, to 

 have them all of one width, so that the 

 standards may stand at equal distances. 

 Such walls would be exceedingly durable ; 

 and they must also be economical in con- 

 struction, where the material requires no 

 working, except the sawing of them to 

 the required lengths and breadths. This 

 is the case with Bangor slates and Caith- 

 ness pavement, both of which may be 

 raised in flags of any thickness, and of 

 even surface, requiring no artificial dress- 

 ing. Such walls have been recommended 

 for forming fire-proof partitions by the 

 late Sir John Robison, in the " Encyclo- 

 paedia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Archi- 

 tecture," from which our diagrams are 

 taken. 



We have used Caithness pavement very 

 extensively where exposed both to exces- 

 sive heat, and also to all the changes of 

 the atmosphere without, and entirely con- 

 cur in the high opinion of it given in the 

 work just referred to. "As regards 

 strength and hardness, it is not equalled 

 by any paving stone used in London; 

 it completely resists the action of the se- 

 verest frosts ; it neither scales, flakes, 

 nor becomes slippery; and from not being 

 porous, it dries rapidly after rains: in 



