THE CULINARY GARDEN. 



pretended improvements, we see not the least possible advantage 

 over perpendicular and straight walls ; on the contrary, Ave ob- 

 serve many disadvantages attending them, particularly in the 

 expense of their construction, and in their total want of beauty. 

 Amongst these are the waving or serpentine wall, the angular 

 wall, the zig-zag wall, the square fret wall, the pier'd wall, 

 and walls with arched niches or recesses, all of which are in- 

 ferior in beauty and utility to the straight wall in common use. 



Hollow walls have been recommended, as possessing the 

 ssi^me strength, without the same number of bricks being used 

 in the construction of them; this is in itself important, and 

 such walls are capable of being heated by artificial means, as 

 the occasion may require, for the purpose of ripening late fruit, 

 but more especially for ripening the young shoots, which is 

 still more important, and is, in fact, the principal use of hollow 

 or flued walls, and, when fuel is moderate in expense, is found 

 to be extremely useful. But the success in this case, as in 

 many others, depends upon the judgement and assiduity of the 

 gardener. 



The cellular wall is a recent invention, the essential part of 

 the construction of w^hich is, that the wall is built hollow, or 

 at least with communicating vacuities, equally distributed from 

 the surface of the ground to the coping. If the height do 

 not exceed 10 or 12 feet, these walls may be formed of bricks 

 set on edge, each course or layer consisting of an alternate 

 series of two bricks set edgeways, and one set across, forming 

 a thickness of nine inches, and a series of cells, nine inches in 

 the length of the wall, by three inches broad. The second 

 course being laid in the same way, but the bricks alternating 

 or breaking joint with the first. The advantages of this wall 

 are obviously considerable in the saving of material, and in 

 the simple and efiicacious mode of heating ; but the bricks and 

 mortar must be of the best quality. This wall has been tried 

 in several places near Chichester, and at Twickenham, by 

 F. G. Carmichael, and found to succeed perfectly as a hot- 

 wall, and at 10 feet high to be sufficiently strong ?s a common 

 garden-wall, with a saving of one brick in three. As a whole, 

 indeed, it is stronger than a solid nine-inch wall, on the same 

 principle that a hollow tube is less flexible than a solid one. 



