THE CULINARY GARDEN. 



5 



lengthened shadows into the garden at a time when every 

 sun-beam is valuable ; on the east, also, they should be suffi- 

 ciently removed, to admit the early morning rays. The advan- 

 tage of these precautions is conspicuous in the early spring 

 months, when hoar-frost often rests on the tender buds and 

 flowers, which if it be gradually dissolved, no harm ensues, 

 but if the blossom be all at once exposed to the powerful rays 

 of the advancing sun, when he overtops the trees, the sudden 

 transition from cold to heat often proves destructive. On the 

 west, and particularly on the north, trees may approach 

 nearer ; perhaps within less than a hundred feet, and be more 

 crowded, as it is from those points that the coldest and most 

 violent winds assail us. 



All the plantations round a garden, intended either for shel- 

 ter or for blinds, should be composed of evergreens, thickly 

 planted, preferring those which have been reared fi^om seed to 

 those, which have been propagated either by cuttings or layers, 

 as being more likely to assume the habit of trees ; as they grow 

 up, clear away the deciduous trees from them, this will afford 

 a shelter in winter and spring, when it is most wanted, and 

 which will not be so well effected, if deciduous trees alone 

 be planted. It must be further observed, that if only a suffi- 

 cient number of deciduous trees be left, the whole will in time 

 have a good effect. 



SITUATION AS REGARDS ALTITUDE. 



Under this head it must be remarked, that the situation 

 should not be too high nor yet too low ; if too high, it ex- 

 poses the crops too much to the cutting winds ; if too low, it 

 is seldom sufficiently dry at bottom, and there is a natural sour- 

 ness in low situations which is not easily eradicated by draining' 

 or by any other means. Low situations are objected to by 

 Dr. Darwin in his Phytologias : " The great warmth of low 

 situations," he says, " and their being generally better sheltered 

 from the cold north-east winds, and the boisterous south-west 

 winds, are agreeable circumstances, as the north-east winds in 

 this climate are the freezing winds, and the south-west ones, 

 bemg the most violent, are liable much to injure standard 

 fruit-trees in summer, by dashing their branches against each 



