THE AMATEUR’S KITCHEN GARDEN. 
11 
first instance, for until we nave them, we cannot properly 
speak of the ground as a garden, hut the boundaries and the 
drains are really of more importance ; you may actually wait 
years before making proper walks, and suffer but little in- 
convenience, but defence, shelter, and removal of surplus 
water are essential to production ; given these requisites, 
and the cultivation may go on prosperously. But when walks 
are made, they should be well-made. Mere tracks on which 
two or three inches of coal ashes are laid will serve for dividing 
lines, but the main walks should have a good depth of hard 
stuff for a foundation, and a good body of gravel or shell, or 
whatever is the best material the district affords, for a top 
crust, and they should be wide enough for the traffic, and 
slightly convex on the surface. It is of the utmost importance 
that all kinds of ground work should be well done, and nothing 
contributes in a more decisive way to the enjoyment as well 
as the usefulness of a garden as well-made walks and neat 
edgings. A kitchen garden of any size should at some con- 
venient point afford access for carts with a good yard for 
pitching, and sufficient shed room where all small matters can 
be kept tidily and safe from rats and mice. The seed-room 
is a suitable place for a few garden books, a boxful of tallies, 
and convenience for writing labels and casting up accounts, 
and such other matters of clerkship as properly pertain to the 
work of the garden. As this book will be wholly written in 
our seed room, we can speak experimentally of the value of 
such a place, removed from the household into the midst of all 
the paraphernalia of practical gardening. 
For the finishing of walks we must encounter the difficult 
subject of edgings. One way out of the difficulty is to do 
without edgings. The old and well-tried edging of box is of 
course as good as ever. Some people lean to strawberries, 
others to chives, and a few to parsley. If we were to eke out 
this paragraph, we should be in danger of heart break, and 
therefore we shall make three remarks in haste and close up. 
Nine tenths of all the tiles made for edgings answer admirably, 
until heavy rain is followed by hard frost, and then they split 
into fragments and have to be swept up as rubbish. Our 
triangular tile made by Mr. Looker of Kingston-on-Thames, 
is perfect, but it is inelegant and rather costly. When well 
laid, this tile is immoveable and imperishable. There cannot 
be a doubt that in a majority of cases a plank on edge fixed to 
