TAKING POSSESSION OF A GARDEN. 
395 
to form every thing after his own fashion. 
In an old garden we cannot do all this. The 
labour of disturbing well-made gravel-walks 
is immense. Then there are sure to be objects 
that we must retain : trees too good to lose, 
too old to remove ; buildings which we wish 
somewhere else, but not good enough to place 
there, or the change too costly. All these 
things militate against the incoming possessor 
of an old garden . 
In most cases it is policy to retain all the 
main gravel-walks, and to adopt as much of 
the old plan as we can anyhow reconcile to 
our taste. It should be recollected, too, that 
the purpose for which the garden is to be 
used operates a good deal upon the disposition 
to alter or keep it as it is. For instance, if it 
be a flower garden, in which to grow collec- 
tions, all beds should be of equal width, but 
the length is immaterial; therefore in whatever 
directions the main walks may go, it is easy 
to make cross-beds of the proper width from 
walk to walk, because if the main-walk be 
serpentine, or in a curve, the only difference 
it will make in the cross-beds will be in their 
length. However, there will ahvaj's be found 
many subjects in the way of regular flower- 
beds, and all of these that are useful and 
removable should be taken up and carefully 
planted where they are to remain ; and such 
as are useless should be grubbed up and 
thrown away. 
Before anything of consequence is done, the 
drainage should be examined. If the ground 
be not in its nature sufficiently drained, steps 
must be taken to find an outlet for a main- 
drain four feet deep, and small drains three 
feet or three feet six below the surface should 
be formed at proper distances ; for unless the 
ground be properly drained, there is not a 
single subject that will grow to the perfection 
that draining will enable you to produce it. 
These drains may be made of pipes or large 
stones, or bushes. 
The first step having been taken, a clear- 
ance is the next. To this end, make up your 
mind where the shrubs, trees, &c. that are in 
the way shall be ultimately placed, and at 
once lay out and prepare the place for their 
reception; and having done this, take them up 
carefully with all their roots, and plant them 
at once. Then set about making your cross- 
beds four feet wide (unless they are already 
formed), the length being from one main-walk 
to another ; and as there may be straggling 
plants and flowers all over the place, dig up 
the clearest place, and plant every thing you 
find about the ground as your digging goes on 
in this selected place. You then get all your 
beds at liberty but the one you fill with the 
sundries, and from that you may select what- 
ever you want for all the distant places. It 
is well to have a broad border of four to six 
feet wide on each side the main walks, to be 
planted with herbaceous and various other 
miscellaneous plants, independently of the 
flower-beds, which may stretch out right and 
left from such borders ; and as there is not, 
and need not he, any rule for the planting of 
these main borders, except the common rule3 
of planting the lowest in front and the tallest 
behind, it may be the ultimate place for all 
that are worth growing of the plants you have 
taken up all over the ground. Having formed 
the beds, you have only a choice of having 
alleys between them, or regular gravel-walks, 
or walks of road-sand, or grass. Whatever is 
determined on should be done at once. If 
they are to be of grass, level and roll with a 
heavy roller, or tread very firmly, and lay 
down turves. If of gravel or road-sand, dig out 
a few inches, according to the thickness you 
can afford to fill up, tread the bottom hard, 
and fill in the space by wheeling to the further 
end of each alley first, while another with a 
rake levels it as far as it will fill, and so con- 
tinue till all are filled and raked level. If 
nothing but the common alleys are to be left, 
and not even a change of soil, the alleys must 
be trodden as hard as possible, and properly 
levelled, after which they must not be dis- 
turbed at the digging of the beds between, but 
must be chopped down their sides as straight 
as a tight line can direct, and year after year 
the alleys must not be broken up. If it be 
determined to put an edging of box or thrift, 
nothing is more easy. The plants have simply 
to be pressed up against the side of the alley, 
which being already cut properly, forms a 
hard bank, against which small plants of box, 
or whatever else be chosen, may be pressed 
by the soil of the bed against their roots. 
These beds may be adapted for different pur- 
poses by variously mixing the soils. If the 
original edges of the great walks have been 
box, and it has become overgrown, cut it down 
within two or three inches of the ground, for 
undisturbed it will not fail to break well 
below, and at the end of the season of growth 
it may be all taken up and thinned properly ; 
whereas if you take it up in the tall, straggling 
state in which you find it, four-fifths of it 
would be wasted, from its being so naked at 
the bottom and so long in the stem, and if 
stunted to the old wood, it would not break 
half so well as it would in its old position. 
The gravel-walks will not unlikely be over- 
run with weeds. There is no remedy for this 
but pulling them out or burying them, but 
generally the gravel is not deep enough for 
this ; in such case, the top must be picked up 
a little way down, just deep enough to disturb 
all the roots of the weeds, and all the large 
weeds can be picked up by hand, and the 
