THE LADIES’ MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
291 
been newly made, and it appears an excellent one. The hothouses are 
heated by an improvement on Run’s method; and the furnaces are so 
contrived as to consume their smoke. The fruit-room is lighted from the 
roof, with an inside shutter about a foot from the window, so contrived 
as to let up and down by a pulley. The mushroom-house is built with 
a space under the floor for forcing rhubarb, the boards being made loose, 
so as to take up when required. The walls of the garden are of stone. 
The town of Lauder is a dull gloomy-looking place, with a wide space 
in front of the market-house, where the rebellious subjects of one of the 
Jameses hung the favourite minister before his eyes; the king being in 
the market-house at the time, but unable to prevent the murder. The 
road across part of the Lammermuir hills was also dreary, being in 
several places marked with tall white posts, tipped with black, to serve 
as a guide in cases of deep snow. On passing Souter hill, however, the 
prospect changed, and a beautiful view of Edinburgh and the Frith of 
Forth burst upon us. It soon, however, disappeared; a thick mist rising, 
and seeming to swallow up the objects one after another, till at last we 
could only see the road before us by the time we arrived near Dalkeith. 
August 4th.— Dalkeith .—After passing the night at a very comfortable 
inn in the town of Dalkeith, we went as soon as we had breakfasted to 
visit the numerous beautiful seats in the neighbourhood. To do this we 
returned along part of the road we had traversed the night before. We 
noticed particularly the effect produced by the chimneys of the steam- 
engines on the farms, and by the circular walls round the openings to old 
coal-pits, which looked like little martello towers; and the old limekilns, 
which resembled the remains of ruined castles; but the most interesting 
object, in a gardening point of view, was a number of little basket-like 
screens placed round the young hollies and other plants, to protect them 
from hares and rabbits. These screens were constructed with branches 
of larch spray stuck in the ground, and woven together over the top of 
the plant, so as to form a case generally about a foot high and two feet 
in diameter. A similar screen might be made to serve as a protection 
from frost. 
Oxenford Castle .—This fine place belongs to the Earl of Stair, and it 
is approached over a handsome bridge; the road leading through a 
plantation of noble trees. The castle itself is very fine, and it is being 
enlarged in very good taste by Mr. Burns, the celebrated Scotch archi¬ 
tect. We noticed here, what we afterwards saw in most of the large 
houses in Scotland, a luggage door and stair, to admit of the luggage of 
visitors being conveyed to the bed-rooms without passing the principal 
hall and staircase. The pleasure-grounds are very beautiful, the shrubs 
