220 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. —June 24,1850. 
The house, or castle (for I forget even the name of 
this demesne of his Lordship), is placed on rising ground, 
commanding a fine sweep of the sea, and is about three 
miles from Carnoustie, a fashionable watering place, 
and the third station from Dundee, on the Dundee and 
Arbroath line. The house has been undergoing a 
process of improvements and additions; and there has 
been a great extent of ground-work, levelling, making 
new approaches, &c., under the superintendence ol our 
old friend Mr. France—works that young gardeners can 
never see too much of. The kitchen-garden is consider¬ 
ably nearer Carnoustie than the mansion. It struck me 
that it would ho found rather small for a large establish¬ 
ment; but in many places some vegetables, such as roots 
of the various kinds, are considered better when grown 
in a field. The first thing that struck me, rather accus¬ 
tomed of late to brick walls, was the massive character 
of the buildings on tho north wall (all built of stone), 
and the apparent comfort and finish of the sheds and 
rooms placed there behind the houses. The using of 
stone, squared and roughly hewn, for all the walls of the 
houses, gives to them a degree of massiveness and 
solidity which our brick walls never seemingly com¬ 
mand, even when cased with cement, to resemble the 
real Simon Pure. 
Standing at the back of these sheds, and with the 
knowledge that there are houses on the south side of 
them, you are not likely to form any idea that the range 
of houses will be much different in design from the lean- 
to’s, that would have been deemed a chef-d'oeuvre in the 
days of tho accomplished Nicol. As soon, therefore, as 
you enter by one of the passages, you are struck with 
the distinguishing feature of the arrangement. You 
enter, not one of the houses, but an elegant corridor, 
that connects all the houses together; and these all 
standing separate and span-roofed. The corridor is 
some 250 feet in length, and six feet in width; paved 
with stone, with the exception of a narrow border at the 
back for creepers, &c. The height of the opaque back 
wall is about nine feet; the glass division in front is the 
same height, resting ou a stone wall, about two-and-a- 
half feet high, the same hoight as the walls of the 
other houses. From the opaque wall at the back, and 
the glass division in front, there is a hipped roof, rising 
two feet more over to the centre. Flat arches connect 
at intervals the back and front together, and creepers 
had already got over these in places. The back wall 
was getting rapidly covered ; and, among other things, 
there was a nice plant of Gantua dependents in bloom. 
Tho stone plinth supporting the glass front was turned 
into a shelf for fine specimens of Cinerarias and Calceo¬ 
larias in bloom. The effect, when looking along, was 
very striking. The corridor terminates at the west end 
in a greenhouse, and in the east end in what is intended 
for a plant-stove. 'There are seven other houses, with a 
door leading into each from the corridor. The south, or 
upright glass front of tho corridor, constitutes, in fact, 
the north end of these seven houses. Between each two 
of these span-roofed houses there is an open space of 
twelve feet. The two end ones are the longest, some 
fifty feet in length, and some twenty-two or more feet 
in width. The middle house is about two feet wider, 
and as much longer, than the other six, which are thirty 
feet by twenty. Any young gardener may at once see 
the simplicity and elegance of the whole design, if he 
will take the trouble, with a scale and square, to place 
the position of the houses and corridor on a piece of 
paper ; and \ feel convinced, that if Mr. McIntosh hears 
of it, he will feel gratified rather than otherwise. Thus, 
supposing the length of the space occupied by this 
cluster of span-roofed houses to be 282 feet, draw a line 
of that length, which will give you the northern 
boundary. On each end set off a space twenty-two feet 
wide, and carry it out as a parallelogram for fifty feet in 
length to the south. These parallelograms will be the 
ground occupied by your two end houses. Then between 
these two end houses draw a line all the way along, 
six feet in width from, and parallel to, the first line, and 
you will have the corridor. Leave an open space next 
to the end house in front of the corridor of twelve feet; 
and then set off another space twenty feet wide, and 
thirty feet long to the south, aud you have the ground space 
for one of the common houses. Proceed in the same 
way, and you will havo an open space of twelve feet, 
and a width of twenty feet for a house alternately, except 
that the centre one is a little wider, giving you nine 
houses in all, standing north and south, sides aud roofs 
facing east and west, each divided from its neighbour by a 
twelve feet open space, and all connected by the corridor. 
As the highest point of these houses at the ridge will 
only be fourteen or fifteen feet, the twelve feet open 
spaces between every house aud its neighbour are found 
quite sufficient to prevent one shading the other. It is 
hardly possible to obtain more light were each of these 
span-roofed houses placed separately at a distance from 
any other. The sides seemed to me, in the end houses, 
to be between eight and nine feet in height, and in the 
others from seven to eight feet; and the south ends were 
all glass, with the exception of the basement wall, which 
was stone all round, and the north end had the glass 
division of the corridor. The whole of the side, end, 
and roof glass was in large squares, and fixed, a matter 
of no little moment as respects future economy. The 
hipped roof does not meet in the middle, but an open 
space of about eighteen inches is left, and on this a sort 
of lantern-ridge, about eighteen inches deep, is placed 
all along the ridge; and in its sides ventilators are 
placed, which are opened and shut, and air regulated to 
a nicety, by a wheel aud racket. Bottom-air is given by 
ventilators in the side stone walls; and these in each 
house can all be regulated at once by touching a lever 
Though the day was very bright, there was no necessity 
for using anything like all the air-giving power. 
The whole site of these houses had been well drained 
before commencing operations, and I understood the 
borders were likewise provided with air-drains. The 
side-walls are built on arches, and the Vines and Peaches 
being planted inside, the roots have also free access to 
range in the twelve feet wide open spaces between the 
houses. Some Vines had been planted in soil abound¬ 
ing in wireworm, and had to be replaced; but the re¬ 
placed ones and all the others were growing vigorously. 
The casualty had nothing to do with the construction 
of the houses. 
The nine houses are heated by three boilers, and 
there is an open chamber beneath tho pavement in the 
corridor, through which the pipes pass before entering 
the respective houses, thus heating the corridor suffi¬ 
ciently ; and, so far as I recollect the description of Mr. 
Mitchell, the intelligent young gardener, there were also 
channels for conveying the heat from this chamber un¬ 
derneath the soil in the houses. In each of these houses 
there were only two pipes round, which Mr. Mitchell had 
proved to be quite enough in very severe weather. In 
another part were pits, and low, narrow houses, for grow¬ 
ing Cucumbers and Melons; and nothing could be an¬ 
swering better. In the two end houses of the nine there 
was a stage or a bed in the centre,and a walk all round. 
In the other houses there was only one walk down the 
centre, with two arches at equal distances over it, with 
ribs radiating, to brace the roof. 
I will now mention a few ideas that struck me. 
1. I am quite convinced such houses will answer 
admirably for general and late forcing. A great point 
will be gained if they be found as efficient for very early 
work as houses facing the south. Planting inside and 
depending mostly on the inside border will be every¬ 
thing in their favour. 
