It is time that we pass to that portion of our subject which is generally considered under the peculiar patronage of the ladies. Evelyn, a name never to be mentioned by gardeners without reverence, says somewhere, in describing an English place which he had visited, ' My lady skilled in the flowery part; my lord in diligence of planting;' and this is a division of country labour which almost universal consent and practice have sanctioned. The gardens at Wimbledon House and Ealing Park (we dare not trust ourselves to take a wider view, or we know not where to stop) are alone enough to show what the knowledge and taste of our country women can achieve in their own department; and with the assistance of Mrs. Loudon, the fair posses

sors of the smallest plot of garden-ground on a smaller scale: it is much more useful may now emulate on an humbler scale these splendid examples.

than a wheelbarrow for carrying away cuttings, dead leaves, and rubbish of all kinds.

There are in this volume many excel'ent general directions for the ordinary garden labours, some of which we shall notice, interweaving them with further observations of our own.

In her Gardening for Ladies,' Mrs. Loudon, indeed, initiates them far beyond the mere culture of flowers, and those lighter labours which have usually been assigned to the amateur. She enters into practical details in real good earnest, gives Watering is the mainstay of horticuldirections to her lady-gardeners to dig and ture in hot countries. When King Solomanure their own parterres-on this latter mon, in the vanity of his mind, made him subject there is no mincing of the matter-gardens and orchards,' he made him also and calls a spade a spade. Perhaps she satis-pools of water to water therewith the fies herself that, if not a feminine, this has wood that bringeth forth trees;' and the at least been a royal pastime, and so throws prophets frequently compare the spiritual in the weight of King Laertes in Homer* prosperity of the soul to a watered garto balance the scale. But really, what den.' It is with us also a most necessary with our nitrate of soda, bone-dust, gypsum, operation, but very little understood. Most guano, all our new patent pocket-manures, young gardeners conceive that the water portable, compressed, crystalline, liquid, for their plants cannot be too fresh and desiccated, disinfected, and the rest of them, cold; and many a pail of water that has we are by no means sure that this most ne- stood in the sun is thrown away in order cessary but rather disagreeable portion of to bring one fresh from the ambrosial horticulture may not soon be performed by fount.' A greater mistake could not be the same delicate nerves that have hitherto made. Rain-water is best of all; and dirty fainted at the mention of it. and stagnant water, and of a high temperature-anything is better than cold springwater. Mrs. Loudon recommends pumpwater to be exposed in open tubs before it is used, and to be stirred about to impregnate it with air; perhaps the addition of liquid manure or any other extraneous matter would be useful. Those who have found how little service their continual watering has done to their plants in a dry summer would do well to attend to these simple rules.

Ten years ago, when our authoress married Mr. Loudon, 'it was impossible,' she says, 'to imagine any person more completely ignorant of everything relating to plants and gardening' than herself. She has been certainly an apt scholar, and no expert reviewer can doubt there is some truth in her remark that her very recent ignorance makes her a better instructor of beginners, from the recollection of her own wants in a similar situation. One wrinkle of hers we recommend strongly to our fair readers, the gardening gauntlet,† described and pictured in page 10. We have seen this in use, and can assure them that it is far from an inelegant, and certainly a most comfortable assistant in all the operations of the garden. Let us also add a contrivance of our own, a close-woven wickerbasket, on two very low wheels, similar to those used at the Euston Square and most railway stations for moving luggage, only

Lawns and gravel-walks, the pride of English gardens, can hardly have too much care bestowed upon them. Oftentimes more of the beauty of a garden depends on the neatness with which these are kept than even on the flowers themselves. Great attention should be paid to the kinds of grass seeds which are sown for new lawns. The horticultural seedsmen have selections made for this purpose. We must refer our readers to Mrs. Loudon's 9th chapter; but

let them be sure not to omit the sweetAccording to Cicero, De Sen. c. 15. Homerus scented spring-grass (Anthoxanthum odoraLaerten lenientem desiderium, quod capiebat e filio, tum), which gives its delicious fragrance to colentem agrum, et eum stercorantem facit.' 'Menew-made hay. Lime-water will get rid moriæ lapsu,' say the critics, the passage in Odys. w. 226, not bearing out this meaning. But in line of worms when they infest the lawn in 241 of the same book, the apexxaive may imply great quantities; but perhaps it is as well the renewal as well as the loosening of the soil. We not to destroy them altogether. Most garshould venture to translate it by the word 'mulch-deners strive to eradicate the moss from ing.'

Here, again, our old friend Laertes meets us. Truly there is nothing new under the sun, He had his gardening gloves before ' Miss Perry of Stroud,' celebrated by Mrs. Loudon as the inventor of them :

Χειρίδας τ' ἐπὶ χερσὶ, βάτων ἕνεκα. ---Οd. ω. 229. 16

VOL. LXX.

their grass: it seems to us that it should rather be encouraged: it renders the lawn much more soft to the foot, prevents its being dried up in hot weather, and saves much labour in mowing. The most per

fect kind of lawn is perhaps that which look better in reality than on paper. Where consists of only one kind of grass; but for beds of irregular wavy lines are required the generality a mossy surface would be far to be made, we have found nothing better better than the mangy, bare aspect we so than a good thick rope, which, thrown at often see. The grass should never be random on the ground, will, with a little mown without having also its edges trim-adjustment, give a bold and natural outline med. We have seen in some places a that it would be difficult to work out othersmall slope of grass filling up the right an-wise in tenfold the time. gle usually left between the turf and gravel, and we think it an improvement.

The second work of Mrs. Loudon's on our list is in alphabetical arrangement, and exThe smoothness and verdure of our lawns clusively devoted to flowers. In all our reis the first thing in our gardens that catches ferences to this book for practical purposes the eye of a foreigner; the next is the fine- and for the present paper, we have scarceness and firmness of our gravel-walks. The ly once been disappointed. Though chieffoundation of them should always be thor-ly a book of reference, it is written in so oughly drained. Weeds may be destroyed easy a style and so perfectly free from by salt; but it must be used cautiously. No walk should be less than seven feet broad. For terraces, a common rule given is, that they should be twice the breadth that the house is high. Though, of course, it is enough for a lover's walk'--without which no country place is perfect-to accommodate a duad, yet, be it in what part of the grounds it may, every path should be broad enough to admit three persons walking abreast.

pedantry, that, open it at what page we inay, there is something to instruct, interest, and amuse. The practical directions are necessarily very compressed, but nothing of importance seems omitted. The greatest Ignorama '* in flowers could not have this volume on her table long without having every doubt and difficulty removed. We know of no book of the kind so likely to spread a knowledge of, and taste for, flower-gardening as this. With the addiWho cannot call to mind many an awk-tion of the botanical volume of Dr. Lindward feeling and position where want of ley, Mr. Paxton, or Mrs. Loudon, the bebreadth in a garden-walk or wood-path has ginner's gardening library would be comcalled into play some unsocial precedence or forced into notice some sly predilection? And who likes to be the unfortunate lag-behind-the last in a wood?

plete. He would afterwards like to add the Encyclopædias of Plants and Gardening; the first of which is a typographical as well as scientific wonder, the second a The edging of borders is always a difficult perfect treasure-house of information on affair to manage well. Box, the common- every subject connected with horticulture. est, and perhaps the best, is apt to harbour The rapid progress made in horticultuslugs, and get shabby unless closely attend-ral studies we have already alluded to in the ed to. The gentianella, where it flourishes immense increase of works devoted to well, is a beautiful edge-flower. Thrift, of these subjects. All the books set down at which there is a new and handsome variety, the head of the present article are good in was once (like its namesake) much more in their several ways, but we have purposely vogue than it is now, and deserves to be confined ourselves to those addressed to larestored. We have seen very pretty edg- dies and treating immediately of flowers. ings made of dwarf oaks clipped; nothing And it is this particular turn which gardencould look neater; but it seemed like rob- ing taste at the present moment is taking. bing the forest. Worst of all are large We first had the Herbalist with his simrugged flints, used commonly where they ples-' temperature' of every plant given, abound, and in small area-gardens. In a hot or cold in the second or the third desymmetrical garden, and where they har- gree-and a table of virtues' for both monise with the house, strips of stone-work body and mind-' against the falling sickmight be introduced; and we think that a ness'-'to glue together greene wounds' tile might be designed of better shape and colour than any we have yet seen.

On the minor ornaments of gardens, such as rock-work, moss-houses, and rustic seats, Mrs. Loudon gives some very good hints, though we should be sorry to set up on our lawn the specimen baskets which embellish 357 and 358; but, in truth, pp. these things, contrary to the common rule, usually

to comfort the heart, to drive away care, and increase the joy of the mind,' and the like. Then came the Kitchen-gardener, with his sallet-herbs and fruit-trees-then the Florist with his choice bulbs and thou

* So, appropriately enough, signs herself a fair We think this quite equal to Mr. Hume's 'Omnibi.' correspondent of one of our gardening Journals.

·

sand and one varieties: meanwhile sprung they have done more than this: they have up the critical school of essayists, which brought together, on one common scene of produced the Landscape-gardener; the enjoyment, an orderly and happy mass, modern march of intellect has added the from the labourer of the soil to the queen Vegetable Physiologist; and, latest of all, upon the throne. We could only have the Agricultural Chemist. All these seem wished that royalty had been pleased to at the present moment to have centred have paid a public as well as private visit their exertions in a single point, and to be to the gardens. Her Majesty would have giving in each his contribution to make up gratified the loyalest and best-conducted the perfection of the Flower-gardener. A portion of her subjects, and would have very different spirit is now abroad from that seen, on the only occasion perhaps when when Sir W. Temple wrote 'I will not en- she could have done so without annoyance, ter upon any account of flowers, having on- a sight, as beautiful even as the flowersly pleased myself with seeing or smelling the cheerful faces of thousands of wellthem, and not troubled myself with the dressed and happy-looking people of every care, which is more the lady's part than the degree, making the most innocent and enman's, but the success is wholly with the joyable of holidays out of such simple gardener.' Now not only have we beat elements as Music and Flowers. The the old herbalists, kitchen-gardeners, and botanists on their own ground-for the herb,'' the root,' and 'the weed,' tea--potatoes--tobacco⭑—were either unknown or hardly noticed by the earlier writers on these very subjects: but governments, and companies, and societies vie with men of science, and commerce, and wealth, in gladdening our British gardens with a new flower. Without dwelling on the dahlia, brought into fashion by Lady Holland in 1804, and the pansies first patronised and hybridized by Lady Mary Monk in 1812, what treasures have the last few years ad--what by the courtesy and real unaffectded to our gardens in the splendid colours of the petunias, calcolarias, lobelias, phloxes, tropoolums, and verbenas-the azure clematis-the blue salvia-the fulgent fuchsia! What gorgeous masses of geraniums,-the 'Orange-boven' and 'Coronation and 'Priory Queen' for instance-and what rich and endless bouquets of roses-for there are more than 2000 varieties of the flower' in cultivation--did the last horticultural fête at Chiswick produce!

These exhibitions of the London Horticultural Society have done wonders in improving public taste and exciting the emulation of nurserymen. It is something, even if the prize is missed, to know that your flower will be gazed at by five or six thousand critical admirers. But

Parkinson, in 1629, says only of TobaccoWith us it is cherished as well for the medicinal qualities, as for the beauty of its flowers;' not a word of smoking. Gerarde, in 1633, though he knows the dry leaves are used to be taken in a pipe, set on fire, and suckt into the stomache, and thrust forth aguine at the nosthrils,' yet commends the syrrup, above this fume or smoky medicine.' Of the potato, he mentions its being a meat for pleasure' as secondary to its 'temperature and vertues;' and that its too frequent use causeth the leprosie.' Neither of them, of course, mentions 'tea.'

Derby day' is certainly a glorious display of Old England, from the proprietor of the aristocratic drag to the hirer of the Whitechapel shay-cart; but the line of distinction, both on the road and course, is too strongly marked between the drinker of champagne and of bottled stout, and it is rather the jostling than the amalgamation of ranks that is seen here. If we wished to show an intelligent foreigner' what every-day England really is-what we mean by the middle classes-what by the wealth, the power, the beauty of the gentry of England

edness of our nobility-we would take him on a horticultural fête-day to see the string of well-ordered carriages and wellfilled omnibusses, the fly, the hackney, and the glass-coach taking up their position with the britzcha, the barouche, and the landau, in one unbroken line from Hyde Park Corner to Turnham Green-bid him look at the good-humoured faces of those who filled them, and say whether any other country in the world could, or ever would, turn out a like population. Sir Robert Peel need not fear the return to be made to his property-tax, if he will cast his eye on the Windsor road about three o'clock on the first fine Saturday of May or June. Last year more than 22,000 persons visited these exhibitions; and from the way in which they have commenced this year, there is no reason to apprehend any falling off of numbers.* We rejoice in this; and trust that the same good arrangements will be continued, that the interest may be kept up in the only meeting where our artificial

• Fallen off! At the last show, in this very month, 14,000 passed the gates in one day! and many who started for the gardens, from the intensity of the crowd, never reached them. Of the ' arrangements,' on this occasion, we fear we cannot speak as charitably as we have above.

system tolerates the assemblage of every rank and class upon an equal footing.

I must have some

along the whole southern length of the build-
ing, extending to the western side also, whence,
over the distant country, I may catch the last
musk and noisette roses, and jasmine, to run up
red light of the setting sun.
the mullions of my oriel window, and honey-
suckles and clematis, the white, the purple, and
the blue, to cluster round the top. The upper
terrace should be strictly architectural; and no
plants are to be harboured there, save such as
in the mouldering crevices of the stone. I can
twine among the balustrades, or fix themselves
endure no plants in pots,-a plant in a pot is
like a bird in a cage. The gourd alone throws
out its vigorous tendrils, and displays its green
and golden fruit from the vases that surmount
the broad flight of stone steps that lead to the
lower terrace; while a vase of larger dimen-
rose, and straw-coloured hollyhocks that spring
is backed by the heads of a mass of crimson,
up from the bank below. The lower terrace is
twice the width of the one above, of the most
velvety turf, laid out in an elaborate pattern of
the Italian style. Here are collected the choicest
flowers of the garden: the Dalmatic purple of
bena, the fulgent lobelia, the bright yellows
the gentianella, the dazzling scarlet of the ver-
and rich browns of the calceolaria, here luxu
riate in their trimly cut parterres, and with
colours as brilliant as the mosaic of an old
cathedral painted window,

We must reserve any further remarks on the Chiswick Gardens to some other opportunity, when we may have to consider generally our public gardens* and parks. In the meanwhile we may observe, that the formal style which we have already advocated for the private garden, seems even much more adapted to the public one; and that there are many neglected features in the Old English style, which might with peculiar propriety be restored in any new grounds laid out for public use-not, as has been done in some teagardens on the Croydon Railroad, cutting up the picturesque wildness of the beanti-sions and bolder sculpture at the western corner ful Penge Wood, by hideous right-angled walks and other horrors too frightful to name-but where no natural scenery already exists, a place of promenade and recreation may be much more expeditiously, and, we think, more appropriately formed, in the Continental and Old English style, by long avenues, terraces, mounds, fountains, statues, monuments, prospect towers, labyrinths, and bowling-greens, than by any attempt of a ' picturesque' or 'natural' character.

·

We have before us Lord Bacon's sketch for his prince-like' garden, and Sir William Temple's description of his 'perfect' one; but though we would recommend them, the first especially, to the student of ancient gardens, and though Dr. Donne considered the second 'the sweetest place' he had ever seen, yet neither of them is so well suited to our present purpose of assist ing the formation of garden-making in the present age, as the following extract from the Poetry of Gardening 'f It represents so correctly our own ideas, and seems in the main so practicable, that making allowance for its poetry' and conceited style, we have, after some hesitation, determined to give the design at full length :

'My garden should lie to the south of the house; the ground gradually sloping for some short way till it falls abruptly into the dark and tangled shrubberies that all but hide the winding brook below. A broad terrace, twice as wide, at least, as the house is high, should run

* Otherwise we might now have a word to say on the new fountain and the sheep-hurdles in St. James's Park; and express a hope that a happier genius of the Woods and Forests than has yet inspired us may preside over the designs for Victoria Park and the newly-acquired Primrose Hill.

From The Carthusian,' a miscellany by the alumni of Charter-house, containing some good papers in prose and verse, and which deserves to be better known.

-"broider the ground

With rich inlay."

But you must leave this mass of gorgeous colouring and the two pretty fountains that play in their basins of native rock, while you descend the flight of steps, simpler than those of the upper terrace, and turn to the left hand, where a broad gravel walk will lead you to the kitchen-garden, through an avenue splendid in autumn with hollyhocks, dahlias, China asters, nasturtians, and African marigolds.

"We will stop short of the walled garden to turn among the clipt hedges of box, and yew, and hornbeam, which surround the bowlinggreen, and lead to a curiously-formed labyrinth, in the centre of which, perched up on a triangu lar mound, is a fanciful old summer-house, with whole surrounding country. Quaint devices of a gilded roof, that commands the view of the

all kinds are found here. Here is a sun-dial of flowers, arranged according to the time of day at which they open and close. Here are peacocks and lions in livery of Lincoln green. Here are berceaux and harbours, and covered alleys, and inclosures containing the primest of the carnations and cloves in set order, and miniature canals that carry down a stream of pure water to the fish-ponds below. Farther onwards, and up the south bank, verging towards the house, are espaliers and standards of the choicest fruit-trees: here are strawberry beds raised so as to be easy for gathering; while the round gooseberry and currant bushes and the arched raspberries continue the formal style up the walls of the enclosed garden, whose outer sides are clothed alternately with fruit and flowers, so that the " stranger within the