The manse garden

THE

MANSE GARDEN.

THE REV. NATHANIEL PATERSON,

MINISTER OF ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH, GLASGOW.

And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the
hyssop that springelh out of the wall."— 1 KINGS.

SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED.

GLASGOW:

WILLIAM COLLINS, 155, INGRAM STREET;

OLIVER & BO YD, WM. WHYTE & CO., AND WM. OLIPHANT & SON,

EDINBURGH; W. F. WAKEMAN, AND WM. CURRY, JUN.,

& CO., DUBLIN; WHITTAKER & CO., HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO.,

AND SIMPKIN & MARSHALL, LONDON.

1836.

Printed by VV. Collins & Co.
Glasgow.

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION.

CONCEALMENT is rarely a right thing; and how
far, for reasons given, the Author's hiding of his name
in the first edition may be justified, it is needless
now to inquire, as the attempt so quickly proved an
entire failure. Whoever meditates the smallest
guile would need to provide more eyes and a good
memory. Some years ago, in contributing the Sta-
tistical Account of his parish, the writer took notice
of a moor blackbird, which he described as a thief.
The description, soon out of sight, was soon out of
mind; but not so the thief, who, continuing his visits,
kept alive the remembrance of his person — and was
again, it seems, submitted in " The Manse Garden "
to the like advertisement of his stature, visage, and
the colour of his clothes.

As in every case of human indictment, accusations,
failing of conviction, serve only to excite revenge,
and make the offender more inveterate ; so in this,
the thief, being neither hanged nor incarcerated, but
merely affronted, roused his spleen, and, chattering
all the way from Galashiels to Glasgow, told every

IV

thing about the Manse Garden as well as its gar-
dener. Thus foiled in his plan of concealment, by
" a bird of the air," what can the Author do but,
with indifferent grace3 set down his name in the title
page?

As the science he unfolds is of slow attainment,
having its round of experiments only once in the
year, he cannot, having published in seed time, be
expected, before the crop has come off the ground,
to come forward with new improvements to enhance
a new edition. Some additions however have been
made, as a meagre token of his thanks for the kind-
liness with which his little work has been received —
a reception which cannot have further exceeded his
desert than it has his expectations.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

WHATEVER might be needful by way of intro-
duction will be found interspersed with the work ;
but in the mean time the Author's appellative given
in the title page of this volume is such as to demand
some apology. Why does he take the refuge of a
common family name, instead of giving his proper
designation at once ? In his own defence, he begs
honestly to declare he has no liking to that sort
of mystery, nor is he wont to use it, never having
before given any thing to the public without sending
along with it whatever good or ill it might derive
from his name.

The truth is, the following work, though nowise
contrary to clerical duty, is nevertheless not strictly
clerical; and as nothing can equal the obligation of
the Christian ministry, or the awe of its responsi-
bility, or its importance to man, the writer trembles
at the thought of lessening, by any means or in any
degree, either the dignity or the sacredness of his
calling ; and as the following pages might more pro-
perly have been written by one bred to the science
of which they treat, or by some leisurely owner of a
retired villa, an inference, not the best matured, may
be drawn to the effect — that surely the Author can be
no faithful labourer in the Lord's vineyard, seeing

he must possess such leaning to his own. He
therefore expects, by hiding for a little, to give the
arrow less nerve, because the bowman can only shoot
into the air, not knowing whither to direct his aim.
And if yet his own brethren should suffer some share
in the danger due only to him, he seeks their for-
giveness whilst, thus dispersing the mischief that
might come upon himself, he causes it to fall on them
only in the proportion of one to a thousand. And
if they are so good as to submit without murmur to
this slender imposition, he begs to assure them that
their patience is not ill repaid by his very ardent de-
sire to beautify, and warm, and fertilize the places of
their abode, throughout all his beloved country north
of the Tweed. Nor does he fail to include in the
same kindly regard a large tract with which he is
well acquainted, extending a long way to the south-
ward of that stream, and within which, whilst the
need of this manual is very apparent, the climate is
such as to give it a perfect adaptation.

For the advancement then of a good cause, in
which his brethren as well as the Author are con-
cerned, may he not humbly hope that they will be
pleased to offer and perhaps commend a reading of
his treatise to such of their parishioners as are placed
in circumstances not unlike their own ? In every
parish will be found one or more proprietors of a very
interesting class of society, tasteful and intelligent,
whose neat villas, gardens, and fields, are of a rank
not far remote from those of the minister, and who
like him are put to their shifts for want of a thorough
bred gardener. And that there are many more who
might find an interest in what he writes, may be

Vll

inferred on considering how much the eye of the
traveler is refreshed by the air of snugness and re-
finement which a few trees and shrubs already afford
to the dwelling-houses of the tenantry in those
districts where agriculture is the most improved.
Wherever skill has augmented (as in all reason it
ought) the capital employed in farming, the effect
has been a more polite education, which in its turn
has produced a finer taste, manifested it may be in
dress, and manners, and house accommodation ; but
more remotely, and therefore more strongly, in the
out-door ornaments of roses, ivy, and fruit trees,
which at once hide the deformity of naked walls and
suggest the idea of comfort within them. This in-
dication of improvement deserves both to be hailed
and helped forward on its happy career ; for there is
more of virtue in it than would be imagined by per-
sons less observant of the connection that subsists
between taste and morals. About doorsteps so
adorned, both wife and children look far prettier
than they appear when seen through broken windows
mended with old hats, or met with daubled feet and
awkward gait, sliding or like to slide off stepping-
stones laid in mire. When home is rendered more
attractive, the market-gill will be forsaken for charms
more enduring, as they are also more endearing and
better for both soul and body. And O what profu-
sion of roses, and ripe fruits, dry gravel, and shining
laurels, might be had for a thousandth part of the
price given for drams, which cause at market places
needless stay, and vain or silly bargains, together
with the growing vice which ruins all ! In propor-
tion as drinking decays the relish of home will revive;

Vlll

and in proportion as a cultivated taste makes home
more cheerful will the safety of morals be secured.

Thus external things, in themselves so trivial as
the planting of shrubs, are great when viewed in con-
nection with the moral feelings whence they proceed
arid the salutary effects which they produce. And
whilst it is gratifying from recent beginnings to an-
ticipate a further progress in such matters of taste as
tend to improve the social affections, the following
incident, which fell within the Author's knowledge,
he begs to record, not only as pleasing in itself, but
valuable as a sign of the spirit that is awakened : —
A landlord, not more illustrious for rank than gene-
rosity, conceiving that he was under obligation to one
of his tenants, whether for looking after the game or
other civility, asked by what favour the attention
might be repaid. Instead of any grumbling as to
rent or roads, enclosures or household convenience,
the request, as modest as it was elegant, was only a
" bit of plantation for shelter and ornament to the
dwelling." Sure is the Author, that falling into
such hands his little treatise would be hailed as quite
the thing to tell how a bit of plantation may be put
down to the best advantage. Wherever such fancy
for laudable ornament is found, (and it is a thing
which, like fashion, spreads fast and far,) the pastor,
by suggesting this Guide to simple gardening, may
at the same time do a kindness to one of his flock,
and, aiding the cause in which he writes, delight the
heart of another friend —

THE AUTHOR.

THE MANSE GARDEN.

PART FIRST.

TREES.

OF all the trees of the forest, the native holly is the
most interesting and beautiful. Whether young, as
a shrub in the garden, or old, as a lonely tree of the
mountain, its glowing fruit and glossy leaves, gleam-
ing in the winter sun, prove the delight of all eyes.
It allures to its own hurt the mischievous schoolboy;
it is the laurel of Burns, and the sanctuary of sing-
ing birds. Shielding its songsters from the hawk,
it shelters them in the storm, and feeds them with
its fruit when other trees are bare. It does one's
heart good to see the humble blackbird picking a red
berry amidst the falling snow.

The beauty of this tree is justly appreciated, but
its use is comparatively neglected. With a little
pains and patience, it were capable of altering the
whole aspect of the country, and of adding largely to
the comfort of every rural abode. For all the pur-
poses of a hedge it is unrivaled ; for ornamenting
the lawn, or affording shelter and retirement to the
pleasure walk, it has no equal. But lawns and plea-
sure grounds may not figure on the pages of so hum-

A2

10 THE MANSE GARDEN.

ble a title as " The Manse Garden ;" yet neither
must the author's spirit sink because his scope is con-
fined. The first paradise was a garden, and though
grandeur may require amplitude, beauty is contented
with smaller dimensions. The most touching scenes
of nature are often found, not in the wide range of
hill and dale, but in the very nook of a glen ; and
genius may appear in a cabinet picture as well as in
one of the largest canvass. Why, then, may not the
manse garden be fair, though the field be small? and
why should not art be employed to make it a very
delight to its owner, and an object of pleasure to the
traveller that passes by ? O for a law, originating in
the perception of comfort, and self-imposed, which
should make the planting of a few trees an operation
as certain as the building of a house ! Men would
live longer and better for the happiness thus given
to their homes ; and the sickening sameness of bare
hillsides and of cold blue walls would be changed
into a succession of the most pleasing objects. But
how often do we find even the manse, or villa of
similar rank, devoid of that peculiar charm which
arises from partial concealment, and standing almost
naked in the blast, though some shelter has been
sought by a strip or clump of trees.

When partial concealment is the object, the holly
fulfills the intention of the planter; it casts a deep
shade on the stonework, and, like the dash of the pen-
cil in a good picture, the effect remains unchanged by
the changing of seasons; whereas that produced by
a deciduous tree resembles the like effect in a bad
picture, whose colours fade and frustrate the design
of the artist. Much more, where shelter is sought,

THE MANSE GARDEN. 11

has the holly a virtue which belongs not to any other
tree. It is usual, by the common mode of planting,
to have needless shelter in summer, and none in
winter when the want is greatest. Why, said an
ancient poet, should music be contrived only to en-
liven the occasions of mirth, and not rather to sooth
those of sadness? And why, with like reason, it may
be asked, should such trees be set for shelter as lavish
their clothing on the summer months, and leave those
of winter to cold and nakedness ?

But have not all modern plantations, it may be
said, a due mixture of evergreens — Scotch firs, va-
rieties of spruce, and the beautiful Weymouth pine?
They usually have, it must be granted ; and there is
to be found no fault at all with modern science as
displayed in the rearing of large plantations ; for
indeed a true knowledge of that delightful subject,
together with extensive and liberal practice, have, of
late years, adorned and enriched our country. But
of small strips and clumps designed for imparting
beauty and comfort to the villa, the author asserts,
in general, the utter insufficiency. By attending to
the manner in which such strips are usually formed,
and to the successive stages of their growth, it will
appear that the intended shelter must fail, and naked-
ness ensue ; and, further, the author humbly hopes
to show, that for this evil there may be found an
easy and effectual remedy.

The strip, then, is planted with hardwood, inter-
spersed with a due proportion of firs, to give warmth
and verdure to the winter; and for a time the suc-
cess is such as to answer all the anticipations of the
owner. But thinning becomes necessary, that the

12 THE MANSE GARDEN.

trees may not die or grow sickly and unsightly, like
the rubbish of old furze. Still it is hard to make
blanks, letting in the wind, or the idle eye that steals
on the loved seclusion; the knife is reluctantly em-
ployed, and the axe is never laid to the root without
a sigh that shakes the leaves, and not till the for-
mality of a trial by jury has passed upon every tree
that is doomed to fall. Thinned, however, they are
as matter of necessity ; and then the important fact,
that trees, if they have room, will grow in breadth
as well as height, is happily discovered. Thus na-
ture does well for a season : not less abhorrent of a
vacuum than the planter, she fills, by lateral shoots,
every inch of space. But, by and by, there is a
deficiency for which nature, in such circumstances,
makes no provision ; as the trees rise in stature, the
under branches fall away, and leave only bare poles
in all the lower region, where shelter is chiefly wanted.
It is not supposed that the goodly evergreens
have been incautiously removed; but of these, no sort
presents any exception to this law of incipient and
progressive nakedness. The Scotch fir grows the
barest of all ; the spruce tribes do not long give shel-
ter, save where they are sheltered themselves ; and
the Weymouth, more delicate, thrives only in the
deep glen, or in the bosom of a large plantation.
An appeal to fact may be had in a matter so impor-
tant as to involve nearly all the merits of the strip ;
and nowhere will the reader find one of forty or sixty
feet in breadth, which has riot, at a certain age, all
the unseemliness ascribed, together with the vexing
appearance of a scheme that has miscarried. The
strip becomes an open shed, having some roof indeed,

THE MANSE GARDEN. 13

but no other walls than a few naked posts supply.
Plantations of such breadth upon low and level
grounds have a good effect on the distant landscape ;
but where they appear on heights, verge the horizon,
and stand relieved against the sky, they have all
the wretchedness of a ragged garment ; and having
such aspect near a house, where they are designed
for warmth and seclusion, it were better not to have
them. In the first period of their growth, they
afford but the pleasures of hope ; then, for a season,
they give an air of snugness to the dwelling ; and
then, as the planter is growing old, they are getting
bare; and, looking through his poor strip, he sees
from hedge to hedge the withered grass partly broken
and partly waving in the winter winds. In point of
taste, such a plantation is downright ugliness, and in
point of utility its condemnation is, that it does not
answer the end.

Plant hollies instead of firs, and every inconveni-
ence will disappear. You will have no pain or hesi-
tation as to thinning and pruning; the promotion
of your hollies becomes the main object, and every
thing that interferes will readily give way. Only
cut down as the hollies spread, and in the long run
there will be as. much timber as the ground can carry.
The timber may grow magnificent if you will; the
holly will thrive notwithstanding. Nothing that
grows will look so smiling and vigorous under the
shade of trees ; it may be seen luxuriant where it
has been chance-sown by the root of an old oak ; it
never knows what it is to die under any circumstances;
it is peeled by birdcatchers, to whose blackguard
calling it seems indispensable, still it lives; age seems

14. THE MANSE GARDEN.

unable to secure its decay : it is literally ever green.
The root, holding a perpetual lease of the soil, is pos-
sessed of a reproductive vitality, and while the old
stem is failing through length of years, a numerous
offspring arise, which shelter in their bosoms the
aged parent, allowing no marks either of the infirmity
or the change of generations. The expense is no-
thing ; four shillings' worth (the price of a hundred
good plants) is enough for an acre. The hollies
should be placed, say twelve feet asunder, and so ar-
ranged that one farther remote may divide the space
betwixt the nearer two.

A strip so furnished, though not more than thirty
or forty feet wide, will afford more beauty and shelter
than one of three times the breadth reared in the
common way; and it will also have this incompa-
rable advantage, that no length of time will pro-
duce the nakedness of a wretched row of poles; it
will continually increase your privacy and shade,
providing for the comforts of your old age, by sub-
stituting for the bleakness of December the gayeties
of June, and give you the happiness of leaving the
world better than you found it. Neither is it. all
the while a petty low shrubbery that you rejoice in.
Amidst the shining hollies may stand the flowering
lime, with its accompaniment of bees — the mountain
ash, bending under its vermilion clusters — the shady
plane, with its chattering magpies — the early-budding
poplar, giving notice of the spring — the walnut, of
sweet-scented leaves, and whatever else may please
your fancy, — all rising to the majestic; whilst all
within and beneath is closely covered, and always
green, and full of birds fighting in song. It is not

THE MANSE GARDEN. 15

meant that the holly is the only tree that will grow
in the shade, or that nothing else should be planted
as underwood : privet, common laurel, and some
others, may aid the variety ; but the holly must be
your sheet-anchor. Every one of the fir tribes may
have a place at the first, serving early to give a clothed
appearance ; but still it is the holly, always improving
as all other things decline, which alone can make
the progress of shelter keep pace with the progress
of time.

To censure the success of a design so interesting,
as well as to make its advantages more generally
available, it will be proper to offer a few remarks
both as to the first formation of a sheltering strip,
and the amending of one which, having been reared
in the common way, has become next to useless.

Choose your ground where shelter is most needed,
whether for the house or garden, arid trench it well ;
but do not trench too sorely on the glebe, lest eco-
nomy, afterwards more observant, should regret the
extravagance. A quarter of an acre, well shaped
and situated, will do a great deal, considering that
the plan already specified is contrived to make much
shelter of little space. Let it be fenced outside
by a sunk stone wall, of three or four feet, with a
hedge on the top — a hedge of thorns, if the soil is
indifferent, and the situation much exposed ; in more
favourable circumstances, by all means, let the hedge
be of holly. Before planting, manure the ground
with lime and dung, which will be repaid by excellent
crops of potatoes for a few years, and in the mean
time your trees will vie with one another, making
shoots of four or five feet in a season. If the hedge

16 THE MANSE GARDEN.

be of thorn, let it grow three years untouched, except
as to careful weeding; then cut it as close by the
groun d as the knife can be laid ; thus treated, it will
become so compact that no hare or rabbit can find
entrance even when snow has filled the excavation of
the sunk fence. If the hedge be of holly, clean it, of
course, but do not touch it with the knife for seven
years. When the lateral shoots project over the
wall, they may be trimmed flush with its front, which
will render the fence impervious to the nibbling in-
vaders that prove so destructive to young fruit trees
and various productions of the garden.

Thus matters are easy where the ground is clear
and of your own choosing; but the case is more diffi-
cult when you have to do with old trees copsed with
hemlock, nettles, and brambles, and surrounded with
bad hedges, of many blanks, and choked, root and
branch, with an absolute matting of grass. Do not
go in a passion to root out trees and all, but exercise
a little of that patience which belongs to a slow and
steadfast revenge, and which bears with pleasure a
present annoyance, because of a plan which, though
not quickly, will surely accomplish the triumph of a
thorough correction. Every advanced tree is of
great price ; it is the purchase of time, not of money.
Let a sufficiency be spared, lest, in future, waiting
on young plants, you remember the old, and repent
the rashness.

Begin by ordering from the nursery one hundred
hollies. Plant them in the best piece of border
ground your garden can afford, in rows, eighteen
inches apart, and six or eight inches' distant in the
row. Let them remain till they are good large bushes

THE MANSE GARDEN. 17

of two feet in height, giving them all the while the
advantage of frequent hoeing in summer, and slight
digging between the drills in winter. By this pro-
cess not only do they rapidly expand above ground,
but, which is more important, they form, instead of
the whip-lash roots of the seedling bed, a very fleece
of fibres, to which the earth adheres, and by which,
when transferred to the shrubbery, their growth is at
once sure and vigorous. Along with the hollies,
lay in a small stock of Portugal laurels at threepence
each, common laurels at half so much, variegated hol-
lies at sixpence, a few of the arborvitse, laurustinus,
arbutus, and juniper. Of these, some of the finer
sorts may be planted near to the house, where they
are to remain, and on ground which may not require
a tedious process of amelioration. Should the house
be situated in the garden, by all means let some of
those beauties come next the eye, to the exclusion of
cabbage, filthy in decay, or of gooseberry trees, with
their accompaniment of trampled ground and refuse
of fruit — a hideous sight. Others of the more hardy
shrubs may be set to nurse, for future lifting, in the
manner of the hollies ; and in the mean time layers
of every sort may be freely taken. This is the easiest
thing in the world, and the most certain of success.
Stir up the ground, and make a rut, two or three
inches deep, all round the plant; from the under side
of the lowest branches pare a little of the bark; or
instead of paring, give the branch a twist ; lay the
portion that is twisted, or pared, into the bottom of
the excavation, and fasten it down with a peg; then
replace the earth, and set up the head of your future
plant, keeping it erect by firming the soil around it

18 THE MANSE GARDEN.

Every shrub of a few years old will thus afford a
dozen of fine young plants, which will be more prized
than those bought at a considerable expense, and
surer of growing well than such as, being brought
from a distance, have their roots less fibrous, and half
peeled half withered before they arrive. Thus your
stock will increase, and afford the pleasure both of
tracing its progress and possessing a ready supply for
beautifying and filling up any vacant space which may
occur. Whilst these preparations are advancing, any
fit time may be taken" for the reformation of your ill
looking strip, with its ragged hedge and underwood
of hemlock.

Begin by grubbing up old lilacs, stinted and
flowerless for want of sun and shower — elders, which,
though beautiful in the open lawn, grow deformed
in a thicket, and blight every thing near them —
willows, worthless as trees, and ill favoured — spirea,
growing like a sheaf, and retaining the dead stalks
amongst the living — the hedges totally, and not to
be succeeded by any thing of the same kind in the
same place; and sparing only a few of the best trees,
at such distances as they may require for growing to
a goodly size. Proceed then to trench the ground,
reserving to the root of each tree that is saved, a
circle of as many feet in diameter as there are inches
to the stem. In this process of trenching and up-
rooting, make distinct heaps ; one of stones for the
roads, one of wood for the fire, and one of all abo-
minable weeds, with which accounts may be settled
by a due mixture of lime. It may be that a gravel
walk is needful, either where there has been one of
grass, or none; and in the excavating of which

THE MANSE GARDEN. 19

there will be furnished an invaluable mound of earth,
as well as a convenient receptacle for the heaps of
stones. The earth may be wheeled to the trenched
ground, and made into compost with dung, in the
proportion of one to three of earth, or with lime at
the rate of one to six ; the whole to be turned over
once or twice a-year, till the hollies, as previously
recommended, have attained the proper size; and
the soil to which they are destined, being now reno-
vated by trenching, may, in the mean time, be en-
riched with manure, and kept clean by alternate
crops of potatoes and turnips; whilst the matured
compost will be in readiness for application to the
roots of the hollies in the final act of transplanting.
That so much care and trouble are not needlessly
bestowed, may be ascertained by examining the state
of the mould from which the poor and profitless
tenantry have been ejected : it is dry as dust, and
terribly impoverished; it seems, at a small depth
from the surface, not to have felt the refreshing of
a shower for half a century ; it has seen no sun, and
suffered no frost, nor has it breathed the vital air in
all that time ; it is mingled with the recent chips of
the mattock, and full of turfy fibres, which, though
dead, are undecaying as wool or hair. In this state
it might do well for oats or barley ; but not for your
hollies, the hope of your old age, and of centuries to
come : and hence the use of a contrary series of pro-
ductions, and of the rich mound to be had, as above
described; or failing that, a portion of the rooty
earth may be exchanged for the black mould of an
old onion bed.

Proceeding thus, with good assurance of success,

20 THE MANSE GARDEN.

you cannot choose for the operation of transplanting
a better time than the gloomy month of November
— provided it be gloomy. Avoid a clear frost as
you would the fire of the dog-days. After some
mornings of rime, when you are sure of a week of
wet weather, seize the amiable opportunity; — and
surely not a little may be said for an occupation that
can make a November drizzle more cheering than
the sunny dews of May. It is not intended that
this is the best time for lifting the more delicate
evergreens ; but hollies, though by mismanagement
the most readily lost, are not delicate ; and this is
the season which best secures all advantages to that
plant: its last year's growth is perfectly ripened,
and not one shoot will hang its head. In a dryer
season of the year, every thing newly transplanted
requires frequent watering, the trouble of which, in
this case, may as well be spared, and which, however
liberal, never equals the natural moisture; and by
the prevalence of the winter and spring rains, the
roots get thoroughly incased in the soil before the
period of growth returns. I venture to assert that,
by properly conducting the removal of hollies and
other hardy evergreens in this month, you will not
be able to pick up one fallen leaf, of one of a hun-
dred plants, before you see the young fresh buds of
the following spring.

Have near the scene of your operations a plentiful
supply of water, as many small pointed stakes as
you have plants to lift, and a large clue of oakum —
the shop name for single but strong threads of hemp
saturated with tar. Have, at least, two men with
strong new spades, and stand by them every minute ;

THE MANSE GARDEN. 21

for the spades have, in all ordinary hands, a strange
centripetal attraction, on account of which it is
difficult to maintain a due remoteness from the
heart of the roots; and notwithstanding the strictest
mandate, you will find frequent cause for calling
Hold, when the murderous slash is about to de-
scend through your living fibres. Set spade over
against spade, each a foot from the stem of your
hollies, and allow no wriggling or prizing till they
have gained an even-down depth greater than that
of the roots — then lift, and up comes the whole liv-
ing form, as unconscious of suffering by the change
of bed as a sleeping child. Carry softly : make the
new bed broad and deep, of the prepared compost ;
set the most projecting branch to the west wind ;
pour in a little more of the foreign with a mixture
of the native mould ; then drench with water : the
wetness of the earth or of the day is no excuse, as
it might be found, on a narrow inspection, that the
roots, though surrounded, are not closely embraced
by the soil, but that there are cavities, within which
the roots will become mouldy, and die of dry rot —
so called ;* level all up, making the surface slightly

* " So called" — In throwing this discredit on the name, the
author does not profess to unravel the mystery of the thing ,• in
other words, to account for and cure that remarkable decay,
whether it be in the timber of ships or houses, which is usually
denominated dry rot. But if the name be wrong it deserves cor-
rection, lest it lead to a wrong idea, and the attempting of a
remedy, by securing to the wood more wet, and so preventing a
disease that may be supposed, from its name, to originate in dry-
ness. It is only by comparison that the term has any truth.
The cause of rotting is more obvious in wood that is laid on wet
grass ; and then it seems mysterious that a waste as rapid should
be found in that which is so dry as the floor and panels of a fre-
quented parlour. These are indeed dry as compared with boards
laid on the grass ; but where the rot occurs in the panels, they

22 THE MANSE GARDEN.

firm with the foot; and lastly, stake and tie every
plant. Make this last a rule without any excep-
tion. You are apt to say when it is calm that the
wind will do no harm ; but wait the equinox,, and
you will see an exactly conical perforation, smoothly
plastered around the neck of every unfastened plant.
For the sake of variety, other sorts of your large and
well nursed evergreens may be removed to the same
place, and after the same manner. Having thus fur-
nished your boundary strip, as a sheltering outline,
you may plant anterior to it your finer evergreens,
which from time to time may be multiplied and di-
versified from your stock of layers. This inner range
of shrubs, mingled with flowers, and made accessible
by a walk, remains to be further noticed in Part III,
the flower department.

The incurable hedge we suppose to have been

are in reality not dry. Mushrooms of large dimensions, or plants
of another species, will be found growing inside, and seeking their
way to the light. Such tribes do not live without water : roast
them, and the falling drops will prove the fact: neither are those
deals so clothed with vegetable life that are always near the fire.
It would seem, therefore, that the above misnomer should be
amended by substituting the word wet for dry; and it maybe
observed, too, that the wetness which causes, is just in the most
favourable circumstances for aiding the disease in its hidden and
appalling devastations. The moisture is closed in, and excluded
from the air. Were the circulation free, a dryer atmosphere
would sometimes, at least, check the decomposition of the tim-
ber ; and the progeny of its corruption being, though mischievous,
naturally delicate, might suffer by the changes of temperature.
Wherefore if dryness of site and freeness of circulation cannot be
provided for in the case of a house so infected, let not the inmate
breathe his wrath upon the mushroom — itself not the cause but
the effect of the dangerous damp of which it gives a friendly ad-
monition ; and let him seek no oil or mineral poison to prevent
in future the wood which he repairs from giving the like indica-
tions of harm; but let him rather flee for his life, lest staying
unwarned he may be found to have slain the witness, not the foe,
and made himself a prey.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 23

utterly extirpated ; and if the place it occupied happen
to be under the drop of the trees which you have
spared, or is likely to be soon overshadowed, a new
stance, somewhat farther remote, must of necessity
be chosen, and there the same method as that recom-
mended in the formation of a strip on new ground
maybe adopted; but with this absolute resolve, that
from the first the fence shall be perfectly hare-tight.
A garden lying open to hares, rabbits, hens, dogs,
and cats, is truly nonsense ; for why incur the expense
of many things, and render them all nugatory by
saving the expense of one ? A few words, therefore,
on the article of fencing will not be deemed unneces-
sary; and ample apology for the pains may be pled
by the frequent occurrence of a ragged hedge as the
only shield of the manse garden.

But should the requisite work appear less easy
than you could wish, the only rule for you is to
break all up, and have no garden ; to buy your vege-
tables and your fruits; to make open pasture, suffer-
ing the cows to poke your windows, defile your doors,
and rub their necks, leaving the brown hair on the
greased corners of your harled house. This has at
least the merit of a system, in which no part counte-
racts the whole ; and the taste that approves of graz-
ing, with its understood accompaniments, up to the
doorstep, has not long gone by. But to fence, and
yet not fence, is faulty, not in point of taste, but of
reason ; and to exclude your own cows from your
garden, whilst you admit hares and rabbits which are
not your own, can scarcely be reckoned charity, and
is not very justifiable on the ground of prudence.
But a garden in all probability you will have ; and if

24 THE MANSE GARDEN.

a fence secure against all intruders be difficult, let
the difficulty be met by a greater — namely, the
annoyance, in various ways, repeated daily, and con-
tinued all the years of your life.

You have sown your small culinary and flower
seeds in fine season, and raked all in, neat and
clean; and when you look out to see whether the
young sprouts yet carry the dewdrop, you find a
lot of hens, like partridges under a dry hedge,
reveling in the luxury of filling their feathers
with the soil, and repaying what they take away
with the plumage which they leave. You have a
standard pear, whose quality you have secured by
grafting, and whose fruit you are waiting for year
after year; and that is the very tree around which
all the cats of the village choose to assemble for the
peculiar diversion of exercising their claws, piercing
the core, and making the bark to the touch of the
hand what the under part of a stirrup is to the foot.
And whilst your patience is thus under the claws of
the cat, that of your good wife is submitted to the
teeth of the rabbit. The early cauliflowers were
expected for a particular occasion ; but the munching
tribe, popping out and in at will, have not left a
green blade. You have a Ribston pippin on your
best wall, and every flower-bud is nibbled as neatly
off by the hares in the night time as if great industry
and a sharp knife had been employed all the day.
It may be some consolation, that though they have
taken the buds, you have still the branch ; and there
is no saying what may happen to the hares before
another winter ; but look to your espaliers, and you
will have no occasion to congratulate yourself on the

THE MANSE GARDEN. 25

exemption of the fruit-bearing wood. It is near
the extremities that the crop is most abundant, and
these also are the portions that the hare makes
choice of to eat entirely, whilst the wood, otherwise
garbled, contracts a disposition to canker. The
lowest branch, lying most convenient to the teeth,
suffers the furthest process of gnawing ; the next a
degree less; and the third, not so accessible, is
truncated only as far as the bite is easy ; so that the
tree is mere vacuity where the fruit clusters should
abound; and the branches, instead of maintaining
their destined parallelism, are reduced in figure to
the transverse section of a Dutch ship. I might
tell of a remedy for this wasteful sight, but rather
withhold it, lest, in mastering the hare, you submit
to the hen. This busy gardener will be found at
one time nestling in your onion beds ; at another,
breaking the newly set rows of your dazzling ranun-
culuses, or scooping out the half struck layers of your
prize carnations, or combing with her claws the roots
of a fine shrub, and leaving them to crisp in the sun.
With much care, but scarcely without damage to the
fruit buds, it is possible to make the young wood
unsavoury to the hare, and thus to secure its safety ;
but it is far better to look to your fence — to make
that secure, and so ratify a truce with all your ene-
mies at once.

Have no quarrel with your heritors, and you will
have a capital garden wall. I have never known a
case in which there was not manifested by that hon-
ourable body a great readiness to promote the com-
forts of the minister, except where the latter has
proved either nearly useless, or given to litigation.
B

26 THE MANSE GARDEN.

The legal fence is one of stone and mortar, two ells
in height, measured from the surface, and therefore
exclusive of the depth necessary to obtain a founda-
tion, and of such length as to enclose half an acre of
ground. Mortar perhaps once signified clay, but
now it means lime, according to use and wont. And
lucky it is for your apricots, as they require so much
nailing, and the clay does not hold. But you are
not likely to suffer by the substitution of clay for
lime, as no gentleman, in these times, is willing to
have an ugly hole in his property, or to exhibit, by
a clay pit, the proof of an execrable soil. A lime
wall, besides, will in most places cost less, requiring
only one foot in thickness ; whereas a mud construc-
tion must be twenty inches, or two feet, to have any
chance of standing; and even with such expensive
thickness, as the wall has not the benefit of a roof
over its head, it will be sure, on the slightest failure
of the turf cope, getting soaked, to suffer expansion
by frost, and to burst, a mass of hateful ruin, in the
February rains. But, not failing, the turf cope is a
pest, polluting, by the seeds of every thing vile, both
flower borders and gravel walks ; and if to prevent
the bursting of the wall through the failure of cop-
ing, and kindly to save the minister from a pest, as
well as to remove from the eye the meanness of a
turfy heap which uncouthly mingles with peach
blossom, the heritors should determine for a cope
of stone ; then the needful thickness of a clay wall
becomes a very considerable aggravation of the ex-
pense. For if freestone be adopted, it is charged by
the square foot, and if common stone, for cheapness,
be preferred, it is yet not cheap when required of a

THE MANSE GARDEN. 27

length not less than two feet, such stones being
valued not by the weight, but by the difficulty of
finding them.

Supposing the legal dimensions and proper mate-
rials freely granted, you may by a little management
and taste, at nearly the same cost, have a much more
efficient fruit wall, and an equally good fence on all
sides, with less of formality in the appearance. This
is to be done by diminishing the length of mason
work, and by adding to the height, where the aspect
is good; the remaining boundary being completed
by a hedge, and sunk wall of four feet, consisting
of dry stones, pointed with lime. And with such
advantages, surely there ought to be no penurious
grudging on the part of the possessor, in regard to
nursing the hedge, temporary paling, or a little
extra expense, by which the estimate on this plan
may exceed that of the uniform and allowed dimen-
sions. An equally high and four-cornered garden
wall, staring in the open field, is the most unseemly
thing that can be set down on the surface of the
earth. If your house stand in such a garden, it
looks like a prison ; and all flowers within such
boundary of stone appear not otherwise than as a
parterre for the amusements of bedlam. Should the
house be a little remote, still the huge square box of
a garden annihilates every possible trace of natural
beauty; and this it does equally in every degree of
littleness or of magnificence. Witness many villas —
witness Floors.* The shape must vary according to
circumstances ; but in general angles may be avoided,

* The seat of the Duke of Roxburgh, whose splendid park is
thus disfigured.

28 THE MANSE GARDEN.

and two or three of the sides may consist of wall ;
but something of the crescent form, opening its arms
to the sun, ought to be preferred ; and then the
figure may be completed in a way the least offensive,
by a low hedge surmounting a sunk wall, which is but
little obtrusive.

Still the visible line of demarcation is bad ; and
nothing tends so much to do away this effect as a
few irregular trees near to and without the boundary.
And this leads me to remark, what might be proved
by a thousand observations, that it is the ring fence
of a plantation which mainly fixes on it the stiffness
of artifice, and prevents it, whatever be its form, from
having the ease and elegance of natural wood. All
ornamental clumps ought, therefore, as soon as pos-
sible, to be freed from the encumbrance of their sur-
rounding hedge or dyke; and it is impossible to
describe the instant surprise of new beauty which
succeeds to such act of demolition. If to the removal
of such hampering lines from the landscape be added
the advantage of a few chance-scattered trees, allow-
ing the clumps as it were to dissipate like the verge
of a cloud, your work of art is completely charming,
and hardly to be distinguished from that of nature's
hand. But as your garden fence cannot be so dis-
posed of, the best that can be done is to break, by a
few trees, the exactness of the outline ; and if you
have planted within your enclosure, it is at once
pleasant and easy to transfer some portion to the
outside. For this you have trees where they are
wanted, and of such size as to need no fencing; and
by forming a colony to relieve an over crowded po-
pulation, you avoid the pain of cutting off young and

THE MANSE GARDEN. 29

promising lives. And as this is an operation so
important wherever the hand of rural improvement
is at work, the devotion of a page to the subject may
well be allowed.

The most novel and interesting experiments of
this kind are those of the ingenious and enterprising
Sir H. Stewart. His theory, founded on a careful
analysis of the physiological laws, is undoubtedly
good ; his method of shifting the site of living timber,
so far as time has yet proved, appears to be eminently
successful ; and no small praise is due to the splendid
scheme of clothing a lawn in a few days with trees
of a stem three feet in circumference — the growth of
thirty years. Yet there is reason to fear that neither
the author's valuable treatise, nor the demonstration
of his success, will go very far to help the nakedness
of our country. To the success of such operations,
not to speak of skill, a large expense per tree is ab-
solutely necessary; and reasonable fear there may be,
that trees of such magnitude will not do well upon
indifferent soil. The excavations for their new resi-
dence must have considerable depth ; and the whole
apartment, loosened as by trenching, and enriched
with compost, is highly favourable to the life of the
old, and to the growth of newly formed roots, for a
certain number of years. But look to the sides of
the pit, consisting, it may be, of hard till or sheer
gravel ; and what iron wall have the surprised roots
in their new adventures to perforate, or, after good
feeding, in what poverty to live, when they seek to
extend their sphere. It will then be time to lift
again, and seek a larger flowerpot for the plant. It
is a just theory, that the roots must be taken up to

30 THE MANSE GARDEN.

a great degree entire if the branches be kept entire ;
but this method is wholly inadmissible for the adorn-
ing of treeless hedges, or relieving the sterile and
wretched appearance of dry stone dykes — an object
extending to nine tenths of the arable fields through-
out all the breadth and length of the land.

Let younger trees be planted, in the form of pol-
lards, and they will do in every case — clothing the
country, and at no considerable cost. It is objected
to the pollard, that it has a mean and deformed ap-
pearance ; but what is the patience of a bare pole for
one summer, compared with enduring the nakedness
of a country age after age ? And that the defect is
only temporary, I could refer to a thousand instances
in which the most critical eye could not discover that
the tree, no longer a pollard, had once suffered the
disgrace of decapitation. Where the young shoots
are thinned out, the second or third year after trans-
planting, and any decayed wood smoothed off, so as
to allow the bark to close in with the new growth,
no more defect will be visible than in any tree of the
same advancement growing where it was sown. The
ash and elm do best, and the oak will not fail in good
soil; but the beech and the plane had better not be
lopped, and in that case the roots must be more care-
fully extracted.

But why make pollards at all, it may be asked,
since their appearance is at least for a time deformed ?
The answer is, that, having little ballast, they meet
the wind with less sail ; but a far stronger reason is,
that the future growth of the pollard is better than
that of a tree, of whatever size, transplanted entire as
to the branches, but mangled as to the roots. In

THE MANSE GARDEN. 31

the thicket of a young plantation, it is impossible to
accomplish the lifting without considerable laceration;
and if that could be avoided, it would still, in many
situations, be impracticable to replace a sufficient
compass of root in the ground. If the roots then
must be curtailed — so must the branches. Every
thing as to the leaves being lungs is well enough
understood; but, notwithstanding, the head must be
taken off, though the leaves be consequently few ;
for as the principal nourishment comes from the
smallest and remotest fibres of the roots, and as those
are mostly severed, it follows that the top branches —
and the fact is seen in every case — being unmoistened
from beneath, get so dry and indurated in the heat
of summer, that they never afterwards serve well for
the circulation of the sap; whereas the head being
diminished, and little more than the trunk, which
does not so readily part with its moisture, being
suffered to remain, new shoots are formed, which,
growing in proportion to the nourishment supplied,
have no unhealthiness, and cause no future obstruc-
tion, but serve in all time coming as open tubes for
conveying the sap to succeeding ramifications.

The best age for pollarding may be from ten to
fifteen years; but as size, which depends on soil and
shelter as well as time, must also be consulted, the
best rule is to choose the healthiest tree, of a stem
two, three, or four inches diameter. The ball or
circle of roots should measure at least one yard
across, and the pits for their reception a little more.
When the soil is poor, a few spadefuls from the
nearest field should be allowed, or as much compost,
if it may be had ; and for the better firming of the

32 THE MANSE GARDEN.

roots, and preserving of moisture, it is of no small
use to throw around every stem a quantity of loose
stones, which take in all the rain that falls, and ex-
clude the sun. For protection, the top being high
enough to surmount all bestial, nothing more is re-
quisite than a handful of thorns tied round the stems,
to ward off the necks of cattle, the teeth of sheep,
and the poisonous grease of their wool. There is
no nicety of seasons as to planting : any time of soft
weather, from the fall of the leaf to the middle of
April, will do ; but the earliest is the best chance,
save where too much wet might cause rotting — and
in that case, it is better to plant just on the opening
of the bud.

It is gratifying to remark, that the whole expense
of lifting, transporting, (where the distance is within
a mile,) making pits, planting and defending, does
not exceed thirty shillings per hundred — a number
quite sufficient to relieve the stiffness of the garden
fence, and ornament every field of the glebe. And
why, throughout the country, are fields so generally
bare — why is the harshness of stone dykes so long
unmitigated ? One pound is no great price for an
elm ; and in how short a period might not the thirty
shillings grow into a hundred pounds ! England
has less plantation than Scotland, yet England seems
all wood, and Scotland all bare. The explanation
is the hedge-row, which, besides beautifying, brings
money, and, without marring the plough, gives more
to the field by shelter than it takes away by shade.
In the letting of grass parks, the earlier verdure
tempts to the highest price for that field which is
surrounded by the thickest row of trees. Remember

THE MANSE GARDEN. 33

the thirty shillings, the hundred pounds, the higher
rent, the charm of wooded scenery, and wonder how
there should be any where a field without trees where
trees would grow; and wherever corn ripens they
will grow. The chief hinderance is the difficulty a
man has of moving himself. That difficulty is in-
creased by the coldness of a bare territory ; and the
cold that once subsists secures its own continuance —
it begets an unwillingness to stir, even when it is
known that the movement would bring warmth.
Cold in this respect differs from hunger : the former
is sedative, the latter is stimulant; hence men are
more active in the procuring of food than of clothing ;
hence the plough goes further than planting; and
hence England, having less cold, has more trees.

But not only is the pollard convenient for the
forming of hedge-rows, it admits of an application as
easy and economical to all by corners, steep banks,
and open pastures, not submitted to the plough, or
too much exposed to the blast; and the success of
the method may be seen in the county of Selkirk, on
the beautiful and well wooded estate of a gentleman,
distinguished equally for the science and the revenue
of planting, where thousands of trees, in groups or
sprinkled like- stars, promise a rich return; though
no further fencing has at any time been given than
that of having placed them, as pollards, in the heart
of a whin bush, wherever such had occurred in the
sheep walks, or in steeps and glens incapable of other
cultivation.

If you plant a tree, it has been justly said, you
will water it, intimating the pleasure you will take
in its growth ; and to succeed, the main rule is to
B 2

oi THE MANSE GARDEN.

put your hand to the work. A volume of minute
details might be written on this pleasant theme ; but,
giving an air of importance by the minuteness of de-
tail, they would serve only to deter from the enter-
prise which their author would zealously recommend.
There is no such mystery in the matter. Only make
a beginning; improvement will grow out of experi-
ment ; and you will find in the very nature of the
work a new interest communicated to your life; and
which, relieving the pressure of cares, and lightening
the burden of toil, will tend to no worldliness of
spirit; for ministers certainly do not plant for their
heirs, and though others may, yet do they reap only
the pleasure of their handiwork, and must bequeath
its gains to the unknown futurity. Thus conferring
as well as receiving good, and incurring no evil, let
our gardens and every corner of our glebes be
adorned ; and if we have to lament, on the part of
those having large possessions, that too little is done,
let us at least set an example, though it be but in
the model style, and have our home a paradise of
fruit and flower, of shelter and shade, endeavouring
still to make the place more worthy of ourselves, and
eurselves more worthy of the place.

In order to avoid the box-like appearance of a
common walled garden, I have recommended, as part
of the enclosing line, a hedge and sunk fence. It is
not to be expected that before the hedge is well
grown, the low wall should be sufficient to keep out
the ordinary intruders; and there it will be necessary
to erect a paling, which may be very slight, as it will
neither be long needed nor have much to do in re-
sisting cattle, being well aided by the sunken wall of

THE MANSE GARDEN. 35

three or four feet. As economy is a great beauty,
when the end is sufficiently accomplished, the minute-
ness of the following description of paling will readily
be excused. At the distance of nine feet from each
other, let stuckings (stakes) of peeled larch, three to
four inches diameter, charred at the lower end, be
driven at the bottom of the wall, and held against its
front by ranees from behind; — the stuckings must
overtop the wall by two feet ; — let two bars run along
the outsides, giving thus more room to the hedge,
the one a little lower than the summit of the wall,
and the other an inch or two from the top of the
stuckings ; and let these bars be crossed by pieces of
lath placed upright, and not more than two inches
apart. Let the whole be anointed, when very dry,
with coal tar, and the fabric will last for ten years.
It may be asserted, that no other sort of paling, if
hare-tightness be effected, as by the above, will so
much combine cheapness with durability. For greater
security, it is proper to observe, that though the laths
may surmount the top bar, where they are out of the
reach of cattle, they must not descend lower than the
under one, where their frailty would be more exposed;
and as the under bar is placed a little beneath the
summit of the wall, the poking sort of invaders will
not discover a way of access, although there may be
room enough to admit their bodies.

Should it be found, on the decay of your wooden
erection, that the hedge, with all due care, is not
sufficiently close, let a small peg be set upright into
any vacancy that may occur ; but by no means draw
in a bushy thorn, as is frequently done, and which, as
it hinders the growth of lateral shoots, soon makes,

36 THE MANSE GARDEN.

the blank larger than before. If any part has failed
to a greater extent, fill it up with a well grown plant
of a different species ; for it is remarkable that a thorn
will not grow in a soil already occupied and exhausted
by thorn roots ; but a common or sweet brier, a bar-
berry, a crab, or wild plum, or a well grown holly,
will fully answer the intention. Should it however
appear, that from the bad thriving of your hedge in
general, such remedies will not be effectual, it may be
expedient, on removing the paling, to add one row
of stones by way of a cope, so as to raise your wall
about six inches higher than the roots of your thorns,
and thus make sure of tightness, as the difficulty is
experienced only at the very surface of the ground.
But it may sometimes happen that a snow storm
will level a pathway over the very top of your defence,
and yet leave your trees in some places uncovered,
and exposed to the enemy. A quantity of soot, with
twice as much cow's dung, reduced with water to the
consistence of paint, and laid on with a soft brush,
will prevent the hares from touching the bark, and
serve for the whole season, without causing any injury
to the tree. In too great proportion the soot is un-
safe ; and care should be taken not to hurt the flower
buds ; but withall, the remedy is by no means tedious
in its application, and is perfectly efficacious in pre-
venting a devastation which many years will not re-
pair. All these little matters, I am aware, will be
judged worthy of notice by every one who has expe-
rienced the peculiar provocation of the various garden
enemies — their assaults being of a kind too trivial for
the exercise of resignation, and yet, by frustrating
the hope of your labour, making all your plans and
expenses mere foolishness.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 37

But whilst the above methods may apply to all
ordinary situations, there are others in which they
could not be adopted with any degree of propriety.
In very high and exposed places, where the soil and
atmosphere are such as to stint all vegetable growth,
the planting of hedges for such nicety of defence is
out of the question, and the erecting of paling still
more. Look around you before you lay your plans.
Is your height above the level of the sea 800 or 1000
feet, — does the plough turn up black peat earth
mingled with round white stones, — does the nearest
plantation of Scotch-firs present its small tufts of
annual growth, like the top of a thistle; and is its
hedge, of twelve years' standing, scarcely two feet in
stature, and covered all over with moss of an ochry
colour mingled with silver grey, — take your mea-
sures accordingly. Plant no hedge with a view to
keep out hens or hares, but raise a strong rampart
of large blue stone from the nearest quarry, and
within it plant green kale and potatoes. Your kale
plantation will thrive no worse for affording shelter
and pasture to your hens, whose eggs will be the best
of your garden productions. Even here I could figure
a certain degree of beauty inside the garden ; but it
must be of a kind suited to the nature of the place.
I would have the high mound of dry stone fence
completely covered with Irish ivy. I would have no
fruit trees and no flowers ; the heath is beautiful,
and the village children will bring enough of fruit
for preserves from the cranberry bogs. In the keen
air, giving a keener appetite for breakfast, it will be
no vexing sight to see the garden full of hens ; some
feeding amongst the kale, some cackling for joy of

38 THE MANSE GARDEN.

their warm nest, beneath the ivy, in the vernal sun ;
and others, white as the snow, perched on the green
summit, like sea-mews on the ridge of the wave.
For your own shelter, rather collect peat fuel all
summer than plant trees all winter. If your glebe
could spare an hundred acres you would do well to
cover them with larch, which, occupying such breadth,
will grow well at any height, and soon improve both
soil and climate ; but spare yourself the misery of a
strip, or clump, or hedge-row, of which the branches,
lying all to one side, like the rigging of a sloop, in-
stead of making you warmer, will only chill you by
demonstrating the effects of the incessant blast. As
it is easier to bear want than failure, be content with
bleakness; and of mental food, healthful exercise, and
the relish of beauty, even in the bleakest season,
there will be no want in your library, in pastoral
visitations, and the sight of clear blue sky, glassy
snow, the social circle, and a blazing fire,

But circumstances so untoward as the above de-
scribed do but rarely attend the abodes of the Scottish
clergy. The kirk and manse are generally objects of
pleasing interest to the traveler. A great advance-
ment both of taste and liberality, on the part of landed
proprietors, appears in all the recently erected churches
of our picturesque country ; and the adjacent manse
stands, amidst the gradations of wealth, a model of
the golden mean — as if Providence had chosen to
illustrate, by his servants in the church, the wisdom
of the prayer, "give me neither poverty nor riches."
The situation of the manse is, for the most part, low,
sheltered, and beautiful, by the woody bank of lake
or stream. The country being every where mountain-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 39

ous, abounds, of course, in glens and rivers ; and in
these romantic retreats are found the decent church,
and the peaceful looking abode of the pastor.

Such felicity of site has often led to the sarcastic
observation, that the Church is too wise not to have
the best things to herself. But so far as the accu-
sation of a selfish wisdom is limited to a predilection
for the murmuring stream and the shade of trees,
without implying the guilt of aggrandizement, it may
be easily borne. But even this, if the charge were
grave, might be answered by the fact, that the sweet
attractions of the river have first moved the flocks to
feed on its green pastures, and that thither the shep-
herds have but followed them. It is true that the
church, in consequence of this attraction, is but rarely
central to the parish. In some districts may be
counted nearly a score of churches ranged along the
winding valley, whose stream serves to each in suc-
cession as the parochial boundary; and hence the
area of the parish is very unequally disposed around
its place of worship. Nevertheless, the site of the
kirk and manse is chosen on a far juster principle.
For obvious reasons, the population is crowded on
the valleys, and thinly scattered on the moors ; and
the most perfect adjustment of every claim, is to sup-
pose the people, with their respective distances, to
form a coherent substance, of which substance, the
centre of gravity is the proper site of the church.
This principle, as just in morals as in mechanics,
may serve to appease the remote inhabitants who
complain that they must travel all the breadth or all
the lerfgth of the parish before they reach the place
of worship. From the above it follows, that the

40 THE MANSE GARDEN.

manse, in the situation of which the minister has sel-
dom any choice, has, by a law of nature, nearly the
best advantages of soil and shelter which the parish
can afford.

Surely this holds out to the incumbent great en-
couragement to accomplish what nature has left to
be done by art for completing the beauty and comfort
of his residence ; and as he, from superior education,
must be supposed to possess a cultivated taste, and
ought to have charity, he cannot be excused either
in suffering dirty doors, or refusing to plant a tree
because he plants not for his children. But where
is the ground of complaint, it may be said, seeing
that so much has already been done ? Improvements,
it must be owned, have taken place in an age so re-
plete with improvements; and as this is just the ground
of expecting more, so, indeed, much more may yet
reasonably be expected. And therefore these pages
are humbly submitted to my honoured fathers and
beloved brethren. Were the times as formerly when
there was no stir — no taste in this way, who would
have written what none would have read? But now
that improvements are begun and progressive, many
are looking out for hints on a subject in which they
are interested ; and for any that may be here sug-
gested, I can answer that they are the result of ex-
periment, and adapted to the circumstances of the
persons for whom they are designed.

Having provided for the shelter and ornament of
your garden, as well as its safety from devastation
and annoyance by small foes, we come now to take
a look of its interior ; and for the following reasons I
venture to suppose, that the observations next to be

THE MANSE GARDEN. 41

made will be judged worthy of your attention. The
village or the country gardener is a man that has
his price ; he is not always to be had, and what is
worse, he is least to be had when he is most needed.
The seed time is his harvest, and in that season of
his importance, he must divide himself amongst his
customers. Thus your reeking furrow, impatient to
receive the seed, must again get cold and wet before
the man of science makes his round ; and thus wait-
ing for your man you lose your crop. But know a
little of the thing yourself, and with the help of a
common labourer, you have the time and tide in your
own hands. But look to the workmanship of these
men of price, and you will discover your need of
knowing more than they do. How often do you see
on the best wall, every sort of tree, for "uniformity's
sake," submitted to the same rule of training, a rule
too which in the case of some is such as to prevent
the possibility of fruit bearing. The fault may be
in nature, making one tree to differ from another;
but the fault must not be in this man's science — all
must conform to the same laws. He knows that the
young wood is an encumbrance to the pear; and he
lays down its well trimmed branches with many a
side-long glance at their exquisite parallelism ; and
this delight were marred if the plum might be any
exception. It insists, indeed, on not bearing a mor-
sel of fruit, except on its young wood; but Andrew
will not allow a twig to remain, and hence the tree,
after ten years of trial, by torture, is, with others of
the same family, condemned and burnt, either for
barrenness or contumacy. Meantime your wife and
children have often had watering teeth, on viewing,

42 THE MANSE GARDEN.

in the 'squire's garden, the rich profusion of green-
gages and of magnums, like the golden eggs of yore,
and have wondered why they have none at the manse.
Andrew blames the nursery-man for cheating in the
matter of grafts, and you suspect the soil. This is
really too bad, to have nothing for the teeth — to have
the best soil, a wall that did not come there without
expense; not forgetting your account current with the
man of price ; and to have no other produce than a
set of bare, knotty, gnarled old poles, held up to the
beauteous sun with shreds of old hat or pieces of
shoe leather; and all this, because your man of science
cannot see why the plum should differ from the pear.
I would exhort you not to suffer ugliness, sterility,
conceit, and useless expense. If you do not choose
to notice what part of a tree is made for bearing fruit,
and tell Andrew to spare that, or put in a nail your-
self, lay the axe to every root, and plant ivy, which
will train itself, look beautiful, and cost nothing.

As in the fruit department, so in the vegetable.
Dinner on the table, you have nothing but potatoes :
and an^apology is made, alleging the badness of the
garden. The truth is, your man, going to all places,
remembers nothing about any place ; and the suc-
cession of cropping, as necessary to the garden as to
the glebe, is a matter of chance. Hence your cauli-
flowers, having succeeded late cabbages, instead of
swelling to a noble bumpy head that might please a
phrenologist, are mere buttons; and so of the rest.
Yet no expense is spared; the garden consumes a
great deal of manure, as much as might help a large
field of wheat, besides incurring a considerable debit
for seeds and plants ; and not a little for whole days,

THE MANSE GARDEN. 43

half days, and odd hours, as per Andrew's account.
Still there is nothing to eat. I have so often met
with complaints of the unproductiveness of manse
gardens, that I have suspected some ill bit of ground,
long peeled by the parish privilege of feal and divot,
had generally been allotted for clerical horticulture ;
but the suspicion was bad, and the deep black mould
every where testified against it. However rich the
soil, it gets deadened by long use ; the constant sup-
plies of manure serve to quicken it rather for the
production of animal than of vegetable life; and so
fed for half a century, without trenching or rest, it
becomes a living heap of worms. Hence the verity
of the statement, the worm took the carrots, the
worm took the onions, and the snails, as busy above
ground, left not a vestige of the peas. Having so
many eaters in the garden, it is easily understood
that you are at no little expense in feeding them, and
have nothing left for yourself. A little skill on your
own part, to be acquired herewith, together with a
few days of a potent labourer, might dispense with
Andrew and his worm-eaten crops.

As in the vegetable, so in the flower department,
(for what garden wants something in that way ?)
Andrew cannot remember, and no bump of locality
could, where all the lilies in the parish have made
their beds for the winter, and what cares he for the
sleeping beauties that lie waiting for the summer
sun. Slash goes the murderous spade, with the harsh-
ness of a guilotine, through dhalias, jonquils, crown-
imperials, and narcissus-poetica. This, perhaps, you
consider of little consequence, but if you do not care
for flowers do not have them. It is not natural to

44 THE MANSE GARDEN.

combine nursing with destruction, — to cherish hope
and plan its ruin. Root up all arid sow grass, a
beauty that never tires, and amidst which, the " wee
modest crimson-tipped flower " will spring up of its
own accord, and defy the scythe. Such a remedy
easily suggests itself, and such an arrangement would
afford far more pleasure than indifferent and ill kept
flower borders, and would display a certain elegance
of taste suited to those who have no love for horti-
culture. Yet this is a thing no more to be met
with than ivy substituted for ill trained and fruitless
trees. The truth is, there is far more of imitation
than of consistent plan in the measures that are every
where adopted. All gardeners, having walls, have
wall trees; and as every garden has its flower plots,
you must have them of course ; but it is good to
imitate a good design only when imitation is pur-
posed in the execution also. It is the universality
of the former, and the rarity of the latter, that causes
so many failures, both as to the comforts and the
fruits of a garden. That man might 'claim the praise
of wisdom, who, having no love to garden work, and
caring nothing for flower, or fruit, or other vegetables
than the fields produce, would feed sheep upon his
half acre, and save fifty shillings per annum, instead
of adopting the imitation plan only in part ; and
having, at no little expense, the shadow of all things,
but the substance of none.

These being the evils of the case, this little volume
is proposed for their remedy; and the better it will
prove remedial that it is small. You will escape,
in the first instance, the great evil of a great book.
There is often a monstrous affectation about science,

THE MANSE GARDEN. 45

that swells its details to the consumption of far more
time than would be necessary, without its aid, for
the discovery of all that it contains ; and, besides, a
book on the subject before us is sure to contain a
great many things of which we have no manner of use.

If I want to know what sort of peas I should pur-
chase for seed, I meet a list so long that I am per-
plexed, like a shopping damsel amidst an ocean of
calicoes ; and how should I get out of the labyrinth,
if indeed I should venture in, to choose an apple out
of three hundred varieties? My life is not long
enough to try so many apples or to eat so many
peas. Besides, although I have no hot-houses and
no conservatory? I cannot learn how to sow carrots
without encountering a dissertation on the bleeding
of vines, or the temperature fit for exotics. I am,
moreover, three hundred feet above the level of the
sea, and farther from the tropic than I could wish ;
and when I proceed with directions for the month
suited to Covent Garden, if not to the climate of
Italy, I find, for the time being, nothing but ice
and snow, and might as well dig a Roman causeway,
or sow the top of Mount Blanc.

And then some of the finer fancy pieces of work,
such as budding or grafting, which in their nature
are very captivating, and as simple as splicing a rope,
cannot appear in a book of science, without a por-
tentous minutise about saddles and scions, that deter
from all attempts, and make it appear that nothing
short of a regular apprenticeship can qualify for the
mystery. Kind reader, I mean to deliver thee from
the killing toil of ponderosity, and from the awe of
mystery — from the perplexity of needless varieties,

46 THE MANSE GARDEN.

and from prescriptions for which you have no use, or
which, being worse than useless, prove false, by
having no adaptation to your climate. It is simply
the purpose of this little manual, to suit the medium
climate of North Britain, including a goodly portion
of the south ; to consult the economy of ministers ; to
make every manse garden a model of neatness and
fertility ; to give shelter and seclusion to the medi-
tative walk of the pastor, and plenty of pot-herbs,
fruits, and flowers, to his tasteful and thrifty wife.
But the secret must be out, that to these ends it is
nearly indispensable that the minister should be his
own gardener, wholly as to knowledge, and partially
as to work.

Now the book will not do without the bite ; but how
to get at hand or heel to infuse a little of the mania, is
the ticklish question. In order that you may let me
come at all near you, it is probable that you should
like first to be informed as to the nature of the bite,
the intensity of the virus, and its effects on the sys-
tem. It would be unreasonable not to satisfy an in-
quiry so natural in the circumstances of the case ;
and I can assure you that you need be under no
serious apprehensions. You may experience a little
uneasiness at the first, from a powerful excitement of
the nervous system; but the uneasiness is occasioned
rather by the novelty of the movement from a state
of comparative rest than from the motion itself. In
this respect it resembles the law of projectiles. There
is first a considerable disturbance produced amongst
the sleeping particles in overcoming their vis-inertias;
but when once impelled, they find the motion so
agreeable, that were it not for obstacles they would

THE MANSE GARDEN. 47

never cease to move. This effect of the bite does
not disappear till the decline of life — not that the
mental and nervous energy are then expended, but
a more quiescent state is superinduced in accommo-
dation to the weakness of the bones and muscles.
From all the cases, however, that have come under
my observation, I can truly say that this decline has
been put off to a far greater distance from those who
have submitted to the bite, and the increased activity
which it .communicates, than from such as, preferring
a mere torpid state of existence, have treated their
nervous system with punch and pipes and morning
slumbers and strong tea. I am not philosopher
enough to tell why a machine, that has so many
joinings, levers, pulleys, and pivots, should last longer
by constant and even rapid motion than by lying a
good deal idle — unless it be that rust consumes faster
than labour wears ; but, like other venders of speci-
fics, I rest chiefly on the facts of the case, and to
these I can confidently refer.

I have further observed, as to the effect of the
infusion by the bite, that it stimulates the brain
gently, increases the circulation, and determines to
the surface — that it gives to the head a great turn
for quick inventions, and fills the heart with kindly
feelings. In short, I have never discovered any thing
of a rabid tendency in its effects on those who have
been 'bit except a strong propensity to bite others.
And as to its operation on your taste and pursuits,
it will inspire a love of your garden, and as strong
an antipathy to that of the sluggard as another sort
of bite gives to the sight of water. But neither will
it infect you with a flower mania, and set you to the

48 THE MANSE GARDEN.

useless counting of petals, prosing about anthers, and
dosing away your time amongst poppy heads. You
will prefer a goodly laurel, placed with good effect ;
and having this noble advantage, that whilst it is fair
to view, there is no further trouble in all time coming
with the goodly breadth of ground which it covers.
Beneath the shady brow of your laurel you will set
the bright eye of a flower and rather have a few o'f
Flora's bounteous smiles than wait on all her little
caprices and humours. You have other work in hand,
and will not despise the rearing of a cabbage as large
as the church bell, or of baking apples as thickly
grouped as a string of onions. You will deal in the
substantial as well as the pretty ; and, insisting upon
order, the chief ingredient of beauty, you will not
tolerate weeds, rubbish, broken branches, and scarcely
a blank in your drills of any crop.

Thus have I set down, bona fide, all that I have
observed as to the effects of the bite; and I sincerely
hope that your first reluctance will be overcome, by
the assurance that the gentle infusion will prove in
many ways beneficial. But it will require a little aid.
When Socrates had meekly swallowed the hemlock,
juice, he asked his physician what he should do to
assist its operation, in order, no doubt, that he might
be not half killed, but duly and rightly affected accord-
ing to the design of the drug: and as most medicines
require some vehicle and coadjutor — supposing that
you have imbibed my infusion, which, I am aware,
is rather inefficient by itself — I recommend the fol-
lowing prescription, which will in all probability in-
sure its success: — Read "Thomson's Spring" for
what the garden now is ; and " Milton's First Days

THE MANSE GARDEN. 49

of Adam and Eve" for what it was. The former
will induce you to realize by sight what the poet has
so beautifully figured upon your imagination; and
the latter, when you are charmed with the first simple
delights of man in watching the progress of flower
and tree, will remind you that human imagination
cannot go further in the conception of earthly felicity
than the Creator did, when he put the best of his
creatures (two, they were not one) into a garden to
keep and dress it. I pity thee, O brother, if thou,
being alone, art incapable of receiving this part of
my prescription ! There is nothing that bears any
resemblance to paradise for thee. There is no beauty
in the rose, or the ripe cherry, except you have more
eyes and more lips than your own. But there is
more of the prescription, arid perhaps more suited to
your case.

Independently of the pleasure, let the use of your
garden be considered — the use, I mean not for your
living but for your life. Your mode of life is se-
dentary;— you walk abroad, it is true; — but if you
happen to see your face reflected from the deep black
pool, as you wander by the river side, you will dis-
cover that the last theme of your studies has left its
print still upon your brow, and you will infer from
that index, that the solitary walk, which has set the
limbs in motion, has produced no change of action in
the brain, the heart, the liver, or other organs which
are strongly affected by the exercise of the thinking
faculties. But besides the walk taken purely for
health, you have many out-of-door duties, to the
performance of which you must travel no small dis-
tance; and hence you are apt to imagine that the
c

50 THE MANSE GARDEN.

inconveniency of a too sedentary mode of life will be
sufficiently counteracted. A little attention, how-
ever, to the principles of physiology might correct
this mistake. These duties discharged amongst the
distant members of your flock are all of a solemn
kind, and many of them deeply affecting — keeping
the mind as intent as in the study, causing the heart
and throat to swell and tears to flow, and keeping in
quick vibration all those untraceable cords that serve
for a correspondence between the mind and the re-
motest material parts of our system. This mode of
overworking and wearing by only one sort of appli-
cation, which is inconsistent with the health of our
frame, as it is inconsistent with man's nature, soon
destroys either the mind or the body; and indiges-
tion, or bilious disorder, is frequently the first inti-
mation that violence has been done to the laws of
our constitution.

The great prevalence of this Protean malady
amongst my clerical brethren might be attested by
the illustrious practice of the late Dr. Gregory, or
that of his successor, Dr. T., the hope of such des-
pondents. With great love to my brethren, and
perfect belief of a theory, agreeing with nature's de-
signs, and verified by facts, I recommend the work
of the garden, which effectually sets the mind upon
a new train of ideas, whilst it gives salutary play to
all the bodily functions. The long continued same-
ness of intellectual exertion, whilst health remains,
too nearly resembles that lamentable state of mind,
in which only one idea can be entertained, to be
judged either accordant to the indications of nature
or beneficial to humanity. Do you plead that you

THE MANSE GARDEN. 51

have in hand too serious and important labours for
admitting of any diversion by things trivial and
temporary — your pleading is met by the analogy of
material things : the ground will not bear the same
kind of produce for any length of time, and art,
having made the discovery, adopts a succession of
crops. The natural forest is never succeeded by
trees of the same species, showing, where no art is
used, that nature will not give birth to a progeny for
which she does not provide the resources of strength.
You propose, by a contrary course, to yield always
the same sort of fruit ; and the consequence will be,
that, wearing out yourself, your productions will in
a short time become sickly and weak, and, should
you not discover their deteriorated quality, you will
soon lose the gratification of doing what you esteem
your first duty, by losing the power of doing any
thing whatever. You will become bilious ; and
then farewell to study and ah1 its charms — to walks,
and the music of the brook, where you pondered the
same theme — to duty and all its rewards — to every
thing that sooths or delights, — the face of friend,
the look of love, the soft cheek and guileless tongue
of babes — farewell to all, but horrid apathy, and
pitchy gloom, and long night watching, or the dream
in which you know not whether you are man or
beast, wood or stone.

If in such a condition to find deliverance you would
submit to any terras, think it not hard to adopt those
which, as they are easy, are able also to save from
such a calamity. Have first a sense of the might
and steadfastness of those laws which belong to your
constitution, and which the almighty Founder of

52 THE MANSE GARDEN.

them never suffers to be broken with impunity. It
is no matter on what pretence or from what cause
the violation is made ; ill health, disease, or death,
will be the consequence. Piety seeks seclusion, and
thinks it does well; but the mind becomes vapid,
the frame nervous, the imagination gloomy, and the
loved seclusion is soon completed in the grave. Igno-
rance fares no better : in the merry dance, a draught
of cold water is surely a harmless luxury, being the
ready cure of burning heat ; but the cure is followed
by inflammation and sudden death. The most help-
less innocence fares no better : the lovely child, in his
playful way, drinks the wrong vial, and quickly dies.

Why is this life, the dawn of an immortal existence,
the all that we have in this world, and chiefly given
as a preparation for eternity, so badly guarded from
a thousand causes of destruction, by the non-obser-
vance of those laws which are ordained for its advan-
tage, but of which the violation is fatal ? Why does
the knowledge of those laws not form a part in the
elementary process of every school and seminary of
learning? why should not ministers contribute to a
boon so essential to the designs of their calling, and
the welfare of all men ? and why should they, in all
other respects so learned, disregard this branch of
knowledge, the most momentous of all, because that
on which their life, their usefulness in time, and their
fitness for eternity, depend?

Let the subject be viewed according to these tre-
mendous realities, and you will subscribe to tlie ne-
cessity of diversifying your pursuits — of having for
bodily exercise such an object as may withdraw the
attention from graver studies, and hold you in suffi-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 53

cient occupation, whilst it keeps you a good portion
of every dry day out of doors. Your profession is
of a nature that cannot maintain a healthful subsist-
ence without having the body kept in motion from
two to four hours a-day — and all that time bathed in
the free,^open air of heaven ; and neither will your
mind work to good purpose on serious subjects with-
out frequent recourse to such as are light and recre-
ating. Languor, debility, and a quick decay of the
digestive organs, are inevitably superinduced by a
contrary treatment ; and whoever, on the appearance
of such symptoms, has recourse to other stimulants
than those of air and exercise, in order to help on
the flagging powers of vitality, sows that moment
the seeds of some mortal disease, under the suffering
of which he cannot say that he -is guiltless of his
own blood.

Such unnatural stimulus is to the body what en-
thusiasm in religion is to the mind; and thay who,
forsaking the salutary use of the divine Word, can
be pleased only with fanatical excitement, must soon
fall from their giddy height, and have themselves to
blame for all the melancholy and moping idiocy which
consequently ensue. Every artificial stimulus, whe-
ther in mind or body, is followed by a periodical
Jowness, causing, in spiritual things, the gloom of
despair, and in bodily, a wretchedness which can
find no relief but by the exciting drug, which, on
every fresh application, adds fuel to the flame it has
already kindled. There is no misery like this — to
be a self-destroyer, and yet to shrink from the ap-
proaching catastrophe ; and the more, it is feared, to
hasten it the more. And this is a state of being

54 THE MANSE GARDEN.

into which many are as unwittingly drawn as a ship
when it first touches the noiseless edge of a vortex.
On the decay of the digestive powers, through the
want of proper exercise, it seems reasonable and
harmless to call in the aid of a dram ; but the law is
violated by that decision, and all future miseries are
but the result and the punishment of that first viola-
tion. Let it be a fixed thing that temperance, air,
exercise, with diversity of attention, are essential to
a healthful and useful existence. The law holds on
its even tenor, regular as the sun, and steadfast as
the mind of the Eternal. Conformity or suffering
is the only alternative : let the character of the trans-
gressor be in other respects good or bad, the punish-
ment is equally sure. God doth not suffer his law
to be changed : 'he changes the countenance of the
violator, and sendeth him away.

To render your observance of the above law both
cheerful and constant, nothing can be more effica-
cious than to betake yourself to the study and labour
of your garden. In summer or in winter you will
always find there something to do, and something
that will give pleasure when it is done. Your re-
quired exercise never wants an object ; one, too, that
sufficiently draws off attention from more serious
things, and has that peculiar interest which arises
from a work that is progressive. Whilst the mind
is refreshed by a continual variety, the exercise to
which the body is called, has not only the advantage
of being in the open air, but of accommodating itself,
by various degrees of activity, to every change of
temperature. In the training of trees, the mind is
agreeably occupied, whilst the free air and moderate

THE MANSE GARDEN. 55

exertion are admirably calculated for relieving, in the
early part of the week, the languor and debility inci-
dent to the labours of the pulpit. When the air is
colder, and the frame more energetic, the saw and
the pruning knife, the one toilsome and the other
easy, are excellent companions; and the spade, in one
half hour, will bring on a summer glow in the coldest
days of winter. Here, then, you have a kind of
exercise, suited to all circumstances, ever at hand,
and the motive to which is ever new, and strength-
ened by the love of progress, and the grateful survey
of the work you have accomplished. A mere walk,
compared with this, is like the amusement which
children take in writing their names on the sand of
the seashore ; you derive advantage from the motion
as you pass along, but you leave no abiding trace on
the path that you have trode.

It is more important to observe, that whilst the
mind is invigorated by diversity of pursuit, there is
this further benefit, that the reciprocity of mental
and manual exertion creates for each an increase of
relish and aptitude : the garden recreation quickens
the appetite for study, and the quiescent posture of
study renews the desire of garden activity. Who-
ever has maintained, for a sufficient length of time, a
regular system of employment, in which bodily and
mental application are upheld in due proportion, will
be surprised by the spontaneous appearance of those
energies which hitherto lay dormant in his frame;
nor is this the discovery of a fact merely — it is a
source of delight; for the healthful play of either
muscular or mental power is as certainly a pleasure
to the humane creature, as skipping to the lamb, or

56 THE MANSE GARDEN.

singing to the bird. A man used to this renovating
process cannot become sluggish, and is a stranger to
the sloth that eats into the bone. He keeps disease
at a distance ; and duties, which to the sluggard are
a load, are light and easy to him. Whatever he has
in hand he has also in heart : his movements are
impetuous ; so that it is dangerous, from the velocity
with which he is carried, to meet him at the turn of
a corner; and when the bodily energies are for a
time suspended, but not exhausted, and there is a
return to study, he enjoys, in the exercise of the
thinking faculties, an actual revelry in the flowing of
thoughts, which amount to more, in a brief space,
than the most laborious efforts could produce, by the
longest application, in a more languid state of the
system.

To possess this efficiency and promote its continu-
ance, it is necessary not only to alternate, as above
stated, the muscular and the mental activity, which
by a mutual reaction improve each other, but it is
necessary alike for both to avoid either lassitude or
too long rest. Do not continue in study till mental
application be overstretched, or till the circulation of
the material fluids has become clogged and stagnant ;
and do not labour with hands or feet till weariness
come upon the body, whilst the mind has been too
long inactive. The moment that the thinking powers
begin to flag, hasten to your garden ; and as soon as
weariness affects the body, return to your books.
Let rest and fatigue be your tropics, and you will
travel with unabated vigour over the undulating line
of your ecliptic. But let quiescence be too long-
indulged, or lassitude too long sustained, and the

THE MANSE GARDEN. 57

consequence will be a long unfitness for any achieve-
ment ; the one state terminates in leaden slumbers — •
the other in faintness; the one makes exertion seem
appalling — the other makes it really impossible.

Thus ought we to observe those constitutional
laws which so deeply affect our happiness ; and I am
greatly confident that experience will, in every case,
confirm all that has now been advanced as to health
and the efficiency of labour ; and the indisputable
conclusion I trust will be allowed, that your work in
the Lord's vineyard will thrive the better that you
work in your own.

Suppose, then, that on stepping into your garden
you observe a fine fruit branch loosened from the
wall. It is covered with blossom or heavy with
fruit ; and the wind bends it over, and bears it
against the remaining point of its attachment. It
endures many a harsh gust, and seems in pain to be
delivered from its peril. You look on, and would
fain relieve it, as you would a child that is drowning.
But you have no mechanical turn, and, in furnishing
your house, never thought of buying a hammer.
Snap goes the branch, making a very unseemly frac-
ture, peeling a good bit of the yet fastened wood, and
hanging forth to the withering sun the shriveled
fruit and seared leaf, to the reproach of useless hands,
if not a relentless heart. As it is no doubt painful
to behold the labour of the long year perish, it were
as certainly a pleasure, by timeous interference, to
prevent the catastrophe.

The mechanical turn is not like the gift of the
poet ; though not born it may be bought, and that
for a few shillings — the price of a hammer and a
c2

58 THE MANSE GARDEN.

parcel of nails. Love to the work is all that is
wanted : get the liking and the turn will come of
course. The work too will certainly prosper and
please every eye : the lines that you write upon the
wall will be full of flowers and sweetness, vastly
popular, and condemned by no critic. Thrice happy
state to do according to your liking, and what you
like to do so well that none may grumble ! and I
cannot but wish, for the sake of certain brothers, that
they would contract the above predilection with its
consequent art, were it only to keep them from the
liking of that for which they have really no turn.
What boon to set them to the inscription of rich
and beautiful lines of fruit upon their garden walls,
instead of lines of fruitless trash upon waste paper —
to take them from the smoky midnight lamp, by
which they vainly court Apollo, and place them in
the literal light of the sun — to give them free move-
ment of every limb, and a happy face, open and joyous
amidst the blossoming tree, and the bees singing at
their own work beside them; instead of the knit brow
and hard sitting at the loom, weaving a bad web for
which there is no market, and grinning over broken
threads, and ends of threads, which will not meet.
Dare rather to be successfully wise. You are satis-
fied that there needs no mechanical turn to fasten a
branch as it was ; and as to all other directions for
the training of trees you shall quickly see them com-
prised in a very narrow compass.

For apples and pears, set one shoot in the centre
of the tree, straight up; and on each side, lay one
horizontal, nine inches from the ground, or the same
distance from the branches underneath, cutting oft'

THE MANSE GARDEN. 59

all the rest. This is nearly the whole work for the
year as far as these kinds of fruit are concerned.
To have wood where you want it, for the like opera-
tion of the following year, cut over the vertical shoot
in spring, at the height of eight or nine inches from
the lateral branches already laid in, taking care to cut
immediately over a bud and not to injure it. That
bud will grow up for your next upright shoot; and
in consequence of the amputation you will in general
be sure of a choice for laying horizontally. There
is the whole mystery; and yet how often do you see
large pieces of valuable wall quite naked, and the
branches at other places so crowded as not to allow
the flower buds to ripen, or the fruit to acquire its
proper size and flavour ; and whilst it is vexing thus
to have the end so frustrated, there is this additional
aggravation, that a tree ill conducted in the hori-
zontal mode of training does not easily admit of any
future reformation. But it is certainly easy not to
lay the branches too thick; and to avoid blanks, it
is only necessary further to observe, that as you may
not in some cases have the requisite trio of shoots in
the middle of the tree, a supply for the deficiency
may be found by reserving the most convenient of
the superfluous shoots growing from the next lateral
branch, to be carried first upright to the required
height, and then set off on its proper destination.
The fractures that often take place in laying the
young wood in its proper position, when the shoots
have gained too much strength and hardness, will
soon teach the inexperienced practitioner the advan-
tage of bending trees at a more tender age.

And as to the fit time of summer pruning, there

60 THE MANSft : GARDEN.

is this difficulty, that if too late, the tree loses the
benefit of sun and air ; and if too early, you have an
aftergrowth, which, not being intended, proves a want
of skill, and is considerably detrimental. This evil
thing too will show itself even when you have made
the best choice of season, owing to an unusual warmth
and wetness towards the end of autumn. But to
avoid the difficulty of a nice distinction as to season
which after all may not serve ; and to accomplish the
first intention of giving free air to the fruit as well as
to guard surely against the trouble of aftergrowth,
the following compromise will in all cases be success-
ful. Towards the end of July, take a large sharp
knife, and reserving only the few twigs that are to
be nailed to the wall, go over all your trees of the
kind in question, and, by one half hour's indiscrimi-
nate slashing, clear off all the encumbrance of breast-
wood, that is, of young shoots growing straight for-
ward, taking care only to leave about a handbreadth
of stubble, or in other words to cut the scions at such
distance from the stem. From the higher ends of
these stumps, young shoots will very likely arise;
but no matter, your work is not finished, their ap-
pearance is at a place where they do no harm, and
you settle accounts with them by the proper pruning
at the end of the year. For this proper pruning you
must distinguish leaf from flower buds, and bearing
spurs from ligneous shoots, which may be done by
looking at the tree better than by a page of writ.
When you have enough of flower buds or spurs
(little shoots of two inches, with a large head, and
not like the rest) say at every half foot or less, make
a clean cut in taking of the woodshoots close by the

THE MANSE GARDEN. () I

root, so that the bark may grow over the wound ;
but when there is a scarcity of the former, leave a
quarter of an inch, which in many cases will become
the nucleus of a cluster of flower buds, and show, by
an equal distribution of fruit over your tree, the value
of a little attention to the modes of nature.

Cherries may be considered next in order, because
they admit of the same method of training; though,
in regard to some sorts, that training which is aptly
compared to a fan ought to be preferred. In the
horizontal mode the space betwixt the branches is the
first consideration ; and this will best be determined
by allowing for that distance rather more than the
length of the pendulous leaves. If you see a branch
completely buried under the foliage of one that is
higher, in which case it will not bear fruit, you will
do well either to cut it out, or to unnail all the tree
and give every branch more room. The black or
the white heart, I do not recollect which, (but look
to the leaf) will require nearly as much width as the
apple or pear. As for the morella, those may plant
it who are fearless of acid, and have nothing to do
with their time ; as it is sourer than vinegar, and, to
be duly trained, it requires the wall to be bristled
with nails. Having an incurable ascescency, like ill
doers, it gets the worst place — usually a north wall ;

but I have been told that it is somewhat mitigated

o

by having the best of the sun. And I doubt not it
may, just as republicans are sweetened by a place
near the throne ; but why to mend the bad exclude
the good, and suffer loss by doing injustice ? The
excellent may-duke cherry will have abundantly fruit-
ful branches, though only four inches apart; and as it

62 THE MANSE GARDEN.

is more given to bearing than idle growth, it ought to
have the fan form, by which, as the radii widen, you
have room to lay in the side shoots. And even the
breastwood (that which grows right forward) is not
to be lost ; for if, instead of cutting it entirely off,
you leave nearly a handbreath, the stump or snag will
carry a large bunch of rich dark fruit enough to fill
both mouth and hands. The black geen may be
treated in the same way ; and is well worthy of a place
on the wall, though not of the best exposure.

With regard to apricots, peaches, and plums, the
training is the easiest thing in the world ; and if the
work be as pleasant to you as I could wish it, you
will find an entertainment of some duration, and of
frequent repetition in this department of your wall.
They are free growers, and afford plenty of wood for
laying in. The most important rule concerning this
class is to look to the space which you design the tree
to occupy, whether thirty or forty feet in the length
of your wall ; and to set off the branches fan-like in
such a way as to reach the several parts of the ulti-
mate boundary in straight lines. By this you will
avoid an awkwardness that is often to be met with,
in having the branches first more vertical and then
more inclined to the horizontal, resembling the figure
of a cup or tulip. I do not object to the prettiness
of this ; but it is an arrangement that embarrasses the
subsequent operations of training. It is important
to put the strongest shoots always the lowest that
may consist with the above plan, as the main strength
of growth takes always the direction of the more ver-
tical shoots. The young wood must be laid in from
time to time, as early as it will admit of that opera-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 63

tion, in order to have the full benefit of the season
for ripening, and for the same reason the superfluous
shoots must be cleared away. All that is not duly
ripened, especially of the peach, is killed with the
winter frosts, and must be cut clown to the nearest
fresh buds in the spring. Avoid crowding and have
no blanks. The small shoots may in general be two
inches apart ; and twice as much would be an unne-
cessary freedom. The reason of this closeness is the
constant succession of young wood that must be kept
up ; some always coming forward to take the place
of older and thicker branches that must be removed.
Some little variations in the contiguity of the shoots
must be admitted according to the size of the leaf,
the fruit, and the nature of the wood as to bearing.
But whoever proceeds according to the above direc-
tion will not go far wrong, and will acquire by a little
practice an exactness which no ordinary patience
would serve for writing, and far less for reading.

Nothing more should be wanted for your entire
success, did you enter to the possession of your gar-
den as of your house with walls unfurnished, and
had all to do after your own taste and fashion; but
the probability is that you succeed to a garden not
without trees, and that most of them will be found
in no small disorder. When your predecessor was
about to leave the world, he either had the fruits of
the upper paradise in view, and cared less for the
lower; or being unfit, through age or lingering dis-
ease, for the oversight of his affairs, the stewardship
devolved upon his wife; and what heart to the garden
could she find amidst flowers that seemed the ghosts
of bygone summers, and fruits that had a savour of

64. THE MANSE GARDEN.

widowhood ? Children half reared, the means reduced,
the widow's loneliness, and the flitting, were $ares
that could not well accord with the training of trees.
Be not rash to blame, but think of the next flitting,
and let the unknown term lead the heart to higher
things, whilst the hand proceeds to the recovery of
your trees from the effects of mismanagement or of
long neglect.

It will probably be found that your espaliers, now
become standards, have grown so high as to cast
your sunny wall into the shade, whilst the wall-trees
themselves have run as wild as willows by the stream.
For such inveterate rebellion of either province, there
can be no remedy without some death ; but proceed
with mercy to the flexible, and use policy to reduce
the obstinate. A venerable pear must not be cut
down, for it will be a long time before those of your
own planting will yield much fruit ; and an old tree,
however lost by neglect or bad training, may be
wonderfully reclaimed. Leaving the espaliers to be
afterwards called to account, we suppose, in the case
of an aged pear upon your wall, that its branches
have got as thick as your arm, and bear only at the
farther extremities — all the spurs near the centre
being quite effete, and nine tenths of the tree nearly
fruitless ; yet, by the following method, may such a
tree, in the course of two years, become the wealth
and ornament of your garden. By means of a large
chisel and mallet, let every alternate branch be taken
out, with a clean cut, close by the main stem ; and,
with the same implements, smooth off all the fruitless
spurs of the remaining branches near the middle of
the tree. Several young shoots will spring where

THE MANSE GARDEN. 65

the alternate branches have been amputated. Of
thesef let one be laid to the wall, to run along the
site of the former branch; and let another be trained
along the front of the remaining branch, not scrup-
ling to nail it to the wood, smoothed of its spurs, in
the same manner as the other is nailed to the wall.
In this way proceed to fill all the vacant spaces, and
to furnish the naked front of every old limb of the
tree. In the first year, supposing your wall to be
three yards in height, you will have, perhaps, six
square yards covered with young wood, and ready for
full bearing in the second year; and that, too, in a
quarter where no fruit had appeared for a long period
before. But this is not the only region where you
may have the benefit of young wood, and consequently
of juicy well grown pears. For, on the first year's
growth after the operation, if, instead of clearing away
all the breastwood from the whole length of the old
remaining branches, you select and lay to the wall as
many scions as are needful for an interim supply —
say one to every foot, and placed as in fan-training
— they also will commence bearing, and serve for a
time, whilst the shoots first mentioned, and which
are designed to be permanent, are proceeding to fulfill
their destination ; and whilst they so proceed, those
adopted for an interim supply are gradually to give
way. In like manner, those running along the front
of the old branches must have a path cleared for them
by knocking off more of the knotty spurs as the
young wood advances; and in this way you lose no
chance of fruit on the old wood, except where you
have gained a far better by substituting the new.
Thus, whilst the fruit-bearing is maintained at the

66 THE MANSE GARDEN.

farthest extremity of the branches, as before the
operation, you have fruit of the like quality all over
the surface : and at the same time your plan is still
advancing towards the entire renovation of your tree.
For supposing that, in the course of five or six years,
the shoots which you have trained on the face of the
old branches have gained a sufficient length, you
have only to lift them carefully from their site, till
the old branches are removed, and then promote
them to their proper station upon the wall. Those
which occupied the intervening spaces will be equally
advanced, and of course the tree will be wholly reno-
vated. I have seen other shifts for old trees, but
none which provides, as this does, both for the con-
tinuance of a crop, and the entire replacing of the
old wood with new; and that which in description
is so obviously feasible has been proved by experiment
to be wholly successful.

The same may be done with an apple of a good
sort, and without any symptoms of canker. If the
wood be healthy, and the fruit of an indifferent sort,
the process may be altogether the same, except that
grafts should be made on all the shoots which are
designed to be permanent — allowing the breastwood,
which is laid in for temporary use, to bear after its
own kind. But when canker appears on the old wood,
it is probable also that it will soon affect the new,
though grafted ; and, in that case, it will be better
to plant young trees, at a proper distance, one on
each side of the old, taking such fruit as the old will
supply, till the young get forward, and removing
only such branches as come in the way.

With regard to the recovery of other misguided

THE MANSE GARDEN. 67

trees, the cherry, if not very old, may be cut over
with a circular sweep, about two feet from the ground ;
and the consequent shoots set all off in the manner
of wheel spokes — even bending some of them down-
wards, so as to hide the deformity of the naked
stumps, and making them fast by tying, not by nails
driven into the old wood, as in the case of the apple or
pear. The peach, in its age and disorder, had better
be replaced by a young tree. But with regard to
apricots and plums, in the like circumstances, a very
gratifying arrangement may be adopted — one by
which the tree will no longer be ill looking, but soon
clothed with abundant blossom and fruit. This af-
fords a pleasure of that kind which we have in the
reformation of a prodigal; and in which case, as in
the former, some of the complacency is perhaps due
to the patience and methods we have employed, con-
trary to the opinion of others who judged the recovery
hopeless.

Choose some fine winter day, and begin your
operations by wrenching the ragged hedge-like tree
entirely from the wall. Cut out a number of its
oldest and barest boughs, with a view to acquire a
plentiful supply of young wood near the heart of the
tree; prune all the remaining branches quite smooth,
about half way to the top, and then restore them to
the wall, by an equal distribution in the form of a
fan ; but let the bared portion of each branch be held
out from the wall, about four inches, by pieces of
wood set behind. Near the extremity of these
branches will be found, by the favour of former ne-
gligence, an abundance of young shoots, some of one
and some of two years' growth. Let all these be

68 THE MANSE GARDEN.

laid down in close order, like a circle of rays, which
in summer they will still more resemble by the
brightness of their blossom. Within this luminous
ring you will have another circle, yet in embryo,
composed of the young shoots proceeding from the
old stem, and for whose expansion you have provided,
by keeping the naked part of the old branches at a
proper distance from the wall. This inner circle will
also abound in fruit, as close and beautiful as the
stars of a peacock's feathers, and will quickly enlarge
its dimensions, approaching nearer to the exterior
ring. When the younger rival comes quite up to
the older, then, agreeably to the laws of nature, the
beauty of the mother must fade, as that of the
daughter is unfolded. On the first conjunction your
tree is complete, and all in full bearing ; and this com-
pleteness will be maintained by gradually diminishing
the outer ring as the interior disk is enlarged. For
the success of this shift also, I can refer to the test
of experiment; and may be allowed to notice again
the advantage of a principle by which, without losing
one year's crop, an old and almost barren tree is
submitted to a process of entire renovation, having
not only young wood in every part, but studded all
over with golden apricots or green-gage plums.

In the wall department of your garden, I have
placed pruning before planting — an arrangement
which, though not very accordant with the order of
time, is most likely to answer your business as to
the order of importance ; because, for one in your
circumstances who is called to the first operations of
planting on new ground, there are ten who enter to
a garden already in some sort furnished ; and that,

THE MANSE GARDEN. 69

too, with trees most frequently in such condition as
above described. And as the chief thing is to bring
your own skill, and occasionally your own hand, into
requisition, the above methods of reforming bad trees
are the most likely to promote that end ; and if that
end be once gained, all the rest will follow of course;
for there is something so attractive in horticultural
occupations, that we never find them abandoned by
those who have once engaged in them; and to effect
that first engagement, we can figure nothing that
will present so strong a motive as an obvious, and
quick, and certain process of establishing beauty and
fruitfulness in the room of confusion and sterility.
Nor is it to be expected that you shall have the
satisfaction of beholding such a process, if your de-
pendence be not on your own resources, but on the
common routine methods of your professional man ;
it being far more probable, in these circumstances,
that you will first endure, for some seasons, the ugli-
ness of ill grown, useless trees, and then, after sus-
taining as much disgust as serves to fix the resolu-
tion, root them out, to place more hope on the young
of your own planting; from which, however, you will
gather very little bulk of fruit for ten years.

But we now proceed on the supposition that you
have new ground, and a new wall to furnish ; and
here it is almost certain, unless you have bestowed
more attention than is usually given to the works of
others in which you have no personal interest, that,
on proceeding to plant, you will find yourself in
doubt as to many things ; and that, long after the
work is done, you will either suffer regret on account
of the place chosen for certain fruits, or, in order to

70 THE MANSE GARDEN.

9

get rid of your vexation, you will shift the site of
your trees, and occasion no small loss both to your-
self and them. Wherefore, the following observa-
tions are humbly submitted to your attention, that
you may profit by the writer's loss, or purchase at a
cheap rate the lessons he has learned.

The first thing is the soil; and you must either be
at the expense of making the soil fit for the tree that
you desire, or be content to want that tree for which
the soil has no fitness. It is a necessary principle
of all vegetable growth, that the expansion of roots,
including depth as well as breadth, must bear a due
proportion to that of the branches. If your wall is
only 6 feet high, your fruit border must be trenched
at least 2 feet deep; if 8, 2J feet; if 10, 3 feet.
If the subsoil be either pure gravel, or hard till, you
can have no satisfaction with less trenching ; but if
the subsoil be alluvial, or consist of the debris of a
hill side, showing good soil, though plentifully
mingled with large stones, the trees, with less of
your provision, will forage for themselves. But
early canker, and that even of the young shoots, will
certainly ensue wherever pure gravel or indurated
clay meets the feeding fibres within 18 inches of the
surface. If, then, you choose to content yourself
with such a depth, plant nothing but paradise stocks,
from which you may have good fruit for a few years ;
but rather take down your wall than show a summer
codling upon it — a sort of tree that will do well
enough in a common hedge. The most that can be
made of a low wall and slender depth of soil, is to
set the paradise stocks on the very surface, making
no pit in planting them, but merely throwing earth

THE MANSE GARDEN. 71

upon the roots. The pavement that we often hear
of for counteracting the descent of roots is nonsense,
or nearly so ; for if it be of sufficient breadth, it will
cost more than might serve to deepen the soil ; and
if it be of small dimensions, the roots will hasten to
the extremity, and then take their own way, going
straight down, with a greediness proportioned to the
period of their confinement. The causeway theorists
suppose that the progress of a tree is like that of
inert bodies, which continue their motion in the di-
rection that is given them ; whereas the living plant
has more alliance to the living animal, taking the
nearest road it can find to procure food and drink.
One would think that the error as to the supposed
obedience of the roots in their less visited territories
might have been corrected by a pretty fair analogy
taken from the nature of the branches, which are
well enough seen. After being tied down for any
length of time, or carried horizontally to any distance,
every espalier branch, as soon as it gains its liberty,
sets its head erect; and so every root held up by the
pavement will begin, the instant it passes the barrier,
to go down. Therefore trust more in shallow plant-
ing than in a few slate stones*; arid make provision
for replenishing your wall with new paradise stocks
when the old begin to fail, which, in the above cir-
cumstances, may be expected in the course of ten or
twelve years.

In a small bit of ground you may have a sufficient
supply ready grafted, arid a few years trained on small
stakes to that figure which they are afterwards to
maintain on the wall. The stocks cost nothing; and
if you apply your own hand to engrafting, you may

72 THE MANSE GARDEN.

have, at very little expense, and even on the thinnest
soil, a constant supply of fruit, and that of no inferior
quality. The paradise stocks not being seedlings,
but raised from layers, are remarkable both for avoid-
ing the thong-like tap-root, and for sending out a
great multitude of small fibres, which nourish the
tree, without traveling fast and far like those of the
free growing kinds. This accounts for their early
bearing, their short life, and their adaptation to a
low wall and a scanty allowance of good mould. In
other circumstances they ought to have no preference;
for at every replanting there is incurred a considerable
vacancy as to space, and consequently a loss both of
time and of fruit; whereas other trees set in good
soil will soon complete your design, and serve for the
period of your life, without leaving the bare face of
your wall to look idly at the sun.

In giving scope to the roots, the next thing to
depth of soil is the breadth of your wall- fruit bor-
der. The technical rule, that it must equal the
height of the wall, may readily be discarded. If
you have a good height, there is no need of objec-
tion ; but should your wall be only six feet, the
border will still be the earliest and most productive
portion of your garden ; but how little area for crop-
ping will the length give when multiplied by only
two yards in the breadth ! And, considering the
roots of the trees, how often do suckers appear on
the farther side of the gravel walk, showing how far
the tree goes in quest of food, and what bad fare it
meets with in passing through or under a mass of
stones, instead of more latitude of soil, enriched by
frequent manuring, and quickened by many upturn-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 73

ings to the frost and sunbeams ! Wherefore, on
more accounts than one, although stinted in your
allowance of wall, it will be wise to give a more
liberal breadth to your border. Should the former
be only six, let the latter be at least nine feet, and
there can be no harm in making it twelve. I am
aware that the look is something, and that your
greater distance from the wall adds to the meanness
of its height ; but a good crop of early cauliflower
and better fruits are of far more consequence, and of
such real beauty as to conquer the defect.

Next to the fitness of soil in the furnishing of
your wall, the choice and arrangement of trees are
to be considered. The depth, the extent, arid the
richness of your soil constitute your talents for valu-
able productions ; and that your wall, as a splendid
page, may display those talents, you have only to
observe the rule of good composition — " Apt trees
in apt places." If your elevation exceed that of 400
feet, unless the advantages of local shelter be very
great, plant no peach, neither attempt, although out
of sight, the best of its species, the Moorpark apricot.
It always argues a weakness to strive against nature,
and to spend, in badly executing what is above your
ability, those labours which, if laid out on things
within your reach, might be crowned with abundant
success. At a height of 300 feet, with ordinary
shelter, the Magdalene peach will ripen well in most
years, and the Moorpark apricot in favourable sea-
sons. Let this then be your border, observing that,
if 100 feet must be added to your elevation, such
addition may be compensated only by the utmost
advantages of encircling hills, woods, southern as-

74 THE MANSE GARDEN.

pect, and gravelly subsoil. If these trees, then, are
to have a place at all, they will of course claim the
best — not only the wall that sees most of the sun,
but such portion of it as falls not within the shade of
other walls.

The magnum plum, if you would have it eatable,
will come in for the next favourable exposure ; but
you need not allow it to ramble very far. It is a
good fruit when its great depth of pulp is well broiled
in the sun, but otherwise it is worse than the skin of
a melon ; and as we have too many dark summers, in
every one of which this tree is useless, it ought not,
seeing it must have the best aspect, to be allowed
much room.

The Ribston pippin and the jargonelle pear will
repay you both in quantity and quality for every hour
of more sun that you give them. If your situation
be near the level of the sea, the green-gage plum
will do as well on an east wall ; but any where about
the medium elevation it must come in for a view to
the south — and richly it deserves it. Should the
Moorpark apricot, according to the above notice, be
excluded, you may have a beautiful display of the
Royal George, or of Breda, which, though inferior in
flavour, are yet good fruits, and illustrious for pre-
serves. The Orleans plum, the green pear of Yair,
the nonpareil apple, and Thorle pippin, are all so much
the better of all the sun they can get at a medium
elevation that you may admit them to your best wall
according as you have room.

The year 1826, the dryest and hottest we have
seen, proved, by the size and quality of various fruits,
that in high situations sun heat is the great want.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 75

Trees go well down for moisture, and do not suffer
for want of rain in the dryest season, as they do for
want of sunshine in ordinary seasons. And as min-
isters may not have so much in their power as to the
mode of laying out their gardens, it may not be amiss
to suggest to proprietors who do not incur the ex-
pense of hothouses, that the best way in which a
garden can be laid out in higher situations is to have
only one wall in all its length facing the south.
The expense of building is the same. The north
aspect is at all events useless : and though the east
and west walls may have fruit on both sides, yet the
two will not equal, taking quality together with
quantity, the production of half the space having an
aspect to the south. A ga-den of such a form might
be made more beautiful than any other : and it would
free its owner from the embarrassment which so fre-
quently occurs in settling what trees may be put off
with an inferior exposure; for in truth one and all
of them are valuable in the proportion of the sun-
light which they receive.

But supposing that you have now made choice of
as many as your best wall can accommodate, the
room to be given to each is an important considera-
tion, and not very often, as far as I have seen, con-
sidered wisely. A small bit of wall will yield a
shilling's worth of fruit in one year, and that is more
than the price of a good tree. The wall is the main
expense. Have it well filled up as soon as possible,
and have in view to keep it always full, removing
the whole or part of any tree that proves less valuable
than the one which it begins to incommode. You
may, according to this plan, allow one dwarf tree for

76 THE MANSE GARDEN.

every twenty feet in the length of the wall ; and let
the whole be interspersed with riders if your wall be
eight feet high or upwards. These last should all
be of kinds which bear almost immediately — as
cherries, plums, and various sorts of apples. The
dwarfs are trained close to the ground; the riders
are so called because they overtop their neighbours :
and the first design is to have them out when the
dwarfs make up to them. But it may happen that
you will be loath to part with one of these short-
leased tenants, especially if the neighbour that comes
to supplant him prove less deserving; in which case
the rider, with his long shank, may be trained in the
form of a windmill, pointing the vanes in all direc-
tions, or two branches may be led downwards, parallel
to the main stem ; and from these lateral shoots will
spring, which may serve to fill all the required space.
Of free growers, the wood bears most fruit when
submitted to such tortuous course.

With regard to the other walls, it may be proper
to have on certain portions of them, duplicates of
some of the trees which have been chosen for the
south exposure. This will be found convenient
chiefly in the case of such fruits as keep no time, but
must be eaten quite ripe from the tree — as cherries,
plums, and some pears. In the one situation the
crop will be finished when that on the other begins
to ripen ; and thus the season of fruit gathering is
agreeably prolonged. The red magnum ripens early,
and has no need of a better aspect than the east or
west. Observe the shelter as well as the sun. Per-
haps the one wall may have more of either than the
other ; and you have only to choose the position

THE MANSE GARDEN.

according to the quality of the fruit, for which choice
the observations already given may be sufficient — the
rest is merely filling up. And where this is the only
object, you may, for the sake of variety, and a little
economy of time in covering the wall, alternate the
horizontal with the fan-training. Apples and pears
should all be horizontal, in which mode of training
they assume the form of a pyramid ; and as all the
stone fruits should be fan-trained, the latter admit
of spreading for a time over the space that is vacant
towards the top of the pyramidal.

It is important to occupy one of the corners hav-
ing partly a south and partly an east or west exposure
exclusively with your cherries ; and to plant them,
both dwarfs and riders, so as to fill the wall at the
soonest. For no sooner will fruit appear than it
will be carried off by birds, unless protected by a net.
By having a double aspect, you prolong the fruit
season; and by having the trees of that species
brought together, one net will serve for all that you
require. — A most pestilent fellow, a moor blackbird,
without any coral on his bill, sooty, tuneless, and ill
shaped, has of late years, like the old invaders of
Italy, found the fruit of our gardens better than
that-of his native wilds ; and, having once tasted the
cherry, he cannot forget the flavour of it. He comes
a host exactly at the season of ripe fruit, and never
fails, with an angry chatter, when he is disturbed, to
intimate that you are as annoying to him as he is to
you. He is sure to have the advantage of you in
early rising, which both quickens his appetite and
affords him leisure for his morning meal. He is
besides less shy as to the quality of his food; for,

78 THE MANSE GARDEN.

whilst you are judging that your fruit has not quite
attained the mellowness that is wholesome for your
stomach, he is busy eating; and that he has no
complaint of acidity he proves by a readiness to fall
upon you/ plums when he has done with your cher-
ries. Thus, differing from you only a little as to the
nice point of perfect ripeness, he makes the round of
your several crops, and is about to conclude his har-
vest of each sort just when you had thoughts of
beginning yours. Finding my sooty foe too many
for me — that he was ready enough to quaff, in cherry
juice, " a good conclusion to the harvest," but never
once to think of the sentiment that " fair play is a
jewel," I thought of saluting him with a little sparrow
hail, — of which, on making the attempt, I observed
no further effect than the provoking of that peculiar
chatter by which he is wont to express his disappro-
bation as often as he is disturbed in his interesting
avocation. In this I felt some sympathy with my
antagonist, perceiving that he regarded the hail not
otherwise than I have done certain visitors who had as
little to say, although they did not fail to make havoc
of time and hinderance of important duty. He lost
no feathers, but merely an hour of harvest work :
and yet the loss was more apparent than real; for,
getting thereby a rest for rumination and whetting
of teeth, he resumed, as other martyrs to small hail
must do, his beloved task, and with redoubled quick-
ness soon made amends for all his loss. Doubting
whether my aim might not be too erring, I inquired
of an old man, who was known to the premises for
half a century, what in former times had been done
with an enemy so untractable and persevering. Upon

THE MANSE GARDEN. 79

which my old friend, with a shake of his grey locks,
which intimated that the case was a hopeless one,
said, " A dinna ken ; the doctor used to shoot them
whiles, but it never did them meikle guid."

Judging that, if no better for being shot, their
manners were not likely to amend by mere provoca-
tion, I determined to alter my mode of warfare; and
so, grubbing up my trees, I gathered them into one
place, that one mode of defence might serve for all,
and sent, by a herring cart, for a long web of decayed
net, which cost only ten shillings, and has lasted
nearly as many years. Thus, paying the enemy
the same kind of compliment that Agricola did the
aborigines of the north, I have found the defensive
system entirely successful.

When you have gathered your cherries at the full
maturity of their rich and dubious hue between red
and black, the same net may be transformed to your
plums. But whether the enemy takes himself off
on being foiled, or is compelled to raise the siege
for want of provision, or finds easier prey in other
fields, I have not been attentive to ascertain ; but
certain it is, that for the above small cost you may
be free from any material damage by this swarthy
and moorish race. As to the small matter of currants,
it remains to give elsewhere a method of having plenty
in spite of all that the birds can do.

A white rasp, or a red or white currant, may be
planted in the vacant spaces between your young
trees. As the fruit of these will be early, and of
superior quality, it is always something to add to the
benefit of your wall, and to give it a more clothed
appearance. But should you find pleasure in graft-

80 THE MANSE GARDEN.

ing, you may, at no expense, raise on these vacant
spaces a few young trees of superior value ; and by
allowing them two or three years' training before
removal becomes necessary, you either have an esti-
mable and long remembered present for a friend, or
you have a tree that may keep its place, in preference
to some one of inferior quality, and which has offended
you by not answering to the tally of your nurseryman.
And as this last is an inconvenience not unfrequent
it suggests the need of acquiring the easy and plea-
sant art of inserting a twig of a name and nature
certainly known. Should a summer codling set up
its face on your best wall, or a white hawthornden —
which had better be left to its early canker in the
orchard than in a place where every branch receives
pains and has a permanent destination to fulfill — it is
important either to have a well advanced tree ready
to supplant the interloper, or to have the art of lop-
ping off the unworthy branches, to be substituted by
new shoots of your own inserting, in such a way as
to incur the least loss pf time and to make sure of
the fruit which you wish to cultivate. A note to
this effect will be given in the sequel.

In the mean time, to finish our observations on
the wall department, the following list of trees may
be added for giving scope to make selection accord-
ing to your dimensions, and for preventing such
planters as may not know the quality by the mere
name of the tree from rearing on a wall such fruits
as are not worthy of that preferment.

THE MANSE GARDEN.

81

LIST OF TREES FOR THE WALL.

PEACHES.

Red Magdalene.
Royal George.

APRICOTS.

Early Orange : not best, but
least shy.

Breda: better, and fit for me-
dium elevation.

Moorpark : the best, but need
not be tried in high places.

APPLES.

Ribston Pippin.
Golden Pippin.
Nonpareil, Old.
Nonpareil, Scarlet.
Golden Rennette.
Corpendu.
Thorle Pippin.
Royal Pearmain.
Winter Pearmain.
Scarlet Pearmain.
Juneating : (very early).
Paradise Pippin..
Golden Russet.
Kentish Pippin.

PEARS.

Colmar.
Jargonelle.
Green Pear of Yair.
Summer Bergamot.
Autumn Bergamot.
Green Pinkie.
Swan's-egg.
Grey Auchan.
Moorfowl-egg.

PLUMS.

Green -gage.

Coe's Golden-drop.

Magnum-bonum, White.

Magnum-bonum, Red.

Blue-gage.

Orleans.

Orleans, New : earlier.

^-. CHERRIES.

May-duke.
Black-heart.
White-heart
Black-eagle.

ESPALIERS.

As taste ought always to be consulted in matters
of the garden, and as some object to espaliers alto-
gether, on account of their stiff and formal appear-
ance, it may be proper to say something for their

82 THE MANSE GARDEN.

admissibility before giving directions for their culture.
It will be found that much of the bad effect com-
plained of arises either from the undue height to
which they are carried, or a great degree of unneat-
ness in the mode of training. The straight lines in
which they are planted cannot surely be urged as a
valid objection, seeing that the espalier row has no
more fault in this respect than the wall to which it
is parallel, or the walk that lies between both ; and
if straight lines must be banished from the garden,
then peas must be sown broadcast, potatoes must not
be drilled, and we ourselves must walk crooked,
either in a stooping posture or in a serpentine direc-
tion, in order to please the eye. Let the height of
your rails, supposing your garden not to exceed the
usual dimensions, be no more than enough to accom-
modate five branches, trained horizontally, and nine
inches apart. Erect no heavy and green painted
woodwork, but rather let the trees themselves be the
prominent objects, constituting a green and flourish-
ing wall, sustained only by the slender tops of peeled
larch, which may be suffered to fall away one by one,
as the branches acquire strength for their own support.
Such a line of fruit or blossom, instead of proving
inconsistent with beauty has rather a good effect;
serving, like a picture frame, to give completeness, by
a rich and beautiful boundary, to the flower border
which usually runs between the gravel walk and the
espalier row.

But should your taste be over fastidious, it may be
observed that the fruit raised on espaliers, of which
every branch has an equal portion of the sun, is greatly
superior to that of standard trees ; besides, trees of

THE MANSE GARDEN. 83

the former description, whilst they yield a great deal
of fruit, take up little or no ground ; and, being kept
so low, they do more good by sheltering than harm
by shading the crops or flowers.

But to determine finally the question as to orna-
ment, take a survey of your garden after one of those
gales with which we are usually visited about the
autumnal equinox, and see the havoc that is made
amongst the standard trees : one half of the fruit is
thrown down, and eveuy fallen apple or pear has re-
ceived a mortal wound; some are deeply bruised,
others are pierced with small stones, yet sticking in
the flesh, and some have taken a dimple scarcely
perceptible, but even that is an irreparable injury,
and not one fruit in a thousand so hurt will keep for
any length of time. But observe also how the un-
fallen have suffered by the shock of the tempest —
their heads have been dashed together, or they have
been rubbed against the larger branches, or lashed
all day and all night by the smaller twigs, till their
natural colour is lost in the multitude of stripes and
blows. That they have not fallen is no proof of their
safety — they have perished, but having less maturity
they have been more tenacious of life, and are found
after the storm, like those more resolute seamen whose
dead-grasp is on the rope when tbeir companions have
been washed away.

Doubting not, from the above considerations,
that you will judge favourably of espaliers, and give
them a place in your garden, the following directions
may be of use for their successful and economical
cultivation. Have the ground well trenched and
manured (see wall department) and plant the trees

84* THE MANSE GARDEN.

three or four feet from the walk, and twice as near to
one another as they should afterwards be when full
grown. The reasons for this close planting are, as
formerly stated, that the value of a few crops is more
than the expense of the trees, your rails are sooner
covered, and when the trees begin to meet and in-
commode one another you can then, having ascer-
tained their various qualities, give scope to the best,
by diminishing or rooting out the less worthy. For
one or two years, after the meeting has taken place,
you may delay the pain of execution by allowing the
young shoots to pass one another on the opposite
sides of the rails.

To incur no more expense than is necessary, the
stakes may be placed two feet apart, in which case
the annual shoots will require to be conducted from
one resting place to another, by pieces of lath, or
wild brier, or willow of two years' growth. These
conductors require a firm and separate tying, distinct
from that which fastens more loosely the living wood ;
they thus give strength to the rails, and provide for
straighter training than is commonly done by having
the stakes twice as thickly set, and consequently at
double the expense of timber.

It might be worth while, as an interesting experi-
ment, to construct the rails, or some portion of them,
after the manner of a Venetian blind, but having the
boards, one for each branch, broader and farther dis-
tant; and set to a proper slope, meeting the sun's
rays, so as to give the espalier nearly the full benefit
of a wall, together with a greater freedom from mil-
dew and troublesome insects. The boards thus placed
above one another, would, except the uppermost, cut

THE MANSE GARDEN. 85

off the descent of silent hoarfrost, and protect the
blossom ; and if painted of a dark colour, they would
not fail to cause a considerable increase of tempera-
ture, and might last for twenty years.

Supposing that you have succeeded to a garden
in which the espalier rows are already complete with
full grown trees, but which prove very unproductive
and unpromising, the question will be, whether to
cut down with a view to replant, or to attempt some
mode of renovation similar to that proposed, under
like circumstances, for the wall department. First see
whether the fault lies in the soil or in the training —
if in the former, nothing will do but uprooting, if in
the latter, a reformation may be easily effected. If
canker appear both on the old and young wood, there
is no room for hesitation ; the tree so affected cannot
be too soon removed ; but if the young shoots be
healthy, and if the spots of canker be confined to the
stem, or some of the older branches, the tree may be
spared for a time. And, further, should the tree be
much overgrown with moss, and the soil, whether
from bad bottom or want of depth, be evidently unfit
for trees of considerable age, the most satisfactory
way will be to extirpate all for firewood, and, before
replanting, to trench the ground much deeper, and
raise upon it crops of vegetables for two years, with
plenty of manure.

In the mean time, provide young trees from the
nursery, and set them in good ground, that they may
advance under a training suitable to their subsequent
destination, and they will suffer very little, when they
come to be removed, by your own careful lifting and
transplanting, compared with the injury which those

86 THE MANSE GARDEN.

of an equal advancement sustain when taken up in
the ordinary way and carried to a distance. But
though there be no fault either by age or canker
or soil, it is no uncommon thing to find espaliers
wholly unfit for fruit bearing owing to mismana^e-
ment alone. You may see that the top branches,
which give rise to an annual profusion of young
shoots, have been annually cropped in a manner pro-
per to a quickset hedge ; and all over the body of the
tree, instead of bearing spurs, you will find a multi-
tude of ligneous knobs, every one yielding its own
bundle of brushwood — manifesting such a mode of
pruning as that practised on English hedgerows,
where the design of leaving so many stumps on the
stem of the tree is to afford every year a more liberal
supply of fuel.

For the redress of this woful wrong, it is only
necessary to distinguish a fruit spur from a wooden
knob — which any one a little more discerning than
such a knob can be at no loss to do — and, having
made this distinction, to apply the saw, or a strong
knife, or the chisel and mallet, sparing the knobs as
little as honey bees do their drones. Then will your
flower buds once more see the sun, and rejoice in
their liberty, whilst the pith of the tree, which the
idle knobs consumed, will go to swell your store of
juicy apples and honey pears. Where the vile hedge-
pruning of the top branches has left a strong, close,
and lengthy stubble, you must proceed with a lower
cut, and make all smooth, even though your work
should resemble that of peeling oak for sake of the
bark. In the healing of such sores the powers of
nature are wonderful ; and it is just the tenderness

THE MANSE GARDEN. 87

which shuns the inflicting of a wound that betrays
the worst ignorance of the pruner, and puts all trees,
whether forest or fruit, into the most unnatural and
unhealthy condition.* Should the bearing spurs

* It were desirable to have the dispute as to the pruning of
forest trees settled by an appeal to facts, and which might be
ascertained by those who are much conversant in the sawing and
planeing of old timber. There are two methods of pruning, each
of which has its peculiar fault. One method is to cut off a branch
close by the stem, and allow the bark to grow over the wound :
and the fault of this method is, that the process of healing may
require some years, during which time a certain decay on the
surface of the wound ensues, and the decayed matter, not being
absorbed, as improper substances are in the animal frame, must
continue as it is, and may probably constitute the source ol a
spreading decay at a future period, after the new and healthy
wood has grown deep around it. Hence, it may be contended,
the origin of cavities so frequent in the heart of old timber. The
other method is not to amputate near the stem, but to mutilate
the branch that ought to give way, so as to check its growth but
leave the life in it: and the fault of this method is, that the suc-
cessive layers of new wood, deposited year after year, are every
one marred by this stump, which continues its cross grain through
them all, making a bad knot in every plank, and must either pro-
long this mischief for fifty years, or be cut off some time, and
cause the evil complained of in the former method, or it must
decay, and allow the successive layers to grow around a decayed
substance, proving a worse danger, by leaving outwardly a hole,
and inwardly a tube for conveying wet. The evil of the cross
stump is well seen in firs whose branches fall of their own accord,
not without leaving a host of ragged remains, which though dead
last a long time, and show in the subsequent sawing of the tim-
ber, as it were, the transverse perforations which they have made
in every deal that is cut; the perforations are indeed fitted with
a knot or plug, but the plug, though neatly fitted, is so indifferently
fixed, that it may often be pushed out with the thumb. Such
are the two methods of pruning, together with the fault of each.
The last is by much the worst, unless the first cause rotting.
Let some proprietor of oW trees cut down one, of which he knows
the very spot whence a large branch was amputated some ten or
twenty years before, and after taking off a slab opposite the
ancient wound, let the plane be applied, proceeding, under his own
eye, by hairbreadths, till the vertical grain be separated from those
that meet the plane at right angles — this being the exact seat of
the supposed disease. The last shaving will be worth gold, as
it will finish the controversy, determine the rules of a delightful
science, and give, as the author expects, a victory to Scotland over

88 THE MANSE GARDEN.

seem to have contracted, from old age, a hardness
that is incompatible with a free circulation of sap,
they too must be knocked off in order to make way
for the training of fresh shoots along the old branches,
as recommended in the wall department. The scheme
there laid down is no uncertain theory, and the suc-
cess will be as certain here.

In order, however, that you may ultimately have
a surer dependence than on trees verging towards
decay — if the soil do not require a total renewal by
deeper trenching, and the extracting of old roots, it
may be expedient, in order not to be without fruit
for some years, to adopt a compromise, namely, that
of retaining for a time your old trees, and setting
young ones in the intervening spaces. When no
good comes by longer waiting on the aged, it will be
necessary to trench the ground where they stood to
a considerable depth ; and before setting young trees
in their stead, to exchange a portion of the soil for
that of a plot used for the culture of pot herbs, and
which exchange, like free trade, will prove a mutual
benefit.

In choosing the sorts of trees fit for your espalier

the English, who are enemies to the first mode described, and
which obtains in the north. The experiment ought, to be made
with respect to wounds that have been anointed, and to such as
have not. It would be interesting to see the paint in the middle
of the shaving. But apart from all experiment, two things are
clear: first, that by pruning in due time, no branch thicker than ,
the wrist would ever need to be amputated at all ; and, second,
with regard to firs, that if the broken, barkless stumps, when past
bleeding, were cut clean off with axe or saw, a great many deals of
the future growth would be free from the annoyance both of knots
and plugs. With regard to fruit trees, by all means prune early ;
but if neglected, cut freely without fearing to spoil the timber.
Some ointment however is better than allowing the wound to fall
into chinks and furnish beds to fungi and moss.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 89

rail, let it be a general rule to adopt those that are
of a finer quality than can be advantageously culti-
vated as standards; and at the same time not to
attempt such as require the greater heat and protec-
tion of a wall. The observations formerly made
with regard to elevation, local shelter, and subsoil,
will require to be noticed also here, that you may not
plant such trees as have no fair chance of realizing
your expectations. It should be a maxim for all
climates that fruit, good of its kind, though the kind
be inferior, is preferable to that of a better nature,
but imperfectly produced. A good crop of codlings
is better than a bad crop of golden pippins. I have
seen a tree of the latter sort occupying a space large
enough to have yielded a bushel of fruit, but from
which it was thought something considerable to reap
three or four apples in a favourable season ; and when
they were gathered, I have no doubt that the little
disfigured crabs, being all seed and no pulp, were
greatly inferior, even in point of flavour, to the worst
apple of the orchard that grows to a full size. For
it seems to be a principle in nature, that if a tree be
such as rarely to produce an average quantity, there
must be something in the circumstances of the case
which will mar also the quality. Yet it is no un-
common thing, whether in the cultivation of farm or
garden, to aim rather at fineness of kind than excel-
lence of quality, although it is the latter which chiefly
repays the cultivator, and shows the superiority of his
discernment. The temptation lies either in the more
honourable name, or in the higher price which is
obtained for the commodity of a finer kind : for there
is a pride in saying, I grow wheat, and I rear bred

90 THE MANSE GARDEN.

sheep on my farm ; or I have golden pippins in my
garden; but the wheat scanty in the field is also light
in the sack ; the sheep dwindle and die ; and the
pippins are not eatable, if so be that there are any to
eat. There is in this every way a wrong judgment,
and there cannot fail to arise much discomfort from
preferring a higher kind, though of worse quality,
to a better quality, though of a lower kind; and the
vanity of the whole idea is brought to view, by com-
paring the peasant, of either sex, nobly clad in native
wool, with the rake or drab that would be genteel in
decayed finery.

Having your wall already furnished with the best
sorts that may suit your climate, you have only to
go a degree lower in the scale to make up your es-
paliers. But should your wall be so limited as not
to afford room for so many of the better sorts as might
otherwise be admissible, it will be proper to cultivate
as espaliers certain trees which ought, in other cir-
cumstances, to have a place on the wall. That part
of your rails which is opposite to the south wall, and
has some benefit from its reflection, is the most fa-
vourable for such an experiment. At the t medium
elevation the Ribston pippin will do well in this situ-
ation; for though it will not come to such perfect
maturity it will yet be better than most other fruits,
and the tree will prove more healthy than it usually
does on the best wall. A jargonelle pear, in the like
circumstances, may be not unsuccessfully tried ; and
in lower situations, failing the extent of wall, a va-
riety of the finer sorts of apples and pears may be
raised in this way. The less favourable aspects of
the espalier rows must of course be filled up with

THE MANSE GARDEN. 91

such as are coarser and more hardy ; and the sub-
joined list, from which a selection may be made, is
set down in the order of that quality, beginning with
the more delicate and such as require the best as-
pect. It may be remarked that none of the stone-
fruits do well for training in the espalier mode, save
cherries, which bear for a number of years on the
old wood; but though they admit of the protection
of a net as well as on the wall, yet this method is in
other respects less eligible, as the young wood cannot
be laid in to the same advantage.

Where the climate is the best, and there is little
or no wall, it would be well worth while, for the
sake of stone fruits, to fix on the common rails a
series of laths, about as close as the courses of a
brick building, and which would answer as well for
fastening the young shoots. The expense would not
be great, and the laths, which are made of the best
foreign fir, would certainly last for ten years if fa-
voured with a coat of paint.

LIST OF APPLES AND PEARS FOR THE
ESPALIER ROWS.

APPLES. Yorkshire Green.

. •»; Stone Pippin.

Ribston Pippin. White Havvthornden.
Nonpareil.

Thorle Pippin. PEARS.

Royal Pearmain.

Early Julian. Jargonelle.

Paradise Pippin. Green Pear of Yair.

Eve Apple. Grey Auchan.

Kentish Pippin. Summer Bergamot.

Irish Pitcher. Swan's-egg.

Carlisle Codling. Moorfowl-egg.

Nonsuch. Lammas Pear.

92 THE MANSE GARDEN.

The proper mode of fastening the branches to the
rails is not to be overlooked, and ought to be provided
for in every garden. How often does it happen that
for want of a few willow trees, the easiest of all things
to cultivate, recourse is had to tying with pack thread,
or strands of bass matting — the latter giving way in
high winds, and leaving the tree to its fate, the for-
mer indeed keeping its hold, but cutting into the
bark, and producing diseased growth, which is sure
to terminate in canker. It is therefore a great
thing for the comfort of your garden to have plenty
of willows ; there is no doing without baskets, and
the twigs required for tying are innumerable. Several
varieties of the willow tribe answer well enough, but
the black and the golden are the best; and these,
like most things of a more delicate essence, are not
the easiest to be had. From slips they do not so
certainly strike root, at least on a dry soil, but by a
little care in choosing a shady place of some moisture
you get rooted plants which may be set any where.
It is better to have them planted at random in the
shrubbery than in regular crops, which, both by show
and convenience, attract the cupidity of tinkers ; and
to have some growing up as trees, (the golden is
very ornamental,) and some cut over by the ground.
The former, in their tree or shrub form, with numer-
ous but short twigs, are not tempting to thieves — the
latter will be well hid ; and both, as they afford shoots
of all sizes, will answer all your purposes. The
tying of espaliers with an abundant provision of wil-
lows possessed of unfailing toughness, and admitting
of so great despatch, is one of the pleasantest opera-
tions of the garden. The appropriate knot, you will

THE MANSE GARDEN. 93

soon discover, is a little different from that usually
made with twine ; but this is the distinguishing pro-
perty of such ligatures, that they do not cut the bark by
contracting, when wetted, as hemp does : they shrink
with dryness, not as to length but thickness, and thus
grow slacker in the summer's sun as the branches
they hold increase in the summer's growth.

Supplimentary to both wall and espaliers is the
following device, which has proved eminently success-
ful. Supposing that you have more garden ground
than is necessary for the supply of vegetables, and
that some part of it may be spared for a green shady
walk amidst shrubs mingled with standard fruit trees ;
on the south side of a row of evergreens, impervious
to the eye, let a dry stone wall be raised to the height
of four or five feet, and coped with large stones,
merely for strength and durability. Plant this on
the north side with ivy to assist the screen of shrubs,
and in a short while not one stone will appear. From
the south side take away all the good soil to a depth
of two feet, a breadth of five feet, and a length equal
to that of the wall, which may be sixty or a hundred
feet, as you find convenient. This excavation, it is
to be understood, runs close by the building, the
foundation of which must, of course, have been se-
cured by perhaps a foot of depth, and which will yet
be uninjured, as the stones that cast up in removing
the earth will immediately be thrown to the base in
room of the materials taken away. Thus an effec-
tual provision is made against the springing up of
docks, nettles, or other troublesome weeds ; the earth
removed will be an invaluable treasure, whether for
making compost or helping a thin soil, and the exca-

94 THE MANSE GARDEN.

vation itself will afford a most convenient receptacle
for the immense quantities of stones which occur in
trenching or raking the garden. Suppose the filling
up in this manner to he nearly completed, let a row
of large thin stones, set on edge, run along the
southern boundary, and rise two or three inches above
the surface of the ground. This will serve to keep
the mass of stones distinct from the earth, that there
may be no mingling in the process of digging. You
have then on the one side of this excavation the low
edging, and on the other a wall of four or five feet :
and the design is, in the course of time, to fill up,
with the riddlings of the garden or with clean stones,
in whatever way, the whole space from the summit
of the low edging to the top of the wall, to present
an inclined plane, facing the south and nearly at
right angles to the rays of the sun. On this fruit
trees are to be trained.

But in order to save time, before the bank is
completed to its proper slope the trees may be planted
along the southern boundary, and trained, for two or
three years, upon poles laid from the edging to the
top of the wall, according to their future destination.
When the surface of the sloping bank is raised within
an inch or two of its proper height, let a layer of
coarse sifted gravel be laid on the top. This will
much improve the appearance, and increase the re-
flected heat, and, being free from small sand and
earthy particles, will give no birth to annual weeds.

For the purpose of training, should peaches or
apricots be planted, a close trellis will be requisite ;
but apples or pears will require nothing more than
common espalier rails laid on the gravel and held in

THE MANSE GARDEN. 95

their places by two slight spars running across, one
at the top and the other at the bottom. In the mean
time, the ivy produces a beautiful and beneficial effect,
surmounting the wall and adding to the closeness of
shelter caused by the evergreen shrubs. It should
be clipped along the top after the manner of box
edging. Nothing can exceed the real snugness of
the trees so placed, or the beauty of their glowing
blossoms spread out under the eye : and the quality
of the fruit comes fully up to the theoretic advantages
with which it is favoured. The heat is undoubtedly
much greater than that of the best wall, and the open
flowers find, in their humble height, a shelter, like
the daisy of the field, from the sweeping blast which
often scatters the petals of a higher tree like a shower
of snow.

Experience has fully proved the suitableness of
this contrivance to all elevated situations. In some
places very low and warm the heat so powerfully re-
-flected might possibly be too great ; but in that case
figs and nectarines might be so exposed, and would
certainly take all that they can get. Yet judging
by the hot summer of twenty-six, when the fruit
attained a size and flavour little known in our nor-
thern climate, I should not much fear the roasting of
either apples or pears by such method of cultivation.
On this sunny bank one place at least should be re-
served for the Ribston pippin, the chief of the apple
race, but whose virtues cannot be elicited without
plenty of warmth.

It has long been observed that the Ribston as a
tree thrives better in the orchard or in the espalier
rows than on the best wall, but then the fruit, not

96 THE MANSE GARDEN.

sufficiently ripened, soon shrivels, eats tough, and
does not acquire the genuine flavour. On the other
hand, where the fruit is in the best circumstances for
ripening, the wood seems to be in the worst ; for on
the wall the leaves are generally blighted, and the
fruit is in consequence destroyed. It is probable,
as this evil does not occur to the standard or espalier
Ribston, that it is prevented by the natural washing
and cooling of showers and dew. Hence the com-
bined advantages of the above exposure, by which
the leaves get all the rains of the orchard, and the
fruit more than the heat of the wall.

Standard trees is a term which does not signify such
as come up to a certain pitch of excellence, as when
we say a standard book, but such as have one great
quality, namely the independence of standing on their
own legs, without requiring either to lean against a
wall or to have supports under their arms. We are
not here to enter on an orchard dissertation; for in
general the manse garden is too limited for any thing
so extensive as an orchard implies, and it is seldom
expedient to dispose of the glebe in that way. Never-
theless some observations on the cultivation of stand-
ard trees may be proper, as no garden ought to be
without them, and much more than is usually accom-
plished might be done with them, whether for the
purpose of ornament or shelter or household economy.

Supposing that you plant considerably more trees
than your ground can at length accommodate, you
will have the benefit of their fruit for a few seasons;
and then there is no more difficulty in their safe
removal than in the transplanting of forest trees.
It will generally be found too, that there are some

THE MANSE GARDEN. 97

odd corners of deep soil about the outside of the
garden, where fruits of the coarser kinds might be
advantageously cultivated; adding much, at the same
time, to the richness of appearance, and to the shel-
ter of the place. The main objection to trees so
situated is their exposure to plunder; but if thieves
are much set on their work they seldom make diffi-
culty of breaking into the garden ; and as they want
apples, not caring whether codling or Ribston, the
readiest may perhaps satisfy their longing, and save
your more valuable treasure.

Besides, a dog, well placed and not very well
chained, will serve for both the inside and the out-
side of the garden. A whimper, as when he dreams,
is enough to make the thief's hairs stand on end; a
growl will make him take to his heels; and if the
chain have once snapped, the report will serve for the
three next parishes at least during that year. The
trees thus defended from plunderers, or submitted to
.their discretion with a view to the defence of such as
are more valuable, need cause no hinderance to the
freedom of pasture ; as the pruning knife will set the
branches out of the reach of cattle, and a handful
of thorns, or a straw rope, about the stem, till its
strength be established, will be a sufficient protec-
tion from rubbing or peeling, or that venom, so deadly
to trees, which unexpectedly resides in the wool of
sheep.

Do not scruple then to plant a superabundance of
standard apples and pears in your garden, as they
will bear for a number of years without sensible in-
jury to the under crops: and when they begin to be
troublesome, and have gained considerable height,
E

98 THE MANSE GARDEN.

part of them may be carefully lifted to the glebe ; or
should the axe be laid to others it will only destroy
what at first cost a shilling or less, and that after a
bountiful return in the production of fruit. Besides,
it is no small pleasure to send a cart-load of such
trees to a friend who possesses a naked garden.

Yet though such redundant plantation be recom-
mended, some part of the ground, in order to have
the best vegetables, where deep digging and occa-
sional trenching are requisite, should be kept always
entirely free from either root or branch of standards.

Espaliers, subjected to the low training, do not
spread their roots so mightily, and are not the worse
for being curtailed when they encounter the opera-
tion of trenching; but no other trees should be
allowed to interfere with the best vegetable plots.
Rhubarb, sea-kale, artichokes, common greens, tur-
nips, potatoes, and some others, which either require
no depth or have strong roots, suffer little from the
proximity of trees, and therefore a considerable por-
tion of the ground destined for culinary purposes
may also contribute to the store of fruit. What-
ever is kept in grass, for sweetness to the eye, may
be studded with standard trees; but avoid, as you
would the blow of a poker, the straight rows of tree
and gooseberry, as they are seen in orchards, and
not less obnoxious though they cut the sward in the
manner of the handsomest diagrams. Whatever
portion you allot for shrubbery may also contribute
to the store of apples : and the effect of the ever-
greens, which show most beauty in winter, will. in
summer be much enlivened by the mingling of a
lighter green with the red or white blossom, and the

THE MANSE GARDEN. 99

graceful bending of branches laden with, various
coloured fruits.

Should you judge your soil too shallow or too
poor for a general planting in this way, and not un-
dergo the expense of trenching and manuring, the
next remedy, though a very inferior one, is to have
a succession of young trees. Almost any soil will
bear good fruit for a time. Set the tree on the very
top of the ground, gathering a little earth over its
roots, and spreading above some turf with the green
side down, or rough manure, or stones, so as to admit
the rain and keep out the sun; and use the pruning
knife with a view to encourage fruitbearing rather
than the growth of wood, taking care to cut out from
the middle the strongest branches, and to leave those
towards the outside which are smaller and pendent.
Thus, by causing the tree to spread and diminishing
its height, you lesson its growing powers, promote
fruitbearing, and retard the descent of the roots.

With regard to the figure of young trees, in any
circumstances, it is better to have nothing to do
either with tying down the branches or with hoops
to keep them open, but to leave all to the knife.
Let the tree live on, in its own way, till it have some-
thing to spare, an,d then it is easy to shape it to your
fancy. The main thing to make it spread properly
is to cut each of the outer circle of shoots right over
a bud that looks outwards. This must be done at
the rise of the sap, in spring, as it is not safe, before
the winter frosts, to expose the bud, on which you
depend for future growth, to the rawness of an in-
cision so near it. This bud, pointing outwards, will
give rise to a shoot which will take a direction con-*

100 THE MANSE GARDEN.

siderably more horizontal than that to which the tree
is naturally disposed; and this, the simplest operation,
only requiring a little minuteness of attention, will
promote the spreading of a tree far more effectually
than the clumsy artifice of appending weights, or
introducing hoops, and doing mischief by so many
knots and strings.

The removal of larger branches from the middle,
or of smaller twigs that point inwards, may be effected
any time in winter when the weather is soft; and in
general, as trees have plenty of branches going in all
directions, the judicious thinning of these will be suf-
ficient to give any form you please — it being necessary
to regard the position of buds only in those cases
where there is a great disposition to vertical growth
with few lateral shoots. When these are in ordinary
abundance, they have only to be thinned out, so as
to keep the heart open, and to supply an even balance
of the branches around the stem.

The worst error with regard to young standard
trees is that of allowing the stem to take a slanting
direction from the prevalence of high winds. The
help of a stake, at first necessary in planting, should
be continued till the trees be well established; but
if, from oversight, the bad position of the stem has
become incorrigible, the only remedy is, by saw and
knife, to remove half the branches, and restore the
equilibrium, by giving the head a contrary inclination.
If this is not done in due time the tree cannot stand, as
the weight increases at the longer arm of the lever
and overcomes the resistance of the roots. Hence it
is no uncommon thing to see a fine fruit tree lying flat
on its side, and after all bearing as well as others ; but

THE MANSE GARDEN. 101

it is not easy to endure the sight without a feeling
of compassion for the tree, and of indignation against
its owner. In high and exposed situations the west
or southwest wind, not so much by its frequency,
compared with the east, as by its greater force, gives
uniformly an eastward inclination to the heads of
trees; but this also may be corrected by a due atten-
tion to the use of the knife. Begin by cutting off,
on the west side, such branches as slope away from
the wind, and lean towards the heart of the tree ;
leave those lateral shoots which point westward to
take the lead in the subsequent growth, and let the
temporary loss of wood which you thus occasion on
the one side be balanced by an equal reduction on
the other. Thus the branch on the most exposed
side is made to point to the wind like an arrow, and
is ame to maintain its position, as it suffers the pres-
sure only on its extremity; whereas one that is more
elevated presents its side to the wind, and, like a
flagstaff, sustains the pressure over its whole length,
till, bending away in an opposite direction, it finds
relief by presenting its lower extremity to the power
that assails it.

Let it not be supposed that all this care in pro-
moting an equal distribution of the tree is merely to
please the eye, or that the production of round tops
is the best calculated for that entertainment : on the
contrary, I would judge that tree by much the hand-
somest that has the most decided bearing against the
worst wind ; and certainly nothing can be more un-
sightly than a tree so affected by the sweep of the
blast as to resemble a besom that has been used to
only on one side. But there is here a greater

THE MANSE GARDEN.

object than the pleasure of the eye. If you cannot
make your tree spread in all directions, the conse-
quence must be that you either want room for the
production of fruit, or you suffer crowding of the
branches, from which you have fruit of an inferior
quality. Besides, the south aspect of the tree is by
far the most productive; and if you do not effect a
sufficient growth to the westward, you have conse-
quently less of that surface which sees most of the sun.

Besides apples and pears, a few other kinds of
fruit may be conveniently cultivated on standard
trees; and it may save the inexperienced planter from
disappointment to give some notice of the sorts and
their relative chances of success. Cherries and geens
may be set in some out-of-the-way place, or on the
worst soil, for the ornament of their white blossom
and for food to the birds. You will certainly get
none of the fruit; but such trees, by occupying the
enemy for a time, will cause a diversion in favour of
your garden. The greengage plum is copiously
produced on standards, but will rarely, except near
the level of the sea, come to maturity in that way:
the yellow magnum as to any chance of ripening is
out of the question, and the red magnum will not
hang on the tree. It is advisable to have one or two
standards of the Orleans plum, whose fruit comes to
maturity when that of the same kind on the wall is
expended.

But by far the most profitable is the wild plum,
of which there are many varieties, and which, being
indigenous, or natural to this climate, requires neither
budding nor engrafting. A sucker from this root soon
grows a fine tree, and of so little delicacy that it may

THE MANSE GARDEN. 103

be set in a hedge. The small yellow or yellow and
pink coloured is the best for eating ; a large purple,
called the Whitcorn — but the name is perhaps local
— -is best for preserving. A row of such trees about
the outside of the garden, with some in the shrubbery,
and one or two in the best soil, will prove a valuable
treasure. The fruit is not greatly prized, but is
always eaten ; and it rejoices the table for a whole
year by excellent preserves. No one can look with-
out pleasure on those trees covered all over with pur-
ple and golden fruit in clusters and swarms. In
blossom, towards the end of April, they are the most
beautiful objects in nature — shooting into the sky the
most picturesque forms of aerial lightness, and white
as the clothing of angels. Yet is so bright a beauty
associated with a happier sight — the season of ripe
plums and preserves, and the smiles of children look-
ing for a jelly piece.

As a useful and interesting addition to the ordi-
nary methods of standard cultivation, let one or both
sides of some convenient walk be thickly planted with
paradise stocks ; the rows to be each four feet from
the walk, and the trees in the row not more than
three feet apart. Supposing the walk to be thirty
yards in length, you will thus have sixty young trees,
which will cost, I believe, less than two shillings.
When they have stood one or two years they may
be grafted ; and in case that any should fail, as blanks
where a row is designed are never easily endured, it
will be proper to have a few spare plants, subjected,
at the same time, to the like operation, in order to
fill up any casual deficiency; or it may be better to
have the whole planted at first in some other part of

104 THE MANSE GARDEN.

the garden, there to remain one year after grafting,
and then to complete the rows at once upon well pre-
pared ground. In this way there will be less risk of
blanks; for though grafting be ever so carefully done,
some, at least in dry soils and dry seasons, will give
way; but when you have trees of your own lifting,
it will be owing to mismanagement alone if one in a
hundred die by transplanting. Supposing, then, you
have the paradise stocks, whether by the walk sides
or elsewhere, in readiness for grafting, a great part
of the interest in the designed scheme is to be de-
rived from your own handywork. In any of your
rides, when you meet with a good tree, whether re-
markable for the abundance or the flavour of its fruit,
it is easy to procure a few slips; and though you may
not get the name, you make sure of the quality, which
is of more consequence. Having grafted your trees,
many of them will bear the second or third year after
the operation; and it is astonishing how many dozens
of fine apples may be gathered from a little thing not
half the size of a gooseberry bush. After bearing
copiously for a few years, in the close order of one
to every yard, it may be necessary to take out every
alternate tree, giving room to those that remain; and
the compactness of the rows may, during that period,
be maintained by pruning to smaller dimensions such
as are destined to be removed, and allowing those
that are to remain to extend their branches, before
you have caused any vacancy by extirpation. Thus
your walk, more beautiful in this case if it be of grass,
will present an alley bordered with close apple hedges
groaning under a load of various coloured fruits, and
all of your own selection. Such a prospect, easily

THE MANSE GARDEN. 105

and certainly to be realised, may well induce you to
take the trouble, as occasion may suggest, of carrying
home a few slips, and also to put your hand to the
neat and interesting experiment of their insertion.

The slips or shoots, of one year's growth, may be
gathered from trees not very old and free of canker,
at any time from the fall of the leaf to the opening
of the buds in spring ; and they may be carried to
any distance, if drying be avoided, which is very
simply done by sticking them into a potato. In
every case, whether carried to a distance or not, they
should be taken from the tree at least a fortnight be-
fore engrafting, in order that they may be retarded
whilst the tree on which they are to be set is advan-
cing; for thus they at once imbibe moisture from the
tree which is more advanced; but if they were equally
advanced, they would be more liable to wither during
the first few days after their insertion. To preserve
them after removal from the tree, it is only necessary
to set them in the ground, covering them nearly to
the top, and rather in dry earth, under the shelter of
a bush and shaded from the sun.

Judge of the proper season for engrafting rather
by the opening of the leaf-buds than by the day of
the month ; but you will not be far wrong by taking
the middle of March as the fit time for pears, and
that for apples two weeks later. Choose for the
operation a day when it is agreeable to be out of doors
— mild, but not sunny; and for this latter inconveni-
ence early rising is an excellent remedy. Have every
thing in readiness — a mass of equal parts of blue
clay and cow's dung, wrought to such consistence as
to retain whatever form you give it, a sharp knife,

E2

106 THE MANSE GARDEN.

andplenty of strands of bass matting previously steeped
in water. The modes of engrafting are numerous ;
but the main principle in all is to bring the inner bark
of the stock and of the slip or scion into close con-
tact, and fasten them in that position without the
smallest deviation. Wherefore, keeping these prin-
ciples in view, it will only be necessary to describe
two modes of applying it, and which will be found to
answer in every case — the one more convenient for
young, and the other for old trees or such as have
considerable thickness of stem.

When the stock is young, and not thicker than
a finger, give it a smooth splice cut clean through,
about half a foot from the ground, and make the
cut two inches long: set the edge of the knife upon
the middle of the sloping cut, and, pressing down-
wards, raise a thin slice of the wood and bark, taking
in all the breadth of the first cut, and extending to
about half an inch in length. This is supposed to
resemble a tongue, and hence this mode of the ope-
ration is called tongue grafting: prepare the slip,
which should not be above six inches long, in a
similar way; and it is no matter whether it be the
top, middle, or under section of last year's shoot
that you so prepare; giv-e it the like sloping cut, and
raise up the like tongue from the middle of that cut;
then apply the slip to the stock, making the bark of
both even on one side, inserting the one tongue be-
neath the other, and giving as much pressure down-
wards as to make a close neat joining. Apply the
bandage, taking care not to twist, but to lay it flat
;and with no more tightness than is sufficient to keep
.the .parts in contact. Take then a handful of pre-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 107

pared clay, and press it all round the tying in the
form of an eo-ff, smoothing it with a little water, and

no' o

making it adhere to the bark both of twig and stem,
so as to exclude the air. In claying, the chief care
is not to disturb the joint; and if you have reason to
think that any derangement has taken place, you
must punish yourself by beginning the work afresh,
that being less vexatious than the subsequent disco-
very of a bungled job, which can admit of no remedy
for twelve months to come.

As no small help to the success of the operation,
take a piece of thick brown paper, and wrap it round
the clay, including also the scion as in a tube. The
paper may be kept in its place by pins, or a tying of
twine; and its great use is both to prevent rains from
washing off the clay, and the sun from shriveling the
bark of the young shoot, before its veins have received
the strange but vital fluid, About midsummer give
relief to the knit joint, by removing the clay and
bandage ; but as the wind may prove trying to the
recent graft, the bond must be restored, and that so
easy as not to impede the circulation, and yet so firm
as to guard against a rupture of the union. In the
case of old trees, where the grafts are higher and
mo¥e exposed, where there is no elasticity in the old
stem, causing all the pressure to come on the weak
part, and where the graft, after it has grown a whole
year, is liable to be carried away, it is necessary, not
only to continue the matting bandage, but, some-
times, to strengthen the joint by fastening a rod or
switch below it, to the old stem, and above it, to the
young wood. This will make -sure against all haz-
ards till the joining, encompassed with new bark,
has become as strong as any part of the tree.

108 THE MANSE GARDEN.

As to the mode of engrafting on old stocks, the
following will be found the most convenient in every
case, being at once the easiest to perform and the
surest of success. Cut off all the branches a little
above the stem, leaving as many stumps as may serve
for the insertion of ten or twelve young shoots : make
the cut smooth and horizontal. This is better for
preserving the wood in sap, and when the graft has
grown a season or two, its awkward seat may be re-
duced, so as to encourage the closing of the bark. In
improving the operation, having smoothed the hori-
zontal cut, take out, on the side of the stump, a
wedgeshaped piece of the bark, two inches long,
of a breadth, at the upper end, equal to the diameter
of the young shoot ; give the slip a splicecut of the
same length, and take a little off each edge of the
splice, bringing the extremity to a point : set the
point into the place prepared for its reception, and
press it gently down to a perfect adaptation of the
bark in all parts : and then apply the fastening and
clay as above directed. This is the neatest of all the
methods of engrafting, and the least liable to fail or
produce canker by any fungous or unnatural growth.

Intimately connected with grafting is the nice art
of inserting a bud, from which proceeds a shoot, then
branches, and then a large spreading and fruitbear-
ing tree, possessing in all its parts the same qualities
and producing the same fruits as that from which
the bud was at first abstracted. This is one of the
greatest wonders of art; and as we do not see any
natural process at all analogous to this, or any ready
way of anticipating the effect, the first conception of
the thing, giving rise to the experiment, is to be

THE MANSE GARDEN. 109

regarded as one of the most beautiful of human
inventions. Certain parasitical plants which grow
upon other trees afford no analogy. In this case
the sap of the tree becomes merely the pabulum of
the heterogeneous plant : the tree is not converted
into the parasite. It is essential to the life of the
latter that the tree bear its own leaves, in order to
prepare and continue the aliment of the foster plant ;
but in the case of budding ah1 maybe cut off except
what grows out of the bud, and thus the whole na-
ture and character of the tree are completely changed.
Again, the seed of one species of tree is often sown
by the winds, or otherwise, on the cleft of one of
another species ; but in this case also there is a total
want of analogy, for the decayed moss, and debris
of old bark washed down by the rains into the cleft,
constitute merely the alluvial soil in which the seed-
ling grows. Thus the mountain-ash may be seen
growing, as it were, out of the sycamore, or the
sycamore out of the body of the mountain-ash; but
these trees are not, by such natural process, mutually
convertible the one into the other. But by the art
of budding or grafting, the mountain-ash may become
the stock on which no other leaf than that of the
pear shall be suffered to unfold itself, and from which
an abundant crop of pears may be gathered. Al-
though nature, so far as I know, presents nothing
in her operations analogous to the art in question,
yet there may be observed in her proceedings some
things which might suggest experiments in that art.
In the dense forest, owing to the crowding and
crossing of branches, an accidental union is some-
times exhibited : the winds cause friction, by which

110

THE MANSE GARDEN.

the bark is eroded; thence adhesion takes place, and
then an entire incorporation. This might lead to
one mode of engrafting, called inosculation ; and
that, again, to the insertion of a twig, at once dis-
severed from the parent tree, and set green into the
sap of another, as in the common artificial process.
There would be the same boldness of conjecture in
this experiment as in one that has of late been suc-
cessfully performed in the human body. The grow-
ing together of two fingers, as by inosculation, above
described, is the first discovered fact; and from the
knowledge of this, a finger, which had been wholly
cut off, was lifted from the ground, carried some dis-
tance to the chirurgeon, and, being artfully replaced,
adhered, and became fit for all its wonted functions.
After the success of grafting, there remained one
further trial of nature as to the freedoms which she
will sanction — namely, the insertion of a bud instead
of a twig; and the intimation of her willingness to
give countenance to this might be gathered from the
fact, that though a graft die away from the top down-
wards to the last bud, there is no further difference
«s to the effect than a retardation caused by the loss
of so much wood ; and therefore it might be conjec-
tured, that a thing so small as a single bud would be
sufficient to answer the expectations of the engrafter.
Thus budding and grafting are virtually the same,
the one being more wonderful only in this, that the
entire change of character produced on the future
tree by a single bud is the result of means more
slender and apparently more inadequate.

It cannot be unworthy of remark, that a pheno-
menon so striking as that of the mountain-ash bear-

T»E MANSE GARDEN. 1H

ing, instead of its own little, sour, and unwholesome
berries, large, sweet, and nutritious pears, in conse-
quence of engrafting, has given rise to a scriptural
metaphor most expressive of a like change in our
moral nature — one that is as true in point of fact, as
certainly accomplished by appointed means, and as
^beneficial in its effects, comparing the fruits of the
old nature with those df the new. It becomes not
immortal beings to admire the one mystery and to
overlook the other; it becomes not me to tell a fel-
low creature the remarkable art by which his trees
may be fruitful without reminding him that he is
himself a tree to be engrafted ; and it becomes nei-
ther him nor me to study the fruits that we shall
gather without considering the fruits which we bear.
May we who are gardeners in the Lord's vineyard
be wise in the heavenly art as well as in the earthly,
that we may see around us the blossoms and fruits
of the engrafted word, which is able to save the soul ;
and may we give ourselves earnestly to the work,
lest the Lord of the vineyard cut down our trees,
because having come and sought fruit thereon, he
found none.

The mode of performing the beautiful and inter-
esting operation of budding, or inoculating, is as
follows. — To procure the bud to be inserted, cut off
a shoot of one year's growth from an approved tree,
and from the side most exposed to the sun. Slice
off a little of the wood and bark containing the bud,
and let the slice extend from half an inch above the
bud to one inch beneath it; then separate the woody
.part from the bark and bud, arid observe narrowly
-whether the heart of the bud, that is a small white

112 THE MANSE GARDEN.

knob like the head of a pin, has remained with the
wood or come away with the bark. If it adhere to
the wood, the bud will be found hollow — it has lost
its heart, and will not live. Make a few more trials,
and if the event be still untoward, the buds are not
sufficiently matured, and the operation must be de-
layed. This is a better rule to go by than the day
of the month ; but to avoid the trouble of too many
trials, let the first be for cherries, about the middle
of summer; for pears and plums, a fortnight later;
and as much later again for apples. When you
find that the bud peels right, choose a cloudy day,
or an early hour, and let the operation be so quick
as not to allow of a change in the colour of the sap
by the action of the air. Have the shoots at hand ;
and before separating the bud prepare the place for
its reception, by selecting a smooth part of the stem
or branch to be inoculated, and making, with a sharp
knife, a perpendicular incision two inches long and
quite through the bark ; near the head of this inci-
sion make a cross cut, so as to admit of freely raising
the bark. The flat ivory handle of a desk knife, or
a piece of polished wood so shaped, may be used for
disengaging the bark without disturbing the sap.
Into this aperture insert the bud, with its own bark
attached to it, and slide all down till the upper ex-
tremity fall in with the transverse incision, taking
care, at the same time, to have the eye of the bud
so placed as to look out in the middle — between the
two sides of the overlapping bark. Then apply a
bandage of matting over all the incision, but not
over the projecting part of the bud, and with such
tightness as not to impede the circulation, but merely

THE MANSE GARDEN. 113

to keep the inserted bark and bud close to the wood
of the tree. As at this season, the tree being in
full growth, the tying will in the course of two or
three weeks become too tight, it must then be un-
done, and applied again more loosely. In any case
where the operation may have failed — which will be
determined by the shrunk and sapless appearance of
the bud — let the bandage be altogether removed, and
let the curled edges of the bark be neatly pared, that
all may grow smooth as before, lest the vacuity, with
its covering of mat, become a chamber in which mul-
titudes of insects will seek a shelter, and revel on
the core of the tree, enlarging their apartments as
they increase their population. In the course of the
winter pruning, such domiciles should be thoroughly
erased, always cutting deeper, until no brown speck
appear ; for any remnant of unhealthy wood is unapt
to take on a covering of healthy bark. When the
bud has rightly taken effect, it will be found enlarged,
and closely embraced in the bosom that received it.
In some cases it will grow up during the season of
its insertion; but more frequently it will wait the
return of spring, and then show a growth as vigorous
as any shoot of the parent tree. When it is evi-
dent3 on the return of spring, that the strange bud
has become naturalized, and is ready to commence
its growth, it should be encouraged, or directed ac-
cording to the design which you wish it to fulfill.
If your object is to have a diversity of fruit on the
same tree, and to produce from the bud one or more
branches, make a notch above the place of its inser-
tion, in order to impede the course of the sap, and
direct it into the channel of the bud; but if you

114 THE MANSE GARDEN.

would have the whole tree to possess only the quality
of that part which you have inserted, cut off all above
the bud, and if any young shoots appear beneath it,
let them be rubbed off with the finger before they
gain strength or diminish the resources of the wood
which you wish to cherish. Care must be early
taken, whether the tree be a standard or placed on
a wall, to guide on their proper path, or to guard
from the violence of winds, the young shoots pro-
ceeding from the bud.

Remedies for canker, mildew, green-fly, &c., may
be reserved for a separate section, containing a gene-
ral census of the garden enemies, and the mode of
dealing with each. You are supposed to have done
your work in the department of fruit trees ; and it
may be as well to leave your enemies for a time to
do theirs, till you find out, by their works, who
and what they are, and so learn how to hinder their
operations — not expecting to get rid of the agents.
For it is remarkable that man, once having dominion
over all the creatures, is now so weak that he cannot,
by any strength or skill of which he is possessed,
extirpate or finally subdue the smallest insect in the
universe. But as garden enemies are so different
in different places, you might deem it loss of time to
read of the hostilities which many of them commit,
and with which you may have nothing to do. We
shall therefore, noticing only the more prevalent as
we proceed, endeavour elsewhere so to arrange a
chapter of their offences that the reader may consult
that part only in which he is concerned, it being
probable that he will be content to leave the rest
alone. War of any kind is indeed interesting to

THE MANSE GARDEN. 115

those that must wage it ; but to others it is only at-
tractive of notice when a certain greatness character-
izes the combatants on either side — a circumstance
that does not obtain in the interminable conflicts ef
the gardener with the green-fly, a creature of such
slender make that it cannot bear the dew on its
wings. Judging by this law of sympathy in regard
to wars, there is reason to apprehend that no one
will care for reading about the enemies of the garden,1
except in so far as they make assaults upon himself,
at once deriding his skill and defeating his labours.
I have a worm, for instance, that infests my carrots,
and that root has had a finer relish since I found it
so hard to rear. Sometimes I gain advantage over
my foe ; but as often, wofully foiled, I own the power
ef the spoiler, and have to look with pity on labours
lost and counsels turned to foolishness. Again I
ransack all volumes of tactics, and feel tempted to
call in whatever aid, be it wizard or witch, because
the enemy is mine own; but what others do with
their ear-wigs or red-spiders I do not read, because
that is not my affair.

Before leaving this department of the garden,
there are some fruits which, though of a minor race,
are well worthy of notice, and on which the skill of
the cultivator will not be thrown away. Of the
smaller fruits the gooseberry is the most important ;
and considering its adaptation to various soils and
climates, as well as its agreeable flavour and emi-
nently wholesome qualities, it is perhaps the most
important of all the fruits which the gardens of our
country produce. It is amongst our luxuries what
the potato is among the necessaries of life : being

1 16 THE MANSE GARDEN.

easily reared, it is the poor man's friend, and so ac-
ceptable to the rich that none are willing to dispense
with it. The gooseberry tree may be called the
vine of the north, for many would hesitate which to
prefer were the choice limited to one; and it is thus
an instance of those compensations by which the
Divine bounty is equalized to the nations. Italy
has the grape, but there the gooseberry will not
grow, or it will live only as . an evergreen shrub,
incapable of producing fruit ; and it is further plea-
sant to observe, that in the large field of the world
proper to the cultivation of our vine, its annual pro-
duce is less precarious than that of any other tree —
a further proof that the things which are really best
for man are also the most abundant and the most
easily procured. Were the pine-apple, which sells
at one guinea per pound, as easy to be had as the
potato or the gooseberry no family would ever be
done with the physician. The gooseberry is pro-
duced in almost endless varieties ; and as all of them
are good it is unnecessary to notice the different
sorts or the qualities of each. The main thing is
to avoid those neglects in the culture of this fruit, or
to overcome those enemies, by which the tree is ren-
dered unproductive. Unpruned, it grows after the
manner of a bush of rushes, and is wholly fruitless ;
and by the attacks of caterpillars it is often seen
without a leaf, in which case the fruit, though abun-
dant, is utterly useless. If you have old bushes of
the rushy form, you cannot have them too soon re-
moved from the ground, as they are quite incurable ;
but if they stand on one stem, and are encumbered
with old wood, lay the saw to the heart, and clear out

THE MANSE GARDEN. 11?

the large branches, bringing the tree to the figure of
a cup ; and then with a pruningknife take off so
many of the young shoots as to leave those that
remain a handbreadth apart.

Towards the end of May the caterpillar makes
its appearance, and in a very short period completes
the work of destruction; but if it be observed in
time, a boy, hired at sixpence a-day, will in two
or three days, by creeping under the bushes and
gathering the caterpillars from the leaves, save the
whole of your crop. If you desire him to put a notch
in a small stick with his knife for every hundred he
kills you give him an incredible stimulus to perse-
verance. His sole aim is to add another sum to the
amount of his past achievement ; and whilst this en-
gages his mind by the supply of novelty, and the
surprise of accumulating success, it frees him from
the contemplation of a field too large for adventure,
and of leaves more numerous than his eye can
'survey.

The principle in this case is not unlike that which
prescribes small and separate tasks for a child, or
portions of study, adequate to an hour, for one of
riper years, without telling the one that the whole
book jnust be read, or showing the other all the circle
of science which his pathway surrounds. It is thus,
when the acquisition is not oppressive, but such as to
confer the pleasure which arises from progress, that
the next step, without reference to the completed
circle, is taken with desire and delight, — in like man-
ner as the worldly, though they aim not at gaining
the whole world, do not weary, all life long, in laying
field to field. It is to be presumed, however, that

118 THE MANSE GARDEN.

in furnishing such a motive to the diligence of your
boy you have some dependence on his truth; for
nothing could be more easy than, instead of killing
his hundreds, to make his work look well by repeat-
ing more notches in his stick. Nevertheless the
motive, true in nature, is calculated to work well ;
and if there be not truth, which remains to be con-
sidered in the Appendix, the want will be found in
more ways than one, and the bad working will not
be amended by any motive that either your head or
heart can devise.

But whilst the writer is concerned for the morals
of the boy, he is reminded that he has some need of
looking after his own, lest he be judged somewhat
hard of feeling when the reader perceives that all
this stirring of motive to the youthful servant is for
the work of death. The smallest creature is won-
derfully made ; and the shortest life is the Creator's
boon, which, as man cannot give, he should be cau-
tious how he takes away, lest God inquire by what
right, and show the man that he is " crushed before
the moth." Yet viewing the devastation caused by
locust and caterpillar, it is plain, as it is humbling,
that the highest creature is placed in a field of strife
with the lowest, and obliged often to wage unequal
war for the bread that sustains him. And hence,
what mercy may not safely spare, justice may of ne-
cessity demand ; but the Maker of all stands between
the high and the low, arid will discern the motive,
whether wanton or needful, that inflicts either pain
or death upon any thing that lives.

The philosophy as well as the right feeling and
piety proper to this theme are best given by one who

THE MANSE GARDEN. 119

lived much in a garden, where he caught, in the hue
of its flowers, the polish of the hardest virtues, or
drew out those softest threads of feeling which, like
the floating gossamer, were faintly seen as they shone
in purple light amidst the rays of his genius, or seen
too well when wet and weighed down with the dew
of tears that fell from a heart of deep and solitary
woe, and who yet felt no breaking of such slender
cords when, in love to the sinless beauties of crea-
tion, whether fruits or flowers, he put forth his hand
to save them, by killing the reptiles that made them
a prey.*

But though the above method of dealing with the
caterpillar be sufficiently successful, it is much better
for your gooseberry plantation to prevent as far as
possible the breeding of that worm. And to this
end let the bushes be pruned as soon as the leaf is
down, and let all rubbish be raked clear off1 the

* " I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,
'And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes,
A visitor unwelcome, into scenes
Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove,
The chamber, or refectory, may die :
A necessary act incurs no blame.
Not so when, held within their proper bounds,
And guiltless of offence, they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the spacious field :
There they are privileged; and he that hunts
Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong,
Disturbs the economy of Nature's realm,
Who, when she form'd, design'd them an abod*.

120 THE MANSE GARDEN.

ground; then scrape with a hoe the surface earth
from the stem of each bush to the depth of two or
three inches, not exposing the roots; and let all re-
main in this state till the middle of winter. By this
I suppose the frost reaches and destroys the larva?
lodged by instinct near to their future provision. In
digging the ground make a deep furrow, into which
the mound-like rings made by the hoe will be leveled,
when a little fresh earth may be laid next to the roots
in room of that which has previously been removed.
For many years, since I have fallen on this expedient,
I have had no caterpillar, or none to cause any
trouble. Soapy water, which is best applied in soft
weather, and when the earth has been drawn from
the roots, contributes not a little to prevent the
ravages of this insidious and abominable reptile.
The sudds are an excellent manure, and serve to
accomplish your object, either by killing the larvae
or promoting in the trees a more healthy vegetation.

The sum is this. If man's convenience, health,

Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims

Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.

Else they are all — the meanest things that are —

As free to live and to enjoy that life

As God was free to form them at the first,

Who in his sovereign wisdom made them all.

Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons

To love it too, The spring-time of our years

Is soon dishonour'd and defiled in most

By budding ills, that ask a prudent lumd

To check them. But, alas ! none sooner shoots,

If unrestrain'd, into luxuriant growth,

Than cruelty, most devilish of them all.

Mercy to him that shows it is the rule

And righteous limitation of its act,

By which heaven moves in pardoning guilty man;

And he that shows none, being ripe in years,

And conscious of the outrage he commits,

Shall seek it, and not find it, in his turn."

THE MANSE GARDEN. 121

It is a matter yet undecided, in many cases, whe-
ther the bad thriving of plants is the effect of those
devastations which are committed by the various
tribes of insects, or whether it is, that wherever
plants are sickly from any cause they are sure to
suffer by the more fatal and frequent assaults of such
foes ; and, therefore, though we may be ignorant as
to the natural history of such creatures, our plain and
practical rule is to promote a healthy vegetation, by
the seasonable digging of the ground, the best ma-
nure, and the free admission of light and air ; for if
the growth be vigorous, the insect tribes will either
desist from their attacks or they will make but little
impression. But when, through our neglect of
known duty or ignorance of what may be easily
known, our crops languish, and are in no condition
to afford sustenance to man, it seems to be the law
of nature, that before they altogether vanish from
the ground they shall at least serve for food to some
species of beings; and thus in nature all fragments
are gathered up, that nothing may be lost.

By all means have your gooseberries in a quarter
by themselves, and not in single rows among flower
borders or scattered all over the garden. Besides
obtaining the advantages of the above mode of culti-
vation, you will thus avoid the unsightly aspect of
ground every where trodden in the fruit season, and
strewed with glaring and filthy refuse in every place.
Should your bushes have grown too old, raise a suffi-
ciency of young plants to supply a new plantation on
other ground, keeping the old for a few years, till
the young have come into plentiful bearing. It is
not necessary to be troubled with a tally of the slips

122 THE MANSE GARDEN.

which you raise : let them be selected of the best
sorts, and of sufficient variety. The slips must be
of the last year's growth, cut to the length of nine
inches, and having every bud carefully cut off with
the knife, except three or four next to the top or
upper extremity of the slip ; for it is better to have
the natural top of the slip cut off by a few inches, as
, the buds are there weaker and too frequent. If care
be not taken to extract the buds from that part of
the slip which is inserted in the ground they will
become suckers, which cannot afterwards be easily
got rid of. Let the slips so prepared be set in rich
border ground, to a depth equal to half their length,
and in rows one foot apart. The sooner that this is
done after the fall of the leaf the better : the ground
should be kept clean and stirred up between the
rows ; and in the course of two years you may thus
have an abundant supply for a new gooseberry plan-
tation.

If the ground on which they are to be set require
trenching, it should undergo that operation a year or
two before, in order that the new soil which is turned
up may be enriched and incorporated with the old :
and well is it worth while to be at so much pains, as
the making of such a plantation, if rightly done, will
only once be required in a lifetime. The young
plants may either be placed at their proper distances
of four or five feet in all directions, allowing some
low growing crops to occupy the intervening space ;
or they may be set twice as thick, with a view to
subsequent thinning as they increase in size. In
pruning, endeavour always to give the tree a proper
balance on its own stem, and allow no branch to ac-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 123

quire a greater length than is consistent with self-
support. In this way you are freed from the plague
of supporting the fruit with forked sticks, or seeing
it laid along the ground and covered with the slime
of snails. A gooseberry tree of the earliest, kind
may be trained on some odd piece of wall for the
surprise of having fruit a month earlier than any
body else; and a few may be fastened to poles, and
carried to any height, lopping off all the branches,
save two or three, which must be tied as they advance
in growth, and which will thus yield a great deal of
fruit without occupying almost any room.

Currants, black or red, do well either as standards
or trained on a wall. On that of a north aspect you
may have red currants so late in the season as the
frost will suffer them to hang on the tree. It is
worth while to train the red and white currant on a
wall in the manner of other fruit trees, as they bear
on spurs or snags, and the same branches yield a crop
for many years ; but the black currant, which requires
a constant succession of young wood, if treated in this
way would take as much nailing as a peach or apri-
cot; and as it is little worthy of so much pains, it
may be held to the wall with a line of tarred cord,
which costs little, and is sold in the shops under the
name of oakum. In this way the trees occupy little
room, and it is easy, as the branches are all loose, to
remove annually such as are effete, giving room to
those which are in a proper state for bearing.

The red currant, as a standard, is rendered very
productive by a mode of treatment that is nowise gen-
tle or promising in appearance. In the season of
pruning, let the whole tree be stumped down into

124 THE MANSE GARDEN.

the figure of a hardworn birch besom, and let the
young shoots which grow up in the summer be cut
in July, within a handbreadth of the old stumps, and
with as little discrimination as in pruning a hedge.
Then in winter, what remains of the young shoots
must be reduced to the same destroyedlike appear-
ance as before. A method so unlikely is not a little
ingenious; and which, being defended by success,
may also be explained by the nature of the tree.
Left to its own sprawling growth, the sap has too far
to ascend, and the leaves are too scanty to exclude
the sun, which the fruit does not love. When the
branches are long the fruit will be found small, and
hanging in single rows, each like a string of small
beads ; but in the reduced form the fruit is concen-
trated, and grows large and in bunches that fill the
hand. There is a thick clothing of leaves, under
which the fruit is cherished as to its growth ; and for
its ripening, the shearing of the young shoots admits
the suri at the proper season.

Of rasps, the best are the red and the white Ant-
werp— the white for eating, and the red for pre-
serves. Give the plants plenty of room, somewhat
varying, according to the strength of the soil, say
four or five feet between the rows and three or four
between each plant in the row. The wood that bears
one year must be altogether removed the next; and
of the shoots that spring up in the summer, five or
six of the strongest should be selected for bearing.
These must be reduced to the height of four or five
feet, and fastened to poles. The rest of the young
shoots must be cleared away. Let the ground be
well dug in the course of the winter, and manured

THE MANSE GARDEN. 125

with ashes, which seem peculiarly appropriate to the
fineness of fibre for which the root of this plant is
remarkable.

Of strawberries there is an endless variety. Some
of the Virginia or Roseberry should be had for the
quality of coming early — some of the hautboy sorts
for superior flavour — and of the Alpine, if you will,
for lateness. But as new sorts are continually in-
troduced, and as renovation from seed is a decided
advantage, the best rule is to observe in any garden
a good variety, and obtain young plants about the
beginning of August. Set these in rows, eighteen
or twenty inches apart, and one foot distant in the
row. By planting at this early season, as the roots
get established before winter, and are not liable to
be thrown out by the frost, you will have a consider-
able crop the first year. Let the ground be well
manured before planting, and every second year
afterwards. In the course of five or six years a new
plantation should be made. Towards the end of
autumn the leaves should be mown, in order to give
the young buds, which are then forming for next
year's growth, the benefit of the free admission of
light and of air. By the time that you require a
new* plantation, some new species will have got into
vogue, and which, from its newness or change of
climate, perhaps will be more productive than plants
raised from those of your own garden ; and thus it is
unnecessary to particularize varieties, or to offer more
than these cursory remarks on the cultivation of this
excellent fruit.

J26 THE MANSE GARDEN.

PART SECOND.

VEGETABLES.

VEGETABLES are not good for food or profitable
to the grower except they grow well ; but the size
to which they attain in a given time is not the only
criterion of successful cultivation; for there is an
overgrowth which, as well as bad thriving, is preju-
dicial to every good quality of potherb production.
The pea, which cannot be too plump and large, may
be judged an exception; but if the stalk be too luxu-
riant it will not produce the pea : an overswollen and
consequently hollowhearted potato, is a further in-
stance of the waste that is occasioned by overkind-
ness to the plant, and a hard, stringy, ill rounded
turnip affords an example of the bad quality of the
vegetable from bad thriving, and of loss to the cul-
tivator by poverty of soil. We club the interests
of the whole of the vegetable tribes, then, when we
consult first for the ground on which they are to be
reared, keeping quality and economy equally in view,
remembering that the great waste is the failure of a
crop, and that crops will fail by either extreme of
penury or pampering.

The most essential requisite to a good garden
soil is sufficiency of depth. Eighteen inches may

THE MANSE GARDEN. 127

do, but no labour or expense will be so well repaid
as that which is employed in obtaining a depth of
two feet. This may not be practicable at the first
trenching, but let this be your aim, and your plans
may easily be directed to its ultimate attainment.
Suppose at the first you have only one foot of good
soil, and a wretched clay, or till, or mere gravel,
beneath ; in that case put down all the good soil, and
bring up only six inches of the bad. This being
wrought, in the course of future digging, into com-
bination with an equal part of the buried stratum,
will be greatly improved. After a few years bring
up, by a second trenching, other six inches of the
subsoil, which, in its turn, will be incorporated with
the remaining half of the surface earth at first de-
posited, and you will then have a soil of one char-
acter throughout all its depth of two feet, and ade-
quate to all the purposes of good gardening.

Many resources may be had for helping the under
stratum when first exposed. Besides the necessary
and common expedients of dung and lime, a great deal
of earth may be gathered without causing damage by
its removal- — as in the formation of gravel walks, in
which case a very considerable depth of loose stones
may be substituted for excellent soil, or in the clear-
ing of ditches, or making an excavation for a sunk
fence, or for some bit of road leading to a field, and
where the surface mould, being generally kept in a
puddled condition, is there an inconvenience and of
no use whatever. A great deal, in most cases, might
thus be collected, and often would be were its value
justly appreciated. Such heaps, when mingled with
lime in the proportion of one of lime to six of earth.

128 THE MANSE GARDEN.

constitute a manure which, taking bulk for bulk, is
equal in value to the best dung; and having this
additional advantage, that as its substance cannot be
consumed, it adds depth to a thin soil, and communi-
cates an everlasting benefit.

The great advantage of a deep soil, besides the
more obvious one of allowing the roots of plants to
get well down, is its aptitude for equalizing the sup-
plies of moisture. There subsists no sympathy be-
tween the surface and a hard subsoil. If the former
is drenched with rain the latter refuses to have any
thing to do with it, and if the former is parched the
latter will yield none of its own moisture ; again, if
the subsoil be pure gravel it readily takes in the
superabundant waters, but it soon squanders them,
and then has nothing to give back to the surface in
its greatest thirst. But when you acquire a sufficient
depth of soil you have a large quantity of homoge-
neous matter which acts sympathetically throughout,
and is all nearly alike wet or alike dry, and conse-
quently not so liable to suffer injury by the too long
continuance of rain or drought. This improvement,
then, as it renders the elements of nature more sub-
servient to the purposes of vegetation, is permanent,
and cannot wear out or lose its effect, as that of
manuring, at whatever expense, must certainly do.

But though permanent in this respect, it is not
to be inferred that there is no further need of subse-
quent trenching. A repetition of this work, at any
future period, gives the great benefit of rest to that
part of the soil which has been exhausted by con-
tinual bearing. We are aware that some theorists
decry the notion of exhaustion, and contend that

THE MANSE GARDEN. 129

nothing more is needful to a vigorous growth than
the proper supplies of heat and moisture — inferring,
at the same time, that all manures are serviceable
only in so far as they give the land an aptitude for
the retaining of moisture and heat. But whilst they
bury thermometers and hygrometers at various depths,
for the purpose of experiments, they overlook those
phenomena which take place above ground, and which
are sufficient to establish the fact, that by repose the
soil is strengthened for the labour of future produc-
tion. Hence the well ascertained benefit of a suc-
cession of crops; hence the law, that when an old
forest dies out, and nature is left to herself, trees of
the same kind do not spring up in room of the de-
cayed ; and hence the fact now becomes appalling to
the husbandman, that in many places where it has
been too often sown on the same ground, though
heat and moisture be in all respects the same as in
former times, red clover almost refuses to grow.

A new trenching of the ground once in eight or
ten years, in respect of giving newness and fresh-
ness to the soil, is equal to an eight or ten years'
fallow — a mode of renovation which would be death
to man ; whereas trenching both renovates the soil
and* continues the supplies of human wants. There
can be no doubt that some advantage is gained also
by burying the larvae of countless insects ; for whilst
the leaves of plants in other parts of the garden are
eaten and decayed, every blade on the newly trenched
ground is green and entire. Trenching furnishes
an exclusive system of production, leaving nothing
on the surface but what the cultivator designs. An-
nual weeds are scarcely to be noticed as an exception,

F2

130 THE MANSE GARDEN.

they are so easily destroyed, and all bad and deeply
established roots are sent to a lower region, there to
rot at their leisure. Worms, snails, grubs, and the
like, share the same fate ; and for a length of time
show no families on the earth, which to them has
suffered a ruinous convulsion. In this, your new
empire, every thing favourable to production comes
into your service, and every thing hostile is expelled.
Animal bodies, formerly destructive, now minister to
fertility by their decomposition : the earth, heaving
and porous, like a fermenting substance, seems to
borrow warmth from the very rains which chill and
check the vegetation of the neighbouring grounds,
and the intense heat which elsewhere burns upon a
sickly growth seems here to cool, by drawing up a
copious vapour, nourishing the roots and spreading a
broad dark leaf as a cover from the sun.

As nature's best bounty is depth of soil, so trench-
ing, which imitates that gift, is beyond all doubt the
very greatest of all the improvements which man can
make on the surface of "the ground. Whether for
garden or field, there is herein a secret virtue, which
even at this late period is but little disclosed. Com-
pare the millions of acres on which men have for
centuries only scraped a few inches with the plough,
and see how little of the land yielding bread has yet
submitted to a more substantial cultivation. The
same seeds are ever committed to the same particles
of mould; some of them now scarcely vegetate, and
crops of other sorts, but recently introduced, are not
what they were. Man cannot create a new plant
to diversify the labours of the earth in her produc-
tions, but man can bring up new earth to the task

THE MANSE GARDEN. 131

of producing : this is the true power which nature
has given him, and which he has yet scarcely learned
to exert. When an acre of ground sells for fifty
pounds, and its depth of soil is only six inches, it is
certain that the same portion may be made as well
worth a hundred pounds by doubling the depth of its
soil ; and one fourth of this profit would be sufficient
to cover the expense of the operation. It is said
that the man who plants a tree is a benefactor of his
species — and so he is; but that man is more the
benefactor of his species who trenches as much ground
as a tree will cover; for the tree dies and the ground
is no better than it was ; but that which is trenched
has received a benefit which it will not lose till the
end of time.

As to the mode of trenching for the garden, it is
perhaps advisable to put all the earth through a search
or riddle of which the wires are one inch apart. ,This
may appear too expensive, and may not be necessary
for those portions which are designed for vegetables
of the stronger and coarser "kinds; but such method
will ultimately prove the cheapest in regard to all
those places which are used for flowers and small
t seeds. Stones must be got rid of; and if they remain
to be gathered one by one with the hand as often as
the ground is dug, it is manifest that instead of dis-
posing of a hundred at once, as in using the search,
the loss of time by individual liftings will be nearly
as a hundred to one.

The next thing to be considered for the success
of vegetable produce is the preparation of manures.
The dunghill should be kept in two distinct portions,
the one turned over so as to undergo the process of

132 THE MANSE GARDEN.

fermentation and decomposition — whilst the other is
in the process of being collected. It is wretched
management to have the dung so little decayed when
laid on the ground as to contain the live seeds of
hay and oats, as if nature did not give you enough of
weeds without those of your own sowing. To avoid
the sluggardly sight of ryegrass springing thicker
than a bed of cresses, as well as to give the designed
crops the full benefit of their manure, it is necessary
to have that portion of the dunghill which is to be
applied previous to the winter digging made up into
a fermenting heap six months before. As soon as
this portion has been carried away, let the other,
which has been added in the course of the summer,
be turned over on the place of that removed, so as to
make room for a separate and fresh accumulation.

All manner of weeds and refuse of the garden
which are of the soft nature and easily decayed may
be carried to the new heap, where they will soon be
covered and prevented from wasting away; but all
thick and hard stalks and roots, which cannot in a
short time be sufficiently decomposed, should form a
heap elsewhere; and to which additions may be made
from a thousand sources. This new composition
should not resemble a work that is finished and com-
plete, having a beginning, a middle, and an end, but
should rather have only the middle entire, without a
finish at either extremity. From the oldest part of
the lengthened mound something may at any time
be removed for use, whilst new materials continue to
be deposited at the opposite termination. When
any garden rubbish is carried thither, let it be always
covered with a sprinkling of earth, so as to prevent

THE MANSE GARDEN. 133

the evaporation of sap and promote decomposition ;
and, for the supply of this heap, let it be a great and
fixed principle that every thing is manure except
stones, and let nothing be burnt for the sake of
clearing either garden or glebe.

With great prodigality thousands of cart-loads of
valuable manure are annually burnt upon the fields :
the ashes amount to nothing — the main substance is
dissipafed in smoke, to the enriching of the clouds
and the damage of a poor soil. Quickens, docks,
thistles, hedge and gooseberry prunings, furze, broom,
every thing of the wood kind not fit for fuel, if cov-
ered with a little earth, will rot down in one year
and constitute a manure of excellent quality whether
for garden or field. Keep clean doors, clean roads,
clean entrances by every gate — the only luxury that
enriches ; for thus the unclean stepping which annoys
both eye and foot will in time become gold in your
hand. Wherever this plan of gathering from all
quarters is pursued, the amount will be so great as
to provoke the wonder whence it came or whither it
would have gone had it not been collected. Evapo-
ration on the surface of the earth is like the insen-
sible perspiration — you see not whither the substance
goes, but, by considering the ingesta, you perceive
how much has been lost; and so, by viewing the
congesta in this case, you perceive how much has
been gained. But to make the idea of value more
tangible, it may be certainly affirmed that every cubic
yard of this omnium gatherum, when mixed with a
small proportion of lime, is worth five shillings ; and
that with no sensible outlay you may acquire, in the
course of two or three years, the invaluable treasure

134- THE MANSE GARDEN.

of sixty cart-loads of the best manure, which will
make all around you to flow with milk and honey.

After the above preparations, the raising of crops
becomes pleasant and profitable, as the work is easy
and the remuneration sure. We suppose the soil
now to be in a good state, both as to depth and
richness, and the first thing with regard to cropping
is the economy of manure. Let one half of your
garden receive a rich supply one year, the other
half the year following, and so on alternately. Cor-
responding to this arrangement, let such crops as
require immediate manure be distinguished from
those which thrive sufficiently well or better without
it, and let them be disposed accordingly. The fol-
lowing may be successfully raised on such ground
as has been well manured the year before, namely,
pease, beans, carrots, parsnips, radishes, curled kale,
late turnips, sown in July ; with these may be classed
the potato, which in rich garden ground will grow
a good crop without a fresh dunging and prove of
better quality. But when the ground is less rich, a
mere sprinkling in the potato drill will be sufficient ;
and thus it is still to be regarded apart from those
vegetables which cannot be judiciously cultivated
without a recent and liberal supply of manure.

Considering the varieties here enumerated, as well
as the quantity of each that is usually required, it is
obvious that you have plenty in this list to occupy
one half of the ground which is allotted for culinary
productions. In this method of manuring and of
distributing the different sorts of crops, the pea re-
quires a special notice. The borders, on account of
the wall fruit trees, must be kept clear of it: it ought

THE MANSE GARDEN. 135

not to be frequently on the same ground ; it thrives
best on that which is newly trenched; it requires a
large space, say a fourth of the vegetable department.
Wherefore let your crops be so arranged that the
pea may be only once in four years on the same
ground; and as often as you accomplish the trenching
of any interior plot, lay a little lime on the surface
and sow peas. They will not suffer by their worst
enemy, the snail ; they will present a strong stalk,
with dark leaves and a load of delicious food.

By this attention to the system of cropping a
great deal of manure may be saved, to the benefit of
the purse and glebe, without causing any deficiency
in any of the vegetable productions. The ground at
the same time will be kept in better condition than
it would be by an annual dunging ; and the manure
itself communicates far more benefit when applied at
longer intervals, as when more frequently afforded it
loses something of its effect by every repetition. By
this method too you make sure of a rotation of crops,
having no difficulty in remembering what portion of
your garden has been last manured, and consequently
of knowing what ought and what ought not to be
sown or planted. The whole ground should be dug
with a deep rough furrow and the dung well covered
in before the winter.

For giving more energy to the soil, and avoiding
an unnecessary expenditure of manure, if you have
more garden ground than is requisite for the supply
of vegetables, it is of excellent use to lay some part
down in grass, to remain a few years. Sow red and
white clover, about twice as thick as is usual in the
fields, with the ordinary proportion of perennial rye-

136 THE MANSE GARDEN.

grass and a small sprinkling of barley. The grass,
besides proving a great convenience, is a valuable
crop, and raised at no expense of labour; and the
ground which it occupies will afterwards be far more
sensible to the stimulus of manure, showing in the
garden, as in the field, the benefit of rest from bear-
ing in too long succession the same sort of produce.

Having offered these preliminary observations, with
a view to the general success of the vegetable de-
partment, it remains now to consider the best mode
of securing the needful attention, in due season, to
its individual productions.

Season is the chief thing to be observed, as no
art of man can make up for the loss of time, and the
difficulty of redeeming it may be seen in a late sown
and worthless crop. But it is not easy to the inex-
perienced gardener to recollect what should be done
in the several months as they proceed. To meet
this difficulty, some have arranged their directions
for the garden by making the months of the year
the heads of their chapters, and setting down in each
the work appropriate to the time. But this, which
seems a simple and perfect method, happens in reality
to be the most confused and inconvenient that has
yet been devised. The preparation of the ground
for any crop is to be found in one month, the sowing
in another, and the future operations necessary to
its culture must be sought at a venture, under some
of the twelve heads, and most probably will not be
sought at all. How much easier is the process, if
you are interested about the production of an arti-
choke, to go to that article, and find all you want in
one page. Let the doing once follow the reading,

THE MANSE GARDEN. 137

and then there is no more to learn and no forgetting
of what has once been so acquired. But still the
chance is that something which should be done in
March will not be thought of till April, — and this
leads me to recommend that horticultural treatise of
most delectable brevity annually printed in the Edin-
burgh Almanac.

Whoever remembers that an account of every
day must be given will see the importance of con-
sidering, before the day be far gone, what ought to
be done; and whoever acts on this principle will think
it no hard task to look five times in the year at the
Gardener's Calendar. Suppose you find in the work
for the month some notice of the artichoke, then, by
referring to this book, which is designed to be no
bigger than an almanac, you will find, as easily as
looking out the letter A of a dictionary, all that you
require for bringing to your table the rich pulp of
that delicious plant. In alluding to the dictionary
mode of finding what the reader wants, there is,
besides the conveniency of the plan, this reason for
its adoption, that the writer finds great difficulty in
settling the claims of precedence amongst the mem-
bers of the herbal family — so numerous, and all so
fair -and good ; and therefore he throws the respon-
sibility of setting one above another on some person
or persons long since deceased, who arbitrarily, and
perhaps unwarrantably, set A before B. Wherefore,
to proceed with A,

The Artichoke is a delicious and wholesome vege-
table, provided it be itself eaten rather than used as
a spoon. It is propagated by offsets from the roots ;
and as part of the offsets require to be cleared away

138 THE MANSE GARDEN.

from old plants, in order to leave no more stems for
next crop than have room to grow, there is no diffi-
culty in finding materials for a young plantation.
Choose the deepest of your soil, keeping off the
borders with this as with all high growing crops, in
order not to shade the wall fruit ; and in April, for
each row of plants make a ditch two feet deep and
three feet wide, on the bottom of which spread a
layer of manure four inches thick. Then fill in half
the earth, putting that lowest which was formerly on
the top; and with the other half let more dung be
mixed in the course of filling up the trench. Set
the plants, three in a clump, eighteen inches separate;
and let the nearest part of each clump be at least a
yard distant from the nearest part of the next. The
roots will grow like stakes, penetrating the under
stratum of manure, and send up strong stems, with
large heads, for seven years, without requiring any
more trouble than a rough digging of the ground
before winter and a slight covering of litter in severe
frosts.

Asparagus is no doubt a good thing ; but in point
of produce it is to the potato or turnip, or almost
any other crop, in the proportion of something like
one to a hundred. If you are not hampered as to
ground or other means, then it is well to have it;
for of all luxuries those of the vegetable kind are
the most harmless ; but it is a good rule either to
have it in plenty or not at all. No invidious dish
should ever be seen on any table ; for no good taste
can relish that of which there is not enough for every
one. The following is the mode of cultivating this
herb. — Sow the seed in March, in drills six inches

THE MANSE GARDEN. 139

apart and less than one inch deep. Cover the bed,
in the end of October, with litter or short loose dung,
to protect the seedlings in winter. In dry weather,
next spring, raise the plants with a strong fork, which
avoids cutting the roots, and transfer them to the
proper quarter. This operation may also be done
in summer, when the plants are a foot long, taking
care to water them regularly after transplanting.
The soil for their reception must be rich and light,
and trenched two and a half feet deep, with a thick
bed of manure at the bottom. Till, clay, or wet
subsoil, is out of the question. Avoid the drying of
the roots by sun or air in the time of transplanting.
Make a trench perpendicular on one side, and of a
depth equal to the length of the roots, which are to
be set one foot from each other, and in rows two
feet and a half apart. Onions, carrots, or cauliflower,
may for a year or two occupy the intervening spaces.
In October, the stalks are cut over, and the ground
dug between the rows, taking care to avoid the roots :
and the summer culture consists of weeding, and
stirring up the soil with a fork. By the third or
fourth year you begin to eat ; but then only the
stronger plants may be cut ; and care must always be
taken to leave beneath the incision a bud for the
succeeding growth. A square pole of ground is the
least that can be depended on to furnish a dish at
each cutting. If your garden be near the sea, and
consist much of sand, you have a twofold advantage
for the rearing of this favourite vegetable — the soil is
the most suitable arid seaweed is the best manure.

Beans. — Of the many varieties of this garden
pulse, choose at least two — the whiteblossom, having

140 THE MANSE GARDEN.

the remarkable property, though black in itself, of
not tinging the broth in which it is boiled, as the
white varieties do, and the Windsor, or other large
sort, which from its size renders the operation of
blanching less troublesome. For an early production,
sow a part of each sort about the middle of February,
if the ground be tolerably dry ; if otherwise, as the
seed is apt to decay with too much wet, the sowing
must be delayed. A later crop may be sown in April*.
This pulse has no occasion for manure provided it
succeed a crop which had a sufficient allowance the
year before. As the early sown beans vegetate
slowly, the mice are apt to find them out, and may
probably finish them before their growth is well be-
gun. It is necessary therefore to adopt one of the
following precautions : — steep the seed in train oil
for a few hours ; or wet it with water, and then dust
it over it with a farthing's worth of pounded rosin ;
or sprinkle the sown drill with chopped furze before
covering in the mould. Any one of these expedients
will be completely successful. Avoid too thick sow-
ing, which admits of no growth but straw. Let the
drills be eighteen inches apart, and the seeds of the
larger sort four or five inches separate — those of the
smaller, three or four inches from each other in the
drill. In the subsequent culture, to correct the
hardness which the soil is apt to contract from heavy
rains in spring, let it be well stirred up between the
drills ; and let the summer hoeings be so frequent as
to leave no vestige of a weed, and to keep the soil
well up about the stems of the plants, which greatly
promotes the fruitfulness of the bean. If the sum-
mer prove wet, and the growth too luxuriant, the

THE MANSE GARDEN. 141

tops of the stalks should be shorn, in order to admit
more air and encourage the filling of the pods.

Beet. — Red beet (the white is not worthy of culti-
vation) is a very saccharine and wholesome vegetable,
and makes an excellent pickle. Sow the seed about
the middle of April, and on deep ground, manured
for the preceding crop. Recent manuring causes
the roots to grow fibrous and distorted, and too
early sowing disposes the plants to run to seed.
The drills should be eighteen inches apart, and the
plants thinned to six or eight inches from each other.
In lifting this crop, care must be taken not to break
the taproot. The beet may be stored in sand or
pitted in the garden before any severe frosts have
came on. In making the pit, the chief thing is to
provide for getting up the roots safely as they are
wanted. If any cut or fracture ensue, the juice
drains off in the boiling, and the pulp is rendered
useless. Let the pit be made in dry ground, six
inches deep, two feet wide, and of such length as
the bulk of the crop may require. Lay the roots
across the trench, in layers, with earth between ; and
thus, as their position is known, they are easily ex-
humated without inflicting any wound. The pit
should be ridged up and beaten smooth, to turn off
the rain.

Brocoli. — This is one of the best of vegetables,
and comes in a season of no great plenty. It is
now unfailing in many gardens where, half a century
ago, it was as little to be seen as a pine-apple. It
may be tried in any climate, even though it should
often fail, as no loss of ground is sustained by the
trial. The plants are set in good time after a crop

142 THE MANSE GARDEN.

of peas or early potatoes has been removed ; and the
brocoli again is out of the way in due season for be-
ing succeeded by various summer crops. It is not
necessary to be troubled with the many varieties of
this plant. The sulphur is the best, and should
grow, being well manured, to a circumference of
from twenty to thirty inches of solid flower — one
stock yielding a perfect feast to a whole family. For
an autumn crop, the seed is sown in April; and for
a spring crop next year, it is sown in the end of May.
The winter sometimes proves too hard for this plant,
and may cause the loss of half your crop ; but plant
on, as the ground is not lost, and in general you will
have pleasant food instead of waste land, and enjoy
a real luxury without the sin of extravagance. The
purple variety is more hardy, and may be set thicker
as it does not grow to half the size of the former.
For the spring crop, which has the winter to endure,
the warmest and most sheltered border is in general
to be chosen ; but as it will sometimes be found less
injured by frost in the open quarters, it may be as
well to give it both chances.

To keep the heart of the plant near the surface of
the ground is the best security ; and to accomplish
this, let the seedling plants be early thinned, to avoid
long stems ; and in transplanting, give them plenty
of room — the larger sort, twenty by fifteen inches,
and the smaller somewhat less. In low and warm
districts, it is found of advantage, about the end of
autumn, to lift the full grown brocoli stocks, and
plunge them up to the neck in the soil, or so to recline
them that their heads may rest on the surface of
the ground ; but in higher places, where fresh root-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 143

ing, late in the season, is more doubtful, it is better
to avoid, by the above methods, the evil of long
stalks than to depend on this second planting for a
cure. At medium elevations, the spring crop will
best stand the winter when the plants have been set
about the middle of July. When the flowering ad-
vances more rapidly than the crop can be consumed,
it answers well to take up a portion of the stocks,
with all their roots and leaves, and hang them, with
their heads down, on any back wall, out of the way,
and in open air, but not exposed to the sun. In
this position they keep fresh and good for some
weeks : they suffer nothing from rain, as the flower
is protected by the hanging leaves.

Brussels Sprduts. — So called from the numerous
sprouting heads which arrange themselves in a pyra-
midal form around the stem. This is the most
delicate variety of the kale tribe : it is easily reared,
and comes in a season of scarcity, namely, from the
dead of winter till well on in the spring; and as it
neither requires a rich soil, nor is tender as to climate,
it is difficult to account for its greater prevalence in
the southern than in the northern parts of the island.
As it occupies less breadth it may be planted thicker
than common greens. Sow the seed in March, and
plant after a shower in June.

Cabbage. — This is a principal, long standing, and
substantial vegetable — excellent for a cow or such of
our own species as have the like powers of digestion ;
and it is rather the consciousness of impotency than
refined taste that will make any one turn away from
the snowy flakes and flavorous mastication afforded by
this queen of potherbs. To begin with that which

144 THE MANSE GARDEN.

falls most within the reach of human capacity — the
early sugar-loaf cabbage, which is a light and tender
vegetable when taken at the size of lettuce and be-
ginning to change its colour from green to white —
the main fault of the early cabbage is, that it usually
comes not till far on in May, when the sun checks
its growth and hardens its fibre into wood. In
March and April it is soft and juicy ; and the culti-
vator has himself to blame if it be not then in abun-
dance, constituting the chief wealth and luxury of the
garden. Make a plantation on a warm border early
in September, from seedlings two months old. In
ordinary altitudes not one plant will die in winter :
in spring some of them will show a disposition to
run to seed; but cut before they run, — in the green
leaf they are excellent. Those planted out a month
later will succeed this first crop, and may be eaten in
all states, from the half blanched leaf to the solid boll.
The early cabbage is equally good in the end of
autumn, and for a considerable period of the winter;
and it is not a little preposterous, that the most com-
mon season of its use is just that in which it is least
fit to be eaten. Manure should not be spared, as the
quality of tenderness is in proportion to the vigour
of growth.

The late cabbage is the most valuable crop for
cows which the garden can produce. All summer
the leaves are inexhaustible, and then the huge solid
and savoury bolls cause the brutes in very gladness to
overflow with milk. Cover the cabbage plot thick
with the richest manure. Nothing on either garden
or farm will make a better return. But the great
thing is to have the plants right. Some bunches

THE MANSE GARDEN. 145

are commonly purchased at the spring fairs : they
come home yellow and pliant, having just acquired, by
decay, the proper tenderness and saccharine flavour
for the soft lip of the snail. Planted in this state,
they all vanish, or the field is wretched with blanks,
in a few days. More plants are afterwards inserted ;
but the ground has become hard, the season is gone,
and the sickly crop remains to be finished by the
caterpillar. This is nonsense. A pennyworth of
seed and less wit might save all this vexation. Sow
on the first of August, or earlier if your climate be
cold ; and two months after sowing, take up two or
three hundred of the best plants and dibble them
into a warm border, three inches asunder. Thus
treated, they grow short-stemmed and thick-necked,
with a bark which the snail can no more injure than
that of an oak. Early in February the fresh green
leaf appears, and the plant begins to gather strength
for its summer's work. From the middle to the end
of this month, when the weather is fresh arid the
ground dry, the plants may be taken up with the
ball of earth which adheres to the many fibres pushed
from the root in consequence of the previous trans-
planting, and transferred to a large open quarter duly
prepared for their reception. Such plants never feel
their removal. There is no heat to wither them/
and slight frosts do not affect them. The ground,
having been dug before winter with a deep rough
furrow, mellowed with frost and swollen with rich
manure, may be stirred from the bottom and well
loosened, but not turned over, and the plants set at
the distance of three feet by two.

The only objection to the advantage of retaining

146 THE MANSE GARDEN.

a ball of earth is the gall-nut-like excrescence which
is sometimes found on the roots of the plants. If
such appear they must be pinched off; but the dis-
ease does not occur on newly trenched ground. Snails
are worse in April than in March, and worse in May,
if the weather be wet, than in April ; but this enemy
is altogether overcome by having your plants strong,
early set, and so managed that their growth is never
suspended. By attention to the above methods, you
will see your cabbage field in ample foliage whilst
your neighbours are only planting, or needlessly fill-
ing blanks, and complaining that the garden is a mere
waste of money, as nothing can be saved from the
snails. Of the cabbage crop, a few stocks, not of
the largest size, but chosen for their firmness, may
be sunk in a furrow with their heads down, and
covered up to the roots; by which means they keep
all winter, and may be used in a season when the
garden yields fewest varieties. There is a red sort
which is used for pickles and sour krout. If you
are afflicted with scurvy, and subject to no acidity of
stomach, you may indulge in vinegar and cabbage
leaves.

Carrot. — This root should grow eighteen inches
long and nine in circumference; but for the table
it is better at half that size. It is saccharine and
nutritive, admirable for milch cows, and not bad food
for horses. Well boiled, it may be eaten to the
amount of three ounces by the sedentary, and by
labourers as they please. The cultivation of it is in
most places of this country the greatest trial of the
gardener's patience and skill. When the plants have
attained the thickness of a feather, are nicely thinned,

THE MANSE GARDEN. 147

and have spread their finely picturesque and thriving
leaves, a worm, with great prodigality destroying its
own stores, cuts the only root the plant has, and it
immediately dies. If any get further advanced be-
fore they are so attacked, they do not altogether
disappear, but maintain a sickly growth, become
stringy, and are unfit for use. The progress of the
enemy below ground is marked by the withering of
the leaves ; but there is little fruit of the discovery
save the intimation that the crop will all be destroyed.
Such noxious creatures, it would seem, are multi-
plied by our cultivation of their appropriate food.
The carrot, it is probable, when first introduced,
would have few enemies ; but now the rearing of it is
generally precarious, and the attempt often abortive.
The turnip, too, of so great importance in modern
husbandry, is likely to prove, by the disease called
" fingers and toes," that the insect causing that dis-
ease has spread over the land, in consequence of
' being nourished by the very crops which it is now
powerful enough to destroy. If this be the law of
insect population, we must draw upon the bounties
of nature for a new plant, or shift the old to a remote
and altogether new soil. Were the carrot every
where abandoned for a term of years, it might per-
haps be resumed again with entire success. But as
we are not patriots enough, by common consent, to
consult for the prosperity of the next age, we must
be content to feed the carrot worm, though it take
all to itself, or so to moderate its ravages that we
may have some share in what remains. No effectual
remedy is yet known ; but by various expedients it
is still possible to raise good carrots ; and it is a

148 THE MANSE GARDEN.

remarkable fact, that the difficulties which require
an increase of industry, or the ingenuity of a new
resource, heighten the flavour of this excellent
vegetable.

.1. To annoy the enemy, trench the ground in
October or November, mixing with the upper stratum
a moderate portion of old manure, and give a fresh
digging immediately before sowing. The larvae, if
such there be, are thus buried.

2. It will always be found that the worm is worse
in some parts of the garden than in others. Sow in
several places each season.

3. Sow at different times from the first of March
to the middle of May. The insect, which has its
season, will not hit the crowquill size of the different
sowings, at which period of advancement the attack
is ruinous.

4. Sow onions and carrots either mixed in broad-
cast or in alternate drills.

5. Water the young plants with a strong soap lee
as soon as the insect makes its appearance, and repeat
the operation so long as the plant does not seem to
suffer by the affusion.

6. Mauure the ground at the autumn or spring
digging with soot or salt. The latter must not be
applied in the proportion of more than forty bushels
to the acre* In too large quantity it may kill the
insect ; but it will also prevent every kind of vege-
table growth.

7. With the above adjuncts always adopt one
grand rule — namely, that of putting the crop into
the best condition for thriving, as it invariably fol-
lows that the dwindling growth of bad cultivation is

THE MANSE GARDEN. 149

the most assailed by all manner of insect depredators.
Have the ground deep dug or trenched and ridged
up before winter. If the under stratum of the trench
be too poor mix it with a moderate portion of old
clung. Carrots will do well after onions or celery
without additional manure ; but in all cases the soil
must be rich, though the roots must not be allowed
to come in contact with manure recently applied.

About the end of April, when a great deal of
annual weeds have begun to vegetate, and when the
ground is very dry, break down the ridges, and dig
afresh, killing the annuals and making the mould as
fine as meal. Sow in drills about an inch in depth
and eighteen inches from each other; and by several
thinnings leave the plants ultimately nine inches apart,
stirring up the ground at each weeding with a hoe or
strong fork. The early-horn is the most delicate ;
the long red is the best for a late crop; and the
Altringham, it is said, is the least liable to become
'the prey of worms. The seed requires to be well
rubbed before sowing, in order that it may separate
freely, and not occasion blanks or thick patches, which
prove detrimental to the crop.

Cauliflower — Reckoned by many the best flower
of the garden, is certainly the most delicate of ve-
getable food. To have this crop the earliest that
your climate will admit of, the first care is the man-
agement of the young plants. Sow a quarter of an
ounce of seed, or twice that quantity, about the middle
of August, on a dry bed, the least likely to be infected
with snails. About the end of September, dibble the
strongest of the plants close to the foot of a south
wall, where the fallen leaves of the fruit trees will

150 THE MANSE GARDEN.

afford a considerable protection from the frost. Mats
or the like covering may be serviceable in severe
weather. But to make sure of plants in the spring,
it is well worth while to have a small frame, say four
feet square, with a sliding glass top, and which may
serve also for other things. Set this frame upon
earth, a little raised for the sake of dryness, and
dibble into it a hundred plants, about the end of
October. Keep the roof a little open, except in
very hard weather. This slight attention is no task,
as there is much pleasure in seeing the fresh green
leaves when all else is buried under snow. In a
severe storm, the frame, besides being close shut,
may require a mat or other covering; but in few
winters, at a medium elevation, is such care neces-
sary, it being found that though the soil be hard
frozen about the plants they never die when so
situated ; and indeed it is rather quick thawing, and
frequent changes, than hard frost, that prove destruc-
tive to most vegetables.

About the end of March, when the weather is
soft, take up a few of the plants with a trowel, so as
to lift with each a little ball of earth, and set them
on the warmest border ground, into which plenty of
rich and well decayed manure has been dug before
winter. A fortnight later, plant some more in the
same way. So transplanted, these take root imme-
diately, and bear the small spring frosts without in-
jury. These advantages you have by raising your
own plants : they are at hand, and you can choose
your time to a nicety; they are short-necked and
hardy, being not too crowded in the frame, and are
lifted with earth adhering to their roots ; whereas

THE MANSE GARDEN. 151

those reared for sale, besides costing five or seven
shillings a hundred, are wiredrawn and soft as grass,
and half withered before you get them. They can
endure no frost ; they are long in taking root ; and in
some sunny day you find they have gone out of sight.

A spring sowing of cauliflower comes in time to
succeed the crops raised from winter plants ; and the
succession may be kept up till November or Decem-
ber. At any time when the flowering advances too
rapidly, the stocks may be retarded or preserved from
frost in the manner recommended for brocoli. Some
have transplanted the latest portion of the crop into
earth deposited under the roof of a shed; and by shel-
tering, airing, watering, and picking off withered
leaves, the cauliflower season may no doubt be pro-
longed ; but this trouble will seldom be judged neces-
sary, as other things come instead and in better season,
and what is lost by the temporary absence of a friend
is regained by the improved relish of next meeting.

Celery. — Of this there are several varieties; but
the best for all purposes is the upright, not turnip-
rooted, and that which has solid, not hollow stalks.
Celery is the lightest of raw vegetables, and excel-
lent in soups or stewed. To have plants in good
time,, a little artificial heat is necessary. The seed
is sown on a decayed hotbed early in March ; and
the seedlings are removed, about the end of April,
to a rich sheltered border, where they are planted a
handbreadth apart, that they may become strong and
fibrous-rooted. These qualities are perhaps better
secured by wetting and beating a piece of ground, so
as to be impervious to the roots ; and then laying
down wellwrought compost to the depth of four
inches, and upon this sowing the seed in small drills,

THE MANSE GARDEN.

to be well thinned as the seedlings advance. As the
plants, on reaching the hard substratum, are prevented
from making long taproots, they send out numerous
fibres, a mode of growth which checks the disposition
to run to seed ; and by this method of rearing they
also become strong enough, without transplanting,
for being at once removed to the trenches.

These are made in June, for receiving the plants
when they have attained to the thickness of a writing
quill. The soil should be rich, at least two feet deep
of good mould. The trenches are cut one foot in
depth, something more in width, and three feet from
each other. High ridges, of course, rise between.
Into the bottom of each trench a good supply of old
manure must be dug. Peatmoss is very congenial
if mixed with dung a year before and prepared by
several turnings. This trouble will be well repaid
by the next crop of carrots. On the bottom of the
trench, in a single row, dibble the celery plants five
or six inches apart, having previously cropped any
long roots and also the leaves. Watering is neces-
sary for a few days in dry weather. As the plants
advance the earth is drawn towards them, the inter-
vening mounds become deep furrows, and the celery
drill a high ridge. After the last earthing up about
the beginning of winter, the soil must be beat into
the shape of a roof, surmounted only by the leaves,
to prevent the rains from rotting the stems and roots
of the plants. It is by these successive coverings
that the celery is produced in long leafstalks, and
also thoroughly blanched — a quality without which
it is not eatable.

Chives — A small mild species of onion. It is
perennial, and grows wild in some parts of the

THE MANSE GARDEN. 153

country. The leaves chiefly are used as seasoning
or salad. It is propagated by parting the clustered
bulbs, and may be planted so as to form an edging —
not to flower borders, but along any of the vegetable
quarters. In this way it will serve without removal
for several years.

Cress — Plain or curled is of little consequence.
To have the first green thing of spring, dust the
seed thick into a shallow drill by the foot of a south
wall : or take a saucer and teacup, cover the latter
with flannel and invert it, fill the saucer and soak
the flannel with water, and throw upon it as much
seed as will stick. The apparatus set on a mantle-
piece will be verdant in a few days. Any of the
early sowings in the garden which happen not to be
used as a crop will produce plenty of seed.

Cucumber — Though the native of a warm climate,
is in this more easily reared than digested. It is
downright bad for most stomachs, and certainly by no
one who has ever had complaint of that organ ought
this fruit ever to be tasted. It is less pleasant to
detail the modes of cultivating a plant which to some
is at best not noxious, whilst to others it is perni-
cious ; yet as it is pleasant to see it grow, and being
at least to some eaters harmless and desirable, whilst
the fruit in its infant state is much esteemed for
pickling, it deserves as well as many of its neighbours
to have a place. In the manse garden, however, it
were quite out of place if it must be treated with all
that art which is requisite to present it in all its
varieties, and in all those seasons in which with due
care it is capable of being produced.

It is a very tender annual raised from seed, and,

G2

154 THE MANSE GARDEN.

which is singular, the seed is better for being some
years old. As there are so many sorts — early short
prickly, early long prickly, most long prickly, long
smooth green, Dutch or white short prickly, long
green Turkey, white Turkey, &c. — the simplest way
is to save the seed of that sort which best suits the
palate. The fruit must be thoroughly ripe, arid its
seed washed from the pulp and dried in paper. The
proper soil is light rich black earth, manured from a
heap of decayed vegetable matter, with a moderate
portion of old and well decayed dung. Early crops
can be raised only by the artificial heat of flued pits
or hotbeds ; and this of course must require a con-
stant gardener to regulate the heat, dissipate the
vapour, admit air, and exculde a five minutes' breath
of frost. In the south of England large cucumbers
are abundantly produced from drills in the open air,
and hence their cheapness in the market; but in the
northern parts of the island, the most that can be
done without forcing is to raise fruit of a smaller
size, by sowing under a handglass in May, and
planting out on a sheltered border in June. The
male and female flowers are on the same plant, but
under glass some movement by the hand is necessary
to effect that mixture of pollen which in the open air
is made by the breeze or the wings of the bee.

To save the time lost by transplanting, to have
also a quicker growth and larger fruit with the least
trouble, pits are made in the ground eighteen inches
deep, at the distance of four feet from each other ;
they are then filled with manure in fermentation, and
which is covered over with six inches of mould. There
the seed is sown in patches, and the seedlings after-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 155

wards thinned ; a small frame or box, having the top
covered with oiled paper, or cotton cloth at nearly as
little cost, anointed with wax dissolved in turpentine,
is set over each. This last apparatus, of remarkable
cheapness, is for many garden purposes nearly as good
as glass. The covers remain, night and day, till
settled warm weather in June ; and thus a good crop
may be raised without much trouble or expense.
The young plants require to be checked in their
growth, by pinching off the bud of the runner at the
first joint ; whence lateral shoots will proceed, and
which are more given to fruitbearing. The shoots
are commonly pricked to the ground to prevent toss-
ing; but the plant, having tendrils, proves its adap-
tation to climbing, and by giving it a few stakes, low
branching or laid on the ground, it will raise its fruit
from the damp earth, presenting it free of spots and
better flavoured. The vacant spaces of the sloping
trellis, or gravel fruit bank, previously described,
could not but afford to this plant such a field as would
delight its rambles.

Dandelion — Is used as salad, chiefly by the French.
It is said, when well blanched, to lose its extreme
bitterness ; and it has got, by the ceaseless greed of
new, things, into the garden books and cultivation of
this country. Those who desire to feed on it may
find plenty by the wayside. It is the most trouble-
some of all garden weeds. It is perennial, flowers
early, and has winged seeds. The light down skims
along the ground till it is interrupted by the box
edgings or the stems of fruit trees. In such places,
finding shelter, it takes root, and there is no getting
it dislodged. The best implement for the manage-

156 THE MANSE GARDEN.

ment of this plant is a blunt chisel with a long handle.
By working this carefully down, the root may be
extracted without uprooting the box or inflicting
canker on the fruit trees. The next resource is
industry to prevent a single plant from ripening its
seed : and to match its perennial virtue, let no piece
of ground be dug without first scrutinizing every
inch for this delicate salad herb, in order that its
roots may be carefully gathered and stored — in the
bottom of the dunghill.

Endive. — The curled leaved sorts of this are the
best, — namely, the white for earlier crops, and the
green for standing the winter. Late sowing, by the
end of May or beginning of June, prevents the nui-
sance of running to flower. Sow thin, and when the
plants are three inches high, set them in good soil,
newly dug, and in drills one foot asunder. In dry
weather, tie up the leaves for blanching when they
have grown a foot high. As it is pleasant to have
things fresh from the garden in the storms of winter,
a few plants, in the beginning of November, may
be set in a trench and earthed up nearly to the head,
by which means they will get white for use in six
weeks. All that is further necessary to observe is
to sow at intervals, according as you wish to prolong
the eating of endive. This plant must be worthy of
some attention, having kept its place in our gardens
for two hundred years: and as quick eating is neces-
sary to prevent flowering, there can be na difficulty
in procuring seed.

Fennel — Is a perennial plant used for sauces. One
variety is named sweet, another azorian, and a third
common. The azorian is the most delicate as to

THE MANSE GARDEN. 157

climate ; the common will grow anywhere, and needs
no skill for its cultivation. Reaching to the height
of four or five feet, it is very ornamental ; and it is
readily propagated by offsets.

French Beans. — See Kidney Beans.

Garlic — Not designed for food to man in a state
of society; and hermits, if they choose, may find
enough of it growing wild in the woods and glens
which they naturally frequent.

Kale. — Nobody could be troubled with all the
varieties of kale. Some tall sorts, yielding a succes-
sion of leaves, while they grow to four or five feet
in height, are good for cows; but the dwarf curled is
the only one which it is worth while to plant in the
garden for the use of the table. It is remarkably
tender, and has this quality in proportion to the pale-
ness of green and the degree of curl which adorns its
leaf. Such is the plaiting of its edges, that the leaf
of the best specimens resembles a sponge, and is fully
as thick as it is broad. Choose such a stock, and
save the seed, which will serve for many years. As
this vegetable loses much of its delicacy when raised
from plants that have stood the previous winter, it is
soon enough to sow in April or March. As soon
as the seedlings show the curl of the leaf, thin them
well out, or transplant a portion, setting them a
handbreadth asunder, in order to preserve the dwarf
quality and avoid long stems — taking care also to
select the plants, for the parent stock does not uni-
formly yield seed after its kind.

Nothing can be easier than this attention to the
growing of kale; and there is nothing in which the
advantage of high breeding is more discernible.

158 THE MANSE GARDEN.

For though kale be of universal cultivation, and
though the species be the same, yet it is rare to meet
with good greens; and of no two edible substances is
there a greater difference than subsists between the
pale, soft, and deep-fringed leaves we have described
and the dark green or dingy red, hard-ribbed, and
leather-apron-like foliage of a common kale-yard.
After early potatoes or peas have been removed, set
the plants, prepared as above, in rows two feet wide
by eighteen inches. The ground being well dug will
require no manure after potatoes, but a little after
peas or such crops as have been raised without pre-
vious manure. Should the stems, from the proxi-
mity of a wall or scarcity of air, get too high, the
whole crop may be lifted in October, in order to be
plunged up to the neck by a fresh digging, or laid
in a slope, so that the heads may rest on the ground.
This prevents the subsiding of a snow-wreath from,
carrying the leaves before it, which it does in .the
case of tall stocks, leaving nothing but bare poles.
By this method the kale will stand any winter, and
may be dug out from beneath the snow entire, and
so tender as to melt in the mouth. Salt to kale is
proverbial ; and at a season when powdered meat is
not heating to the nerves, its union with well boiled
pulpy greens gives a relish which nothing at a king's
table might improve.

Horse-radish — is as facile of growth as docks ;
but even docks, if they were useful, would require
some care to have them good. The proper sets are
either whole roots or the upper half; and the main
thing to know is the depth at which they should be
placed. One inexperienced in the ways of bad weeds

THE MANSE GARDEN. 159

might be surprised to find from how great a depth a
buried dock will set up its face ; so is it with this
stimulant and stomachic root. The sets should be
put in deep rich earth, and, if not too clayey, the
tops of the sets should be at least a foot below the
surface. From these, numbers of upright roots will
arise, and all, of course, a foot long before coming to
leaf above ground. Of these the strongest may be
at any time selected for use, and cut down to a good
length without injury to the parent root. A single
row, in any out-of-the-way place, may be sufficient ;
and which will continue in good bearing for five or
six years. A new plantation, however, must be made
one year before removing the old.

Indian Cress. — This plant, so well known to chil-
dren as a principal ornament in their little gardens,
is a native of South America. There it endures
several seasons ; but as it cannot stand our winters,
it appears in this country only as an annual. It is
remarkable for the long period in which its fine
orange flowers* are produced, and for the great height
to which they are reared. Favoured with shelter
and support, it will grow seven feet high, and blossom
from midsummer till it is killed by the winter frost.
The, leaves hang: curiously by the centre, and bend
their stalks in such a way as to catch any object for
support. The pods are used for pickles ; the leaves
and flowers for salad; and the seed is gathered ripe
in September. Manure added to the soil increases
the growth, but lessens the beauty and fruitfulriess
of this plant.

Jerusalem Artichoke. — There are few corruptions

* There is now also a beautiful dark variety.

160 THE MANSE GARDEN.

more dishonourable to our language than the name
of this plant. Artichoke, from the resemblance of
flavour, is all well ; but what has Jerusalem to do
in the matter ? The plant is a species of sunflower,
(Helianthus tuberosus,) and therefore the Italians
have properly called it girasole; and we, having
learned their name, of which they pronounce all the
four syllables, making the g soft, have innocently
thought they were speaking of Jerusalem. This
plant flowers occasionally in our climate, but never
ripens its seed : it grows eight or ten feet high, and
yields a good crop of tubers, buried in a mass of small
fibres, at the foot of each stalk. It is an excellent
vegetable, and in a place of moderate shelter is as
easily produced as potatoes. The cutting of the sets,
the mode of planting, manuring, and hoeing, differ
in nothing worthy of notice from the respective opera-
tions of potato culture. Some complain of the diffi-
culty of getting the ground cleared of the roots, and,
sloven-like, resign a portion of the garden to be over-
run with the tubers year after year, and thus gather
what they can, of the worst quality, from the confu-
sion of chance growth and the just sterility of lazy
cultivation. The potato, long treated in the same
way, and for the same reason, was bad and unprofit-
able ; and hence, from sloth or wrong judgment,
founded on ignorance, this invaluable boon was re-
tained in the country a hundred years before it reached
the families of the poor ! To get rid of stray roots,
whether artichoke or potato, do not sow onions for
the next crop, as the seedling beds will be sadly de-
faced by the strong growth of the lurking roots, but
wait for a late crop : and when all that is alive of the

THE MANSE GARDEN. 161

ungathered bulbs has come to light, in May apply
the spade, and make an entire extirpation, and the
cleared ground will be in good time and good con-
dition for a full crop of turnips, cabbages, kale, or
brocoli.

Kidney Beans. — The dwarf varieties are the best,
as they bear well and need no support. The scar-
let runner is worthy of notice as a beautiful flower,
and useful, by its rambling growth, for ornamenting
any object which in itself might be a deformity. The
low growing sorts are sown towards the end of April,
in drills two feet asunder, three inches separate in
the drill, and covered in with two inches of mould.
Earlier sowings are apt to perish with frost : if a
succession of crops is wanted, more seed may be sown
any time in May or June. When eaten young and
tender, the pods are delicious, but if not taken in
time they become like tow in the mouth, and the
crop is entirely lost.

Leeks. — It is often questioned whether hare or
leek soup has the preference ; and the decision which
is usually given in favour of that one which happens
to be present shows that both are esteemed good
things, and that the leek makes one of the best soups.
The Scotch leek, as it endures the hardest winter,
and is the better for all the frost it gets, is undoubt-
edly the best variety for this country. Nothing can
be worse than a small, hard, ill thriven leek ; and few
things are better than one that is fully grown to the
thickness of a cane, blanched to the whiteness of
snow, and which falls in the boiling like stewed
apples. The first thing is to have seedling plants
in due season. In high situations, where they do

162 THE MANSE GARDEN.

not spring early, it is better to procure plants from
a warmer climate, and which is the more convenient
as they do not readily suffer by carriage. There is
no advantage in very early sowing, as the seed waits
for heat. The first of April is soon enough : and
it is a good rule to sow pretty thick for shelter, and
at more breadth than is necessary for a supply of
plants; for it so happens, that out of the greater
multitude of chances, plants of a good size are more
early procured. This principle ought to be noticed
in garden competitions — as a larger field, without
better cultivation, has, for an extraordinary produc-
tion, the advantage over one that is smaller. In the
beginning of July, on the removal of some early crop,
dig plentifully into the ground old black well decayed
manure, and in soft weather take up the seedling
leeks, select the largest, crop them at both ends, and
throw aside all that have suckers ; make deep holes
with the dibble, in rows one foot by six inches, and
let the plants drop in nearly up to the head. Leave
the holes open, sending down only as much earth as
may serve to cover the roots. The open space en-
courages the swelling of the stem, and answers per-
fectly for blanching — while the slight covering is of
use, partly to prevent withering, and partly the
strange vexation of finding your plants lying full
length on the surface, being hauled up by worms.

It is no bad plan, if you cannot have your plants
early, to avoid transplanting altogether. With this
intention, gather the ground into small ridges eigh-
teen inches apart, and sow the seed in the furrows
between each ridge. Thin out, and let the plants
grow where they have been sown ; and the interven-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 163

ing mounds will serve for earthing up and blanching
the leeks. A great part of the best growing season,
which is lost by the sickness of transplanting, is thus
saved to the still growing and vigorous plant ; and in
this way very large and excellent crops may be raised,
though at somewhat greater expense, the ground not
yielding, as by the former method, two crops in the
season. It is of advantage to raise your own seed,
as you can make sure of having it a year old, from
which the crop is less liable to suffer by shooting.
Let a few of the largest leeks be set any time in
October or February, within a foot of a south wall,
to which, as they grow up, they may be held by a
string. They will ripen their seed, in common
years, at a moderate elevation. Should the season
be unfavourable, a few of the heads may be drawn
together, and placed behind a handglass well fastened
to the wall, which will exclude rain and frost, and
admit, till late in autumn, the benefit of the declin-
ing sun.

Lettuce. — Of it there are many varieties ; but
two or three of the best may suffice. Of the tall-
growing sort, named coss or ice lettuce, the green
is the fittest for this climate. To have it early, it
may be sown by a south wall in February, or, for
convenience, along with onions or carrots. The seed
cannot be too lightly covered. When the seedlings
are three or four inches high, they may be trans-
planted in showery weather, in rows one foot apart
in each direction. By tying the leaves together near
the top, when well grown, they soon become beauti-
fully blanched and delicate. Of the cabbage kind,
the brown is the best for standing the winter, and

164 THE MANSE GARDEN.

eats very tenderly in spring. It may be sown in
drills on a warm dry border in August, and must be
well thinned and cleared, in order to get hardy before
the frosts come on. Another cabbage lettuce, which
has obtained the name of drumhead, blanches well of
its own accord, and is the most tender of all the tribe.
It does not stand the winter, but is excellent for
summer and autumn use. To have lettuce at all
times, no other rule is necessary than to make suc-
cessive sowings, keeping pace with the eating or
the shooting of the crops. The milky juice com-
mon to this family is an opiate, and has been used
medicinally.

Mangold, or Mangel-wurzel — a species of beet.
The French, probably from mistaking the German
name, have called this " root of scarcity " — a great
misnomer certainly, as it will grow by good manage-
ment to the amount of forty tons per acre. As it
begins now to be largely cultivated, it is more pro-
perly allied to the farm than to the garden ; but as
some part of the latter, both for the sake of economy
and the benefit arising from a change of crop, is fitly
allotted to the feeding of cows, this new plant is well
worthy of a place. It should grow to the size of a
sturdy leg ; but if it attain only to the thickness of
your wrist, either your ground wants trenching, or
you have admitted some error in the cultivation ; and
it will be important, therefore, either to acquire the
needful art, or to abandon a crop which, without
proper management, will prove indeed the " root of
scarcity." If your soil wants depth, rather choose
for it a plant that grows above ground : this must
get down ; but it will not, like an iron pike, force

THE MANSE GARDEN. 165

its way through rock or till. It must not only have
an easy road, but something good beneath to invite
it downwards.

With regard to transplanting, though recom-
mended by respectable writers, it may be observed,
that in a climate where all the growing season is
needful, no loss in this way ought to be sustained.
Where a single root of this mangold may grow to
the weight of thirty or even fifty pounds the grower
cannot easily go wrong ; but here, as there is a loss
of time by transplanting, so the loss to the crop is
irreparable — as is the case with the Swedish turnip,
though it agrees not ill with the like operation. To
have the benefit of transplanting, without sustaining
any loss, its proper use is merely to fill any blanks
that may occur ; and for this purpose a small bed
should be sown a week earlier than the main crop.

For the principal sowing, let the ground be dug
or ploughed with manure before winter ; for this
plant, like radish, carrot, or red beet, does not
agree with dung newly deposited. Let the soil be
deeply stirred up in spring, and, if too shallow, drawn
into high drills two feet apart. In plough manage-
ment, first make a set of drills, and then reverse
them. This double operation is only equal to one
ploughing; but it leaves the ground in drills, and
every inch has been turned and loosened. In the
dryest weather, as near the beginning of April as
may be, slightly rake or smooth with the harrow the
tops of the drills, on the summit of which sow thin
and regular, in small ruts two inches deep : the drills
to be afterwards thinned out to the distance of one
foot or fifteen inches, according to the strength of

166 THE MANSE GARDEN.

the soil. In preparing seedlings for transplanting,
they may be cropped as to the leaves ; but the tap-
root must not be touched, but let down at full length,
leaving the upper part of the roof a little above the
surface of the ground, according to the natural growth
of the plant. The fittest season is in showery wea-
ther, and when the seedlings are the thickness of a
writing quill. From this crop a profusion of leaves
may be gathered for cows in the course of the sum-
mer without injury to the growing plants.

Marjoram. — Three sorts of this are cultivated.
That called pot is perennial, and is propagated by
cuttings or slips. Of sweet marjoram, the seed,
which is imported, not ripening in this country, must
be sown every year, as the plant is biennial, and not
ready for use in the first year of its growth. The
flowers are gathered in July, and dried in the shade.
Winter sweet marjoram is perennial. It is propa-
gated by parting the roots in autumn, and requires a
dry bed and good shelter. All three belong to the
trashy tribe of culinary articles used not for food
but pernicious sauce.

Melon — Great chieftain of the fruit race, though
usually ranked with the productions of the kitchen
garden. The varieties, it seems, amount to nearly
a score, of which three fourths are cultivated and
variously recommended. To the less knowing they
are nearly all one, having still the flavour and form
peculiar to the melon. No sooner is the crust broken
than the red gold appears, and the sweetest perfumes
are exhaled. The odour is itself a feast to the nerves
of the delicate who may feast no further; and to the
strong a premonition that they are in danger. The

THE MANSE GARDEN*. 167

seductions of this little world of pleasure are generally
feared; nevertheless, as in the greater instance, " bit
by bit the world is swallowed."

Whether the melon ought to be admitted into
the manse garden is a question which the following
may help to solve : — The author once had thoughts
of cultivating this fruit, and of giving its process of
culture a place in this manual. The breadth of glass
seemed not very formidable, and the requisite heat is
not that of actual combustion. Nay, there arises from
this very thing an argument of beautiful economy.
A dunghill must ferment somewhere, and its heat is
dissipated. Instead of giving this warmth to the
unthankful winds, why not apply it to the production
of the rich odour and nectarine juice of the melon ?
Full of this argument, the next thing was to get the
needful science; and proceeding in this search, the
title of Chap. I, " Melon Garden," proved not a
little staggering. Then came something about the
convenience of a cart road leading to the interior,
namely, of the melon garden — another staggerer.
But still a wheelbarrow road might do ; and melon
garden, after all, might signify only a part of the
garden separated from the rest by a holly hedge.
But next came the various sets of hotbeds and hot
ridges, the one-light and two-light frames; the ther-
mometrical trials; the decay, the revival, and the
preservation of heat ; the opening of the glass for
air and the hazard of a shower; the awnings for the
sun and the mattings for the frost ; the constant
waterings, with the cautions not to wet a leaf; the
drying of the seed by animal heat, that is by carry-
ing it in the pocket, and keeping it till five years

168 THE MANSE GARDEN.

old ; the cautious turning of the fruit, like a patient
in bed, with this greater care, that whereas the
patient may at any time be turned either way, the
last turning of the melon must be remembered, in
order that the next may observe a contrary direction,
lest by several turnings in one way the head should
fall off; and with this care of turning the fruit, the
contrary caution is necessary with regard to the leaves,
which must not be permitted to turn by the casual
breeze, but must all have their faces set full to the
sun, and be kept in that position, for which purpose
a liberal use of pegs is recommended. How much
further such lore must be carried the writer is not
aware, as at this stage he was arrested by a consider-
able commotion of disgust, not only with the pains
necessary to produce the fruits, but with the fruits
themselves, and scarcely failing to include the eaters.
But as disgust is no argument to those whose head is
happily unaffected by the liver, the sounder reasoning
for them may thus proceed : —

The melon is not a crop of which the expense of
rearing is in proportion to the quantity reared : the
constancy of care is the main cost; and that required
for a single fruit is as much as that required for a
hundred ; and as it is by hundreds that the market
is supplied, when you buy one, you pay only in
the proportion of one to a hundred ; and therefore it
is a hundred times cheaper to buy than to rear a
melon. To which add, that comparing the multifa-
rious recipes of cultivation with the resources of the
manse, it is ten to one that, with much toil, but
failing in some point, even a single melon should not
be reared.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 169

Mushrooms — May be cultivated by those who de-
sire to study the artificial production of their spawn ;
for all other ends it were better to leave them alone.
These mushroom beds require as much attention as
a porter brewery, without yielding its profit; and
withall this fungus, nursed under filthy straw, in the
dark and dryrot atmosphere of a shed, has neither
the fine flavour nor the wholesomeness of those which
are sprinkled by nature and shine like the galaxy on
azure pastures. It is true that in some years the
mushroom is not produced ; but it is also true, that as
it furnishes a most delicious but somewhat dangerous
feast, there is safety in long periods of restriction ;
and for its better use — that of the savoury and not
hurtful sauce which it yields — it may be gathered in
some seasons to the amount of cart loads ; and the
produce will keep, like the corn of Egypt, till plenty
return.

This plant, like the best of virtues, has its coun-
terfeits; and let neither man, woman, nor child,
gather, stew, broil, eat, or sip of any fungus without
a discriminating knowledge, gained by sight, and
smell, and locality, which no paper description can
possibly convey; and let not those who have the
spawn of their own manufacture, without such know-
ledge, confide in their artificial productions. " Ex-
cessive moisture," says the most experimental of
gardeners, " is not only apt to destroy the spawn,"
(and what sort of spawn may come instead?) "but it
debases the flavour of such fungi as are produced
under it." And such excess of moisture, he ob-
serves, is supposed to render the " salutary sorts less
so, and to make the unwholesome kinds more acri-

170 THE MANSE GARDEN.

monious." Hence it would appear that the scientific
produce is not absolutely safe, but may in certain
cases be as dangerous as that which is gathered from
the stumps of old trees or from under a hedge.

Onions — Is the most precious crop of the garden,
and precious just because the highest cultivation is
requisite for the attainment of the highest produce ;
and more art being necessary, there are more failures,
which serve to enhance the price. It is needless to
attend to all the varieties of the onion. The culti-
vator who depends on new sorts is like the invalid
who is always changing his medicines, but who had
much better apply with more exactness the common
and well known rules of health. One sort of onion
differs far less from another than the degree of skill
in different hands or the degree of quality in differ-
ent soils. The best sort for keeping is the Stras-
burgh, and for a large crop the white Spanish : the
silver-skinned is beautiful, and the dwarf-grown of
that sort are the handsomest for pickles. The soil
cannot be too light, if it be rich with old manure,
incorporated by digging about the end of autumn.
It is of advantage in the course of the winter, after
the manure has become amalgamated with the soil,
to ridge up the earth like potato drills, which, by
pulverizing and drying, prepares for early sowing.
As the seed may be ill ripened, or mixed with
what is too old, it is of use to prove it, in order to
avoid blanks, which in drilled crops are never to be
tolerated, as well as to guard against sowing too
thick, which gives weakness to the plants, and much
trouble of thinning at a time when the ground ought
not to be touched. To try the vegetative powers of

THE MANSE GARDEN. 171

the seed, put a few grains into a flowerpot, which
place on a shelf of the kitchen, and observe how many
of them spring up.

In February, or as soon as the ground is dry,
prepare for sowing by leveling down the ridges, —
not by digging, for it were wrong to bury that part
of the soil which is in the best condition, being dry
and mellowed by the frost ; and as the roots seek
but little depth, they will not encounter the less
favourable soil which lies beneath, and will derive
no benefit from the best if it be put lowest by the
spade. When the ground is finely raked, make
the drills half an inch deep and one foot apart. It
is of great consequence to have an hour or two of
sunshine before sowing. To form the drills, it an-
swers well to lay down the handle of the rake, where
its length may be nearly equal to that of the drill,
and to walk along it, which will make an equal im-
pression of the proper depth, and save a good deal of
time and of poaching about in shifting and setting
the line. Having sown the seed, make no further
use of the rake than merely to obliterate the drills.

Drilling is greatly preferable to broadcast, as the
former admits of the hoe, which both saves trouble
of weeding and promotes the growth of the crop..
Of "the seedlings make two thinnings, the first to
give air to the plants as soon as they can be handled,
the second to be final, leaving the plants a hand'
breadth apart; and that those which are extracted
may not be lost, they may be planted in close drills,
on any spare piece of ground, for occasional use.
Thus the main crop has fair play, and suffers no
molestation by unskilful intruders till ripe for gather-

172 THE MANSE GARDEN.

ing. After thinning, the ground should be hoed
and watered; and it is easy to conduct the hoe in
such a way as to leave no footmarks. The matu-
rity of the crop is known by the withering of the
leaves; but as some individuals will prove refractory
in not decaying along with the rest, it is convenient
to have their necks broken or twisted a week before
reaping, that the ground may be all cleared at once.
Much wet after ripeness is injurious : should a few
dry days occur, the whole crop may be spread along
the side of the gravel walk and exposed to the sun ;
but if there be a threatening of much rain, the onions
had better be spread in a single layer on the garret
floor. A selection should be made of such bulbs as
have small necks for keeping longest. Tight tying
in strings, to be hung up in the kitchen, is some
trouble, but effectually prevents growing.

One or two ounces of seed may be sown in
August, for a spring and early summer crop. At a
medium elevation, the middle of August is the pro-
per season ; and sooner or later, from the beginning
to the end of the month, according as your situation
is near the mountains or on the level of the sea.
The exactness of season is in this case important,
iind is best learned by trial: if too late, the seedlings
are thrown out by the frosts in winter ; if too early,
the plants all shoot in summer. Some in any case
will shoot ; but by pinching off the pruriant bud,
£0od keeping bulbs may be secured.

There is a tree sort, which bears its bulbs at the
top of a long stalk ; and another, called the potato
onion, which bears below ground, according to its
name. This last is capable of producing well, but is

THE MANSE GARDEN. 173

only to be preferred where the raising of a crop from
seed is found to be precarious. A worm or maggot
is the main enemy. Observe the rule of manuring
as above; do not sow again for a time on the spot
that has once been infected by the worm ; try ground
that has been long under a different sort of crop —
as strawberries, artichokes, rhubard, or seakale. It
is not probable that any remaining scent of the re-
moved crop offends the maggot ; but very likely it
is, that the foresight of the parent judged the places
bearing such crops unsuitable for the deposition of
her larvse during the previous year. Transplanting
may also have a good effect in saving onions from the
destructive maggot. With this intention, very early
sowing must be observed; and the roots may be
soaked in a solution of soot mingled with earth. By
sowing a small bed about midsummer, very thick,
and on the poorest soil, either that which is gravelly
or under the shade of trees, an immense number of
small bulbs, like beads, may be raised, and kept
through the winter, to be planted out in spring. It
is said that they grow very large and excellent
onions : and the method certainly ought to be tried
in cold and wet climates, where early sowing is im-
practicable.

Parsley. — That you may not be tempted to dig up
what you have sown, it is well to be apprised of the
fact that the seed of this plant will lie in the ground
five or six weeks before springing. The curled va-
riety is the prettiest for an edging in the garden, as
well as for a garnish upon the table ; it has also this
advantage, that it prevents all risk of mistaking for
the salutary kind, that herb called fool's parsley, which

174 THE MANSE GARDEN.

is poisonous, and very like the common or plain-leaved
sort. Sow early in March. The seed is readily
procured from any plants that remain uncropped the
second year. As it is pleasant to have green leaves
in a long winter storm, a drill may be covered by
laying down some pea stakes, and sloping over these
in hard weather a few branches of spruce, such de-
fence being preferable to straw, the sight of which
is hard to be endured in the garden.

Parsnips — Once much in vogue, now falling into
disuse. The whole fact it may not be easy to ex-
plain; but the present decline of parsnip cultivation is
not wonderful to the writer, who, having great bene-
volence toward all the tribes of culinary vegetables,
and wishing none to be excepted from the highest
proof of love, namely, that of eating the object, has
long tried to acquire a relish for this plant, in which
however he has not been able to succeed. The
parsnip agrees with a deep and rich but not recently
manured soil. It may be sown in March, eitjier
broadcast or in drills one foot apart and thinned to
half that distance. It is not injured by frost, and
may be taken up as required; or to have the ground
properly cultivated, the whole crop may be gathered
in October, and pitted like potatoes.

Peas. — Nothing can be more idle than to study
the endless varieties of peas. To collect parcels,
label, sow in patches, keep tallies, boil in several
pots, arid write the taste in separate pages, is scarcely
consistent with the use of ordinary intellect, or with
the idea that life has other ends than eating. But
as there are always some minds which have a pre-
dilection for such science, the result of their experi-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 175

mcnts, which they have no unwillingness to commu-
nicate, is one of the things which may be safely taken
upon credit, to the saving of one's time. But with
all this trouble of nice distinctions there is no great
profit; a law of nature is perpetually against the tri-
fler; for by the intermingling of pollen his catalogues
are soon confounded. Get seed from a respectable
merchant and raise a good crop, and you will never
eat a bad pea.

For the first crop sow early-frame or Charlton; the
former is so named because, being the earliest, it has
been used for sowing under glass frames. For late
crops sow dwarf marrowfat or blue Prussian, both of
which are excellent, and grow only to a moderate
height. Those sorts which require staking seven
feet high are a pest, as they shadow so much of the
ground, or become, if not duly supported, unfruitful
by falling in heaps over the stakes and choking one
another. The early-frame may be sown about the end
of October, along a south wall or on a warm border,
to stand the winter. As they generally prove but
thin and low, and are soon removed, little injury is
done to the trees. As the crop is precarious it is as
well not to be troubled with more than a pound of
seed sown in this way. The pea agrees well with
transplanting; and for the earliest crop it is much
surer to raise seedlings in thick rows under a frame,
to be planted out in the end of February. For a
later crop, seed may be sown on the open ground at
the same time; and onwards to the first of July you
may sow for a succession of crops, according to your
demand, observing to make the last of an early sort.
The chief thing in the management of peas is to

176 THE MANSE GAKI>EN.

divide the ground used for such crops as are cleared
off every year into four parts, allotting one to the
pea in succession. It becomes unprolific when too
frequently on the same soil. By this method you
avoid the ugliness of stakes in all places of the gar-
den; and make the remembrance easy as to the appli-
cation of manure, which is of importance, as peas
grow only to straw on soil that is too rich, and ought
not to be sown except on ground that has been ma-
nured for the previous crop. Begin sowing the pea
quarter at the side remotest from the sun, that the
subsequent portions of the crop may not suffer shad-
ing by those more advanced. Sow two drills six
inches apart, and the next two at the distance of
four feet. This wide space may serve for a crop of
spinach. A very simple art in staking is worthy of
notice : — shape the branches flat like a wall tree ;
insert the largest, one to every yard; and fill the
intervals with short ones having branches near the
ground. By this means the peas have more air,
and a fourth part of the wood commonly used will be
quite sufficient. Small twine is better than nothing
where stakes cannot be had. There is a dwarf sort
of pea, not otherwise to be preferred, which needs
no support. Frequent hoeing, whilst it promotes the
fruitfulness of the crop, has an excellent effect in dis-
turbing the slug. This enemy, when very trouble-
some, may be further treated with quick lime, which,
adhering to its slimy skin, disposes the creature to
rub itself below ground and to travel less on the sur-
face. Some have supposed that the mouse will not
find out your newly sown peas unless, through care-
lessness, some straggling seeds be left uncovered ; but

THE MANSE GARDEN. 177

careful hiding will be no security, as the mouse has
an excellent nose; and it is better to meet its deli-
cate sense with that which it cannot relish. — See the
harmless use of rosin for that purpose, as previously
stated under the article, Beans.

Potato. — The introduction of this invaluable root
to our island — the prejudices which were long enter-
tained respecting it — its culture carried on by the
most defective process for more than a century, and
the consequent slowness with which it reached the
families of the poor to enrich them, (whilst the im-
poverishing tobacco plant, brought from America at
the same time, spread with rapidity over Europe) —
its now almost universal cultivation, affording the
chief subsistence of so many human beings, and pro-
ducing so great effects on the physical and moral
condition of the empire — might constitute the mate-
rials of a history due to this plant more than to any
other production of the vegetable kingdom as yet
known in these realms or perhaps in the whole world.
But how to have the earliest and how to have the
best crops are the only objects at present in view.
The former is promoted by very early planting, as
may be judged by observing the appearance in spring
of such stray roots as have escaped the severity of
winter. But this advantage of an early start is not
without certain hinderances : when the leaves are
frost bitten, the plant is more than retarded — the
nature of its growth is changed ; and again, the soil,
exposed after early planting to the spring rains, gets
too hard for the very delicate fibres of the roots, and
becomes also much colder by reason of its compactness.
To have, then, both the advantage of early growth
H 2

178 THE MANSE GARDEN.

and freedom from these evils, in January lay some
cuttings or whole potatoes, of the ash-leaved sort or
of the early-frame, on boards covered two inches deep
with moist sand, chaff, or sawdust, in a place where
there is light and some heat. The loose covering
encourages the growth of fibrous roots, which may
be lifted from the board entire, with the chaff or other
matter adhering, and in the best condition for trans-
planting. In the beginning of March, on ground
newly dug, by the foot of a south wall, where small
frosts have little effect, set the well grown plants in
a drill four inches deep, with a sprinkling of dry old
dung both above and below. Branches of spruce
fir or rough-twined ropes of straw, held a few inches
above the drill, may be used when needful as a de-
fence from hoarfrost. The planting must be later
according to the climate and to the degree of frost
usual at that early season. It is needless to men-
tion, that planting under cover in a hotbed is a surer
way to the early production of a few handfuls of in-
different potatoes ; but it is somewhat curious, and
perhaps less known, that potatoes covered with earth
on a cellar floor, without the access of light or air,
though they produce no leaves, may be taken up in
winter with pretty large young tubers, which, how-
ever, have little of the mealy quality and as little of
a good flavour.

It is far easier, however, to have old potatoes in
good condition than to contend with nature for the
production of new ones; and as those raised by forc-
ing are neither palatable nor wholesome, we shall
turn to what is more useful — the obtaining of a good
early crop in due season. The sorts that have been

THE MANSE GARDEN. 179

named, as they have little profusion of leaves, may
be planted before a south wall, without injury to the
trees, and will thus come very early to maturity.
An ingenious friend has assured me, on his own ex-
periment, that if early potatoes, designed for seed,
be taken up not sufficiently ripened, and left exposed
on the surface for some weeks, bleaching in the wea-
ther, (to use an Irishism) till they become green, will
produce a much earlier crop next year. The middle
of March, at a medium elevation, is soon enough for
planting, when the safe conduct of the crop is to be
entrusted to the elements ; and even then it is better
to put the dung above the sets ; for so placed, as it
excludes the frost, it admits of a shallower covering
of earth, and thus favours the fruitfulness of the
potato. The drills may be two feet separate for the
ash-leaved, and a little more for those sorts which
grow more luxuriant.

Of late potatoes, one of the best varieties now in
use is that called the don; it is dark, with white
spots, high flavoured, solid, nutritious, and keeps
long. Though not so numerous at the stalk, it yields
as much weight per acre, as any other sort — as it
produces very few that are not full sized. It is con-
venient however to plant some of the white varieties,
which are better for eating in the early part of the
season. The drills for late crops should be thirty
inches asunder and the sets nine or ten. In the
garden, the most careful gathering is important on
account of the succeeding crop. — See Jerusalem
Artichoke.

The worst evil (at least till of late years) incident
to the cultivation of potatoes has been curled leaf.
The nature of the disease is not well known ; but it is

180 THE MANSE GARDEN.

pretty certain a remedy may be found in saving for
seed a portion of the previous crop before it has come
to maturity. For this purpose, either plant late, or
take up as soon as the leaves turn yellow — at least a
fortnight before that ripeness in which the tubers fall
easily from the stalks, or, which is better, procure
potatoes for seed from a high district, where perfect
ripening is incompatible with the climate. Exhaus-
tion of the vegetative powers is the probable cause
of curl; hence the advantage of premature gathering,
and the propriety of cutting off the flowers before
the seed-berries begin to form — the ripening of which
goes far to diminish the strength of the root. It is
supposed, and not without good reason, that every
variety of the potato propagated by cuttings, as well
as every species of fruit trees not indigenous and
renewed by engrafting, have only a certain age to
which they can attain; hence no favourite sort con-
tinues long to flourish, and hence new varieties must
be sought by sowing the seed.

But a more recent evil, and fur more ruinous, being
already of considerable extent and still progressive,
is the perishing of the seed or sets before springing
up. This prevails both in Britain and Ireland, as
well as in the smaller islands along the coasts ; and
though only of a few years' duration, yet as the
malady has been met by seasons differing from one
another in dryness and moisture, heat and cold, it
becomes more alarming, as it goes on notwithstand-
ing such variations and is gaining ground from year
to year.

The first thing the mind does in such a case is to
seek out the cause of the disease, in order thence to
deduce the cure. But the multitude of causes which

THE MANSE GARDEN. 181

continue to be assigned is proof that no sufficient
one has as yet been discovered; hence the remedies,
as iu all such cases, are perplexing by their variety,
and wearisome because of their doubtful or hopeless
applicatibn. To account for the disease by the state
of the soil, the character of the season, the heat of
the manure, the preparation of the sets, or the period
of their exposure to the sun, must be vain, seeing
that all such causes have occurred in the course of a
hundred years without producing the effect that is
now deplored.

The author, though he cannot boast of bringing
forward a cure, is yet led to the humble task of re-
cording the malady, in order that his book may not
be inconsistent with the events of history belonging
to the things of which it treats, or seem guilty of a
glaring anachronism, as it would, were he, in writing
of the potato, to take no notice of its failure, at a
time when the subject is under debate, and greatly
interesting not only by the loss which the grower
sustains, but by the progress of an evil as yet un-
remedied and threatening the food on which millions
of our race depend. It may not be without use,
however, to remark, that though we have had the
experience of a hundred years without such failure,
yet is the event not so anomalous as its novelty and
importance would make it appear. The diseases of
wheat have, from time to time, been as threatening ;
and had we as much depended for our food on red
clover or carrot or turnip as on the potato, the loss to
the grower had ere now been as deeply felt, and the
hopes of the consumer had been as darkly clouded.

The whole circumstances of the potato failure fall

182 THE MANSE GARDEN.

in with the course of general laws which men must
study for their life, and in which it will be found
that no quarrel with the arrangements of providence
can be justly entertained. It may seem indeed like
a snare laid for mortals, that first a prolific plant
should increase the means of subsistence; that next
the population should multiply according to the en-
larged provision ; and that lastly the plant, having
led to the increase of population, should itself dwin-
dle and leave the people to die. But who laid the
snare ? Providence is too bountiful in the rich va-
riety of its productions to countenance the supposi-
tion that the Giver of all good ever designed any
portion of the human race to live on potatoes alone.
The fact of ill health resulting from such fare — the
very structure of man's frame — and the varied bounty
of nature's gifts — conspire to prove that disorder has
been introduced into the economy of nature, when
human beings have laid their plan of life so low as
that which befits only the lowest of the brute creation.
Let this plan be carried a certain length, and there
proceeds an excess of potato cultivation. But this
is none of nature's plan ; and with this the laws of
vegetable production will not agree. Let it be re-
membered with what vigour any plant new to the
soil takes the earth, and how kindly the earth gives
welcome to the stranger, if at all there be a fair
adaptation of climate ; and let it be remembered too,
that this mutual understanding of soil and plant con-
tinues uninterrupted only till there be an undue in-
terference with the law that insists on diversified
productions, and then it will be judged no anomalous
thing that the potato at a certain period should be
reduced, as it now is, to a precarious growth.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 183

Yet in all this, while we find nothing to blame,
we will find much to admire. The Creator, who
abhors idols, will not suffer one plant to be the sole
dependence of rational creatures ; and if they will so
depend for their life they must be poor and sickly
and see their idol broken before their eyes. Not
that any plant must cease to grow. Turnip, carrot,
and red clover, still live : — so will the potato : but
its cultivation to excess will not do; it must be con-
tent with a more limited field, and allow of other
things, in fair proportion, agreeably at once to the
constitution of man and of the ground on which he
lives.

The moral part of the Almighty's scheme ought
not to be overlooked. It is not the feeding of man's
body alone, but the exercise of man's mind, that the
Deity promotes by his beneficent arrangements.
When men first begin to cultivate the ground they
are weak and ignorant like infants at the breast, and
the earth gives her abundance solicited by little la-
bour or skill. But there is given to the soil a law
of decreasing fertility, which must be met by an in-
crease of science ; and for this attainment men have
time whilst they are nourished by an easy bounty,
and must proceed, by new inventions of art, to com-
pensate the diminishing fertility of nature. But
there is another law of decrease similar to this, and
leading to the like effects — there is the decreasing
aptitude of the plant to the soil, in consequence both
of less favour shown by the ground and of more
worms fed by the plant; and which, being at first
dependants, become at length so numerous as to as-
sume the attitude of foes and the power of destroyers.

184 THE MANSE GARDEN.

And here also ingenuity and industry must be stimu-
lated both to discover the way of the spoilers and
to give to the ground a more laborious tillage. Thus
it is so ordered that the moral part of our nature is
advanced by the necessity and difficulty of providing
the things on which we depend for our physical sub-
sistence. The law is good, and the effect will be
still to produce the potato, but at somewhat more of
cost — and to introduce slowly, and therefore safely,
a change to a better state of things in the condition
of those to whom the potato has been the only staff
of bread. The plant is indeed excellent in its pro-
per place ; and there is no fear for its production to
the amount that is really beneficial. But out of its
proper sphere it is a curse ; and now, as might be
expected, the intimation is given that it shall not re-
main to occupy the only place in man's eye to the
exclusion of other gifts, and shall not go on to be
the too easy and sole subsistence of millions, to per-
petuate their generations in the misery of physical
weakness and moral degradation.

Before this new malady occurred there appeared
a vast amount of human life thrown into abject de-
pendence on the thriving of a single root — always
surpassing by their numbers the limits of its largest
supplies, and either learning the patience of famine
or being tempted to steal, and, under the one engros-
sing care of maintaining existence, unable to look
higher for the consolations of a salutary affliction or
the hope that purifies by a heavenward aim : and
hence neither will piety nor patriotism complain
though no specific or effectual cure of this malady
should be found; for then it will appear that in the

THE MANSE GARDEN. 185

very laws of vegetable production there is laid a check
to the worst of moral evils, as well as an incentive
to the virtues that adorn humanity and prepare for a
world to come.

With regard to the storing of potatoes out of
doors and their safety in winter, the progress of frost
ought to be observed. As soon as it has got to the
depth of seven inches in the ground the potato pits
are in danger, and may certainly be saved by covering
them with a thick coat of litter or a plentiful supply
of ivhins. The other difficulties are incessant growing
in spring, or shriveling when the growth is checked
by dry air. Some recipes that have been given to
the public are quite fallacious. A dip in boiling water
settles the question as to growth, but the potato soon
decays; salt prevents all vegetation, but if to such an
extent it be mingled with soil for covering potatoes
it destroys them. The extraction of the buds,
though it impedes the growth only for a time, is the
most common and for general use the best remedy,
together with clean sweeping, thin spreading, and
occasional turning in an open well aired place. This,
however, cannot prevent shriveling; but the follow-
ing though somewhat troublesome operation seems
to answer all ends, and may be tried with a few, for
very long keeping, after the more common methods
have failed. Make a pit two feet deep, in a shady
place, as on the north side of a wall; drench the pit
with water ; then tumble in the potatoes, previously
cleared of their shoots, and drench them also ; lay
over them a green turf with the grass downward, to
be also watered ; and heap up the earth, beating it
as hard and compact as possible. The rationale of

186 THE MANSE GARDEN.

the process is excellent, the evils both of growing and
shriveling being equally provided against : the cool-
ness secured by shading, depth, drenching, and soli-
dity of covering, prevents growth, whilst the moisture
supplied, instead of causing injury, only serves to
counteract the drying influence of the season. It
may be necessary to repeat the operation, with a
frequency according to circumstances ; and with
such care potatoes may be kept fresh and good till
September — a period to which it can scarcely be
expedient to continue their preservation, although it
cannot be unimportant, at least for some time after
the recent crops come in, to have the power of choos-
ing between the ripe mealiness of the old and the
green saponaceous consistence of the new.

Radish. — There are more varieties of it than are
worthy of notice : the salmon radish, which is long-
rooted, and the red or white turnip-rooted, are suffi-
cient. The long-rooted may be sown in January by
those who will take the trouble of protecting it from
frost. Any of the sorts sown in February or March,
by the foot of a south wall, will do without further
shelter. They are all useless in the heat of summer,
as they grow hard and hot; but from the middle of
August they are again as good as in spring. The
ground should be deep delved and rich, but not
recently manured. The seed is sown in drills no
deeper than to admit of being covered, and the
plants may be thinned to two or three inches. As
radishes are soon removed, it does no harm, and
saves ground, to sow broadcast a little of the seed
along with any drilled crop, such as onions, carrots,
or spinach. The turnip-rooted is a neat pretty little

THE MANSE GARDEN. 187

bite; and of the long-rooted it is remarkable, that
if it be sown in holes made with a small dibble and
left open the plant will grow thicker and more ten-
der. This accords with what was observed in regard
to leeks, and may perhaps be true of some other
plants. The young seed pods of the radish afford
a substitute for capsicums.

Rhubarb — Excellent for tarts in the early part of
the season, before gooseberries make their appear-
ance. Two sorts of it are cultivated; that having
the pointed and palmated leaf springs earlier, but
does not sooner get ready for use ; the other, which
is rounder, and not so deeply cut in the leaf, has a
thicker leaf stalk, and is best for the table. The
roots of both are medicinal, but it is not certain that
either sort is the same as that which yields the Turkey
rhubarb. To have a good supply for tarts, set a
dozen or more of cuttings of the roots, reserving to
each a part of the crown or top on deep rich ground,
in rows four feet apart and three feet distant in the
row, taking care to have none less than a yard from
the walk or box edging. As soon as the leaves have
decayed, dig, with plenty of manure, between the
plants, avoiding the roots, and taking care not to crush
the^buds, which are scarcely visible, but on which the
crop for next year depends. It is by such culture
and good feeding that the leaf stalks are numerous,
ponderous, and full of juice. The flower stems, in
order to preserve the strength of the roots, should
be all cut off as soon as their height declares their
intention. In moist weather, towards the end of
autumn, the young leaves become as tender as those
of spring. By putting large wooden boxes, coarsely

188 THE MANSE GARDEN.

made of slabs, over a few of the roots, and heaping
stable litter over them to remain all winter, tarts
may be had very early : the leaves are blanched, but
the flavour is not impaired. The same plantation
will continue productive for seven years; but a new
one should be made a year or two before removing
the old; and in the mean time some light crop may
be raised on the new ground which is but thinly
occupied by the young plants.

Rosemary — Of which the best things are the
name and its being used as the emblem of remem-
brance. A slip of the root may be set in a dry
sheltered place. It is aromatic, and used medicinally
and for flavour. If the frost be not too much for it,
it remains ever green ; and, like a nettle, it likes to
get its roots under an old wall, where it is not easily
molested.

Sage — One of the trash tribe, a perfect abomina-
tion— used for stuffing ducks and fools who feed for
apoplexy.

Savoys — Seen in the melting hoarfrost, with little
pools on the crumpled leaves, and the whole figure
not fairly boiled, but like a half unfolded rose, pro-
voke a watering of the teeth in the anticipation of a
pulpy and reeking mouthful, when the winter sun
has set. The cultivation of this excellent herb dif-
fers in nothing material from that of curled kale,
save to promote a freer boll it requires a soil some-
what richer. To have large and solid bolls, which
are preferable only for cows, it is necessary to sow
the seed in autumn, and plant early in spring, after
the manner of late cabbage.

Sea/tale — A delicious vegetable, little inferior to

THE MANSE GARDEN. 189

asparagus, and ten times more abundant, with less of
cost. For this, as for all crops that are deep-rooted
and stand long on the same ground, the soil must be
well trenched and made good to the depth of two
feet. It cannot be too light : an addition of sand is
necessary to a soil that has too much clay; but few
gardens that have been trenched and under crop for
some years will prove faulty for the production of
seakale. Seedling plants may be procured from the
nurseries ; — if not, sow the seed very thin, in drills
two inches deep and two feet asunder. This sowing
of a continuous drill is merely to secure enough of
plants, for ultimately they are left eighteen inches
apart in the row. In winter, when the leaves have
vanished, dig between the drills, and spread over the
plants a light covering of loose dry dung to shelter
them from frost. No crop is to be expected till the
second winter after sowing; but things of slight
growth — such as spinach, early turnips, or lettuce —
may be raised between the drills during the previous
summers.

To blanch the seakale, without which it is not fit
to be eaten, procure pots, made for the purpose, with
moveable lids, and place them over the plants in the
end of the second autumn; then heap up stably litter
till the pots are covered a few inches overhead.
The rnoveable lids are very convenient for observing
whether the plants are ready for cutting, without
turning and cooling their warm bed : and few sights
are more interesting than the opening of their dark
abode in the dead of winter, and the extracting of
the ponderous curled shoots in full vigour of growth,
white as snow, and glossy and fragile as spun glass.

190 THE MANSE GARDEN.

Blanching may be attained with less trouble if forc-
ing be not required. You may have excellent sea-
kale in April from drills ridged up with earth ; in
which case, every pair of drills must have greater
distance for the convenience of mounding, and the
plants may be so much closer in the bed. Straw,
in contact with the plants, is unsuitable to blanching,
as it communicates a bad flavour ; but raked leaves
do well, perhaps fern, sand certainly : coal ashes are
recommended, but the idea is abominable. Where
the plant grows wild, as it does by the seashore in
several parts of England, it is gathered in the finest
condition, being whitened by the sand which the
waves throw out, and which the winds pile gently
over its head in the manner of a snow wreath. As
the earthen ware of the flowerpot kind is expensive
and liable to be broken, the author has long used
coarse wooden boxes, or bars of paling along each
side of the drill, for keeping the dung from contact,
and which at no cost answers perfectly well : loose
boards, laid on the top of the boxes or across the
bars, admit of inspection ; and light is easily excluded
by having the litter more copious. It may be ob-
served, that the art of cultivating this plant is an
invaluable acquisition to a high climate, where the
garden yields so little in winter and spring, and where
the coldness, so hurtful to other things, is no hin-
derance to this, as more or less stable dung will
compensate all the varieties of temperature from the
seacost to the height of a thousand feet.

Spinach — As convenient to the sower as it is
agreeable to the eater. It comes early in spring,
when there is no great plenty. It is not nice as to

THE MANSE GARDEN. 191

soil, and suits all seasons. It fills up odd corners ;
and as it soon arrives at maturity, it serves to occupy
for a time those blanks which necessarily occur in
crops of larger growth and longer duration. It is
sown in shallow drills as wide between as to admit
the hoe. The summer crops do no good after the
first cutting, and may therefore be allowed to grow
as thick as grass ; but plants that have to stand the
winter, and sprout again after the spring cutting,
must have a certain strength of root and thickness
of stem. The sort having prickly seed and a tri-
angular leaf, being the more hardy, is the fittest for
winter; that which has smooth seed and a blunt
round leaf is the best for summer crops. The
winter crop is sown in the beginning of August,
and by the end of autumn so thinned as to stand in
single plants, — a fresh hoeing and further thinning
of the drills, to the distance of a handbreadth, being
reserved till spring. The round-leaved variety may
be sown any time from the first of February, when
the ground is dry, till the season for sowing the
winter crop. There is a wild sort, which grows
every where as a weed, and may be known by a
beautiful purple meal — of changing hue like the
dove's neck — with which the heart of the leaf is
sprinkled: it is said when cultivated to be nothing
inferior to the garden spinach. Plants designed for
seed should be thinned to the distance of eight or
ten inches. This is the only vegetable in common
use that has the male and female flowers on different
plants — a circumstance which causes no trouble in
the raising of seed, as it is sure to happen that of a
considerable number of plants there will be some of
both sexes.

192 THE MANSE GARDEN.

Tansy — Used for puddings, &c., is propagated by
parting the roots. Care must be taken not to place
it near to any box edging or gravel walk.

Thistle — Needlessly brought into gardens, as it is
ready enough to come of its own accord. Several
varieties have been cultivated, and of course have not
been spared the labours of the pen as they have en-
gaged those of the spade. It is said of the milk
thistle, which is a native variety, that its stalks, in
the second year of its cultivation, being peeled and
steeped in water, lose a portion of their bitterness;
and of the cotton thistle, another pest of the fields,
that with due attention to thinning, hoeing, blanch-
ing, peeling, and boiling, it may also be eaten. As
there are more members of the same family, which
still flourish in memorial of the curse, those who
delight in them may be regaled with greater variety;
but to such persons one of the tribe is particularly
recommended, namely, the sow thistle, which has
this additional aptness, that it may be eaten either
boiled or raw.

Thyme. — This sweet plant, were it not cultivated
for kitchen use, ought rather to be ranked among
the flowers. The broad- and narrow-leaved and the
lemon-scented are the chief varieties which are culti-
vated. Used for making a border, if it be regularly
cut over, it will last for many years. Seedlings,
where the plants have not been cropped, grow up of
their own accord, and may be transplanted, or the
seed, which is gathered ripe in autumn, may be sown
in spring; but the plant is more easily propagated
by slips or by parting the roots. A dry and rather
poor soil is the most favourable to its growth and the
strength of its fragrance.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 193

Turnip. — The ambitious, who by early sowing
strive for the earliest turnips, reap, after a season of
fair promise, the futility of their scheme in a crop of
shot stems, with bulbs no bigger than a radish. It
is difficult to say whether the turnip is annual or
biennial: the season of sowing, the state. of the
weather, the richness or poverty of the soil, may
determine the issue — whether the growth shall im-
mediately proceed to the production of flower stalks,
or go only to the swelling of the root and leave the
operation of seed-bearing to another year. There
is room for much speculation as to a procedure ap-
parently so sportive and arbitrary; but, which is more
important, the fact is certain, that in every case of
too early sowing, as in February or the beginning of
March, however well the crop may appear for a time,
there will be no useful produce at all. Late crops
will shoot in consequence of standing too long after
having formed their bulbs ; but these will shoot the
first thing they do — a circumstance not easily ac-
counted for, but its being known is enough to direct
the sower.

To have turnips early, then, the rule is to promote
a rapid growth. Let the ground be well pulverised
by winter digging and ridging, dry, and full of rich
and well decayed manure. Sow about the beginning
of April, in drills of the least depth and one foot apart.
Drilling is the best mode for all crops of this kind,
whether late or early, in garden or field. The early
Dutch is the best to begin with ; the stone for the
next crop, and the yellow bullock or the late Dutch
yellow for a winter crop. For an autumn crop, when
it grows to a good size, the Malta turnip, remarkable
1

]94 THE MANSE GARDEN.

for its beautiful orange shape and colour and thin
skin, is much to be recommended. The slug and
some fly are troublesome ; but sow thick that there
may be enough for all; and make frequent use of
the hoe, which both annoys the enemy and delights
the young plants. Successive sowings may be made
throughout the summer till near the end of July,
when the ground, after potatoes or peas, (in the
latter case requiring a little manure,) may be econo-
mically employed in raising a large and valuable
turnip crop for the winter and spring. Too much
strength of soil for autumn growth, when the season
itself does so much, is injudicious, as the turnip gets
cleft in the root and becomes unwholesome.

The Swedish turnip, of excellent use in husbandry,
is scarcely an acquisition to the garden, as it rarely
grows without strings, and as the yellow Dutch,
which is more palatable, stands the frost sufficiently
well. The young leaves of the winter crop, which
begin to unfold in March, are extensively used as a
market vegetable in the south of England, and are
really good though their flavour is scarcely known to
the northern inhabitants. It is to be observed,
however, that such sprouts quickly deteriorate the
bulbs, a few only of which ought to be left in the
ground for yielding a supply of greens. The spring
growth may be checked, and the turnip preserved a
little longer in good condition, by storing amidst dry
sand on the cellar floor, or by deep pitting in a dry
soil.

For winter use the turnip is never so good as
when freshly taken from the ground — though not
growing, yet in a state ready to grow. A moderate

THE MANSE GARDEN. 195

degree of frost, when the turnip is required for use,
may be disengaged by steeping in cold water; and
as frost proves destructive rather from quick thawing
than from intensity, the following method of preserv-
ing is the best for all purposes: — Injury is rarely
sustained before the middle of winter; at which
period take up the crop, separating for the table the
well shaped bulbs — which by that one argues all
other good qualities — and consigning the remainder
to the cows. It is immaterial whether the taproots
be cut off or not, but the leaves must be kept entire.
Make a rut with the spade six inches deep, into
which place the turnips in close order, and cover
them an inch or two overhead, allowing the leaves,
which serve both to exclude the frost and to main-
tain the growing powers of the plant, to spread above
ground. The covering of the first drill prepares for
the second ; and as the order is nearly as close in the
one direction as in the other, very little ground is
occupied, and the work is not tedious. In the farm
the like operation is quickly performed with the help
of the plough.

With regard to the enemies of this crop, a sprink-
ling of quick lime, which must be repeated after rain,
has been found to check the ravages whether of slugs
or of the fly. Should these spoilers, however, con-
tinue till the appearance of vegetation is almost gone,
it is yet surprising, if there be plants, how soon they
gather strength and cover the ground ; and though
no remnant should be spared, it is yet seldom neces-
sary to want a crop. Dig the ground afresh, and
the second sowing will in all probability advance un-
molested : the snails are put out of the way, and

196 THE MANSE GARDEN.

drier weather may impede their travels. The fly
indeed will but rarely renew its attacks, either be-
cause its short life, in the interim, has come to a
close, or because it has been driven by the famine of
its land to seek a subsistence elsewhere.

But a much more untractable difficulty, and in all
likelihood caused by an insect of another race, is
encountered in a disease of this root known by the
descriptive name of finger and toe, of recent origin,
now spreading over the country and sparing neither
garden nor farm. It has already rendered the culti-
vation of turnip in many fields abortive ; and in some
gardens, to the regret of their owners, this most
wholesome of roots has been necessarily abandoned.
Not being able to prescribe a cure, it is of some
importance, as it may save the trouble of experiments
already made, to tell what will riot be a cure. Neither
liming nor trenching will ; neither remote nor recent
manuring, nor sowing without dung, is of any avail :
and there is no distinction of Swedish or globe or
yellow or green-top or red in respect of this disease.
And whilst it is true that if the crop has suffered one
year it will, tried on the same ground the year fol-
lowing, prove worse or altogether nugatory — it is
equally true, that the disease has shown its worst
type where turnip had never grown before since the
creation of the world. I allude to a piece of road,
time out of mind a highway, taken up, trenched, and
added to the adjacent field. The field was in turnips,
and the disease was more or Jess over the field ; but
on the line of old road the crop was ridiculous.

Much might be said in the way of reasonable
conjecture, but nothing is more useless. Let prc-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 197

miums be offered; let the microscope be called in; let
many experiments be made; and if nothing will do
recourse must be had to a plant of some other kind,
till the new insect, or rather till the insect that has
found in the turnip a new supply of food, and has
multiplied according to the extent of its provision,
be starved by the change, and compelled to draw in
the boundaries of its empire, leaving some other
creature to grow great in its turn by feeding on the
new and substituted plant. Thus it would appear,
that agriculture, without any clog appended by un-
propitious laws of the state, or ruin inflicted by Gothic
invasions, has in nature certain restrictions which
deny to her a course at once surely and indefinitely
progressive — that whilst the territories reclaimed
from sterility are yet held, and the wealth they have
produced is yet unimpaired, the knowledge that has
been slowly and laboriously gotten must needs be
abandoned, and the cultivator must turn back, with
childlike effort, to get new skill of things yet un-
known and untried. Thus there will never be a
time in which it may be said that nothing new has
to be learned; thus industry is stimulated, whilst
pride is repressed — repressed, in the present instance,
by the discovery that the labour and science of an
age, which have been carried so far in the turnip
husbandry as to change the face of the country, and
to affect all its economical arrangements, may be
marred by an enemy, keeping pace in the progress
of its power with the progress of man's improvements,
and by the very help of man becoming so great as to
drive him from the field, yet all the while so hardly
visible as to require the use of the microscope that
we may learn the fact or manner of its existence !

198 THE MANSE GARDEN.

Vegetable Marrow^ or Succada — A species of
gourd, the pulp of which, from its richness and fla-
vour, has been called marrow — a more harmless
luxury than the animal sort, as being cheaper and
less productive of vapours and vertigo. In lower
situations it may be sown in March under a hand-
glass, and planted out in May before a wall or trellis,
the one or other being requisite not only for warmth
and shelter but for the support of the runners and
fruit. The reader may be reminded of the gravel
bank for fruit trees, previously described, which can-
not fail to have the most perfect aptitude to the
training of succada on the vacant spaces between
the trees.

It may here be remarked, that for the implement
handglass, with very little skill of the hands, may be
substituted an article that costs almost nothing. Let
four boards, each twenty inches long and four broad,
set on edge, be nailed together in the form of a square ;
insert on the upper edge a few willows, and tie them
together at the top, making either a dome or pavilion
roof, which cover with strong white cartridge paper.
This, rubbed with linseed oil, turns rain, admits
plenty of light, is better than glass for striking all
manner of slips, and as good for tender seedlings in
the months of spring. In higher situations a little
help of warm dung will be requisite ; but as the
trouble of making a hotbed might be judged too
much to be exchanged for the privilege of eating
marrow, the author defers the process till speaking
of certain beauties and curiosities of the flower de-
partment, when it will appear that the same apparatus
which serves for succada will serve also for amaranths

THE MANSE GARDEN. 199

and marigolds, and prevent the foolishness of con-
tinual sowing what does not once in ten years yield
the recompense of a flower; and when it will further
appear, that by a new construction of the hotbed
frame, a cover of varnished cloth, at sixpence a yard,
will answer ah1 the purposes of expensive glass, sup-
plying at little cost all that requires artificial heat,
so far as use or ornament needs to be consulted for
the manse garden.

200 THE MANSE GARDEN.

PART THIRD.

FLOWERS,

WHICH may not be overlooked, seeing that every
garden will have them ; but as rules of utility are
demonstrable, whilst those of taste are merely arbi-
trary, there is less to do with this than with either
of the preceding departments. And as all agree in
having flowers, but differ most widely as to the ex-
tent to which the fancy ought to be carried, the
following method is adopted in accommodation to
these circumstances : — First, to make some general
observations, by attending to which, every one may
cultivate flowers to what extent he pleases ; and then
to give a small list of some of the principal ornaments
of the garden, set down in alphabetical order, with
particular directions for each. Such method, it is
apprehended, will suit the taste and convenience of
most persons for whom this little work is designed.
To none, perhaps, save the idle, the curious in
botany, who plant to gain a science, or the appren-
ticed, who must know their calling, can the enormous
lists of plants and flowers, grassy and fibrous, bulbous
and tuberous, annual, biennial, and perennial, hardy,
semihardy, and tender, indigenous and exotic, be
otherwise than frightful and sickening. The sight

THE MANSE GARDEN. 201

is a source of melancholy, always bringing the little-
ness of our time into contact with an infinity of little
things craving the attention that is due to other
matters in hand; and may not lady-florists, whose
neat fingers take pleasure in tying a carnation, enjoy
the beauty of flowers without shuddering at the
Greek with which they are aspersed? Surely in
their eyes such garden catalogues of unmeasured
length and dead language have all the sterility and
the ugliness of a Hebrew lexicon.

It is supposed, though the manse be not in the
garden, that around the doors are other things than
oats, potatoes, or pasturage : — we suppose shrubs,
agreeably to what has been previously written ; and
with these we associate the flowers, as having, in their
juxtaposition, the same agreement as of sisters, of
whom the elder cherish and help to rear the younger.
Of shrubs, many are to be regarded as flowers de-
veloped on a large scale : nothing can exceed the
soft beauty of the rhododendron, spread over a large
space, or, flowering at an opposite season, the pink
and snowy laurustinus, fit to fill a room with its clus-
tered blossoms. These I would not clip for the best
eyed polyanthus. It is supposed, as formerly planned,
that the outer wall of shrubs, dense and high with
hollies and laurels, is already furnished. And here
it may be proper to mention some of the more delicate
sorts which may be selected for growing within the
defence : phylerea, of several varieties ; alaternus,
gold and silver variegated, grows by layers certainly,
by slips pretty well ; arborvitse, easily propagated in
the same way, and which will grow a large tree where
it has room, but having no beauty except in good
i 2

202 THE MANSE GARDEN.

shelter; of the same character the yew, glorious for
its country's defence, and though venerable in years,
looking young with berries of brighter hue than
polished coral; the evergreen thorn, which, with the
help of a wall, though it can stand alone, will glow
all winter with an incredible profusion of scarlet fruit
— it agrees ill with lifting, but is easily propagated
by layers; various kalmias, pretty, but tender, re-
quiring shelter and peatmoss, which last is not thrown
away on the rhododendrons, or on the aucuba Japo-
nica, of olive green and spotted leaf, very foreign and
tender looking, but growing surely from slips, and
more hardy in the spring frosts than common laurel;
the arbutus, having red bark, a beautiful evergreen,
to which a fixed place should be assigned, as it cannot
endure flitting ; the sweet bay, requiring the best of
shelter, and not very patient of removal ; the ilex or
evergreen oak, riot remarkably beautiful, but inter-
esting on account of the difficulty of getting it to
grow; the pyrus Japonica, of sorts, that having scar-
let flowers being as worthy of a piece of wall as a
peach, — when well grown it abhors transplanting ;
the box tree, variegated and plain, raised from slips,
by layers, freely, and having a turfy root, cares no-
thing for transplanting. These, with some of the
junipers, and a few hardy exotic heaths, with Irish
ivy for every bit of cold dark wall, where fruit is out
of the question, may serve to clothe the space be-
tween the outer defence and the flower borders, giv-
ing shelter to the house and to all manner of flowers,
and from perpetual verdure making winter more
cheerful than summer can be to a tasteless and un-
cultivated abode.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 203

In transplanting any of these beauties — often requi-
site, and the most interesting of garden operations —
success may be insured any time in summer by using
mats for a shade, arid regular watering; but the
best seasons are the beginning of September, in
moist weather, and of May, when the young shoots
are commencing. The main care is the lifting:
any ordinary workman is sure to murder your plant.
Take the spade and mark out a ring as wide as the
branches; and then order a trench, without the slight-
est reference to the lifting of the tree, and see it
straight down as deep as any roots can be. Then,
for the first time, let it be understood that the pick
may work in beneath towards the centre. The
more earth that can be got to adhere the better;
but failing that, let the roots in their new stance be
spread in successive tiers, with layers of fine mould
interposed — watering, staking, and tying, as noticed
in the planting of hollies.

The following, not ever green, may be added; for
though the former list may afford enough of beauty
for the winter, it will always be found that the best
assortment of evergreens have a certain dullness in
summer, unless relieved by deciduous plants, which
have brighter blossoms and livelier tints of green.
Wherefore have roses without number — the Ayr-
shire for sprawling over anything that ought to be
hid, and the Indian, once the tenant of a flowerpot,
now the hardiest of garden roses, bringing forth its
sweet buds till they are nipt in December. It is of
the easiest multiplication by slips : of a hundred in-
serted in light soil with a mixture of peatmoss, few
will fail to become trees. The mizereon, of pink or

204 THE MANSE GARDEN.

red or white blossom, yielding the most delightful
odours, but which must be extirpated before infant
hands have access to its berries : the azelia — of many
sorts — remarkable for the brightness of its flowers, and
deserving the best shelter, with a soil aided by sand
and peatmoss : white broom, of spraylike figure, and
almost as white as snow in a good summer — the
seed may be gathered and sown in a flowerpot for
safety, but neither slips nor layers do well: lilacs, of
different colours, to be kept remote from the flower
borders; the Persian, as it grows low, may be nearer,
and the Siberian, lately introduced, having a better
leaf than the Persian and a richer profusion of blos-
som : laburnums, which cost nothing, growing up
everywhere like ash seedlings, must not be unlimited,
as they show too much yellow, but appear well at
intervals towards the outer boundary — the seed is
poisonous: a purple beech may have a place where.it
can get up as a tree; in like manner, a few services,
the under side of the leaf, like frosted silver, being
most beautiful in a summer wind; and the walnut,
worthy to be preferred for its sweet scent and fruit,
perhaps, some future year ; the dwarf almond may
be admitted to the verge of the walk, as it rises to
no height : its blossom is that of the peach, but its
fruit is never seen except in low situations ; and the
tree-peony cannot have too good a place ; it is, as
yet, scarce and costly, and of slow growth ; near a
south wall it thrives well, at least three hundred feet
above the level of the sea, and is the most gorgeous
of all shrub flowers.

Nothing more can be done for the comfort and
beauty of this department without due attention to

THE MANSE GARDEN. 205

the formation of walks : and judging by what may
often be seen, as well as by the trouble of cleaning
those that are ill made, few things connected with
the garden are worthy of a more particuliar notice.
In making walks amongst shrubs and flowers, dry-
ness and variety of edging are the chief things to be
promoted — there not being here, as along a fruit
wall, for the sake of the trees, any scruple as to the
burying of stones ; and there ought to be none as to
the trouble of a two feet excavation ; for every cart
load of earth so saved is worth money, and the con-
venience of depositing stones in place of the earth
will save a great expense of carriage. Box, though
tiresome if there be no other, is by far the best
edging for general use; but the planting of it is
often bungled or done at a needless expense. Take
up with a spade a portion of the edging that has
grown too old, and part the roots : one yard of the
old will serve for ten of the new — a supply that is
not obtained from the nurseries without cost. In
parting, tear all the old bush down into the smallest
shreds ; throw away every one that is thicker than a
crowquill; and cut off all the roots beneath the
uppermost tier of fibres — a single fibre is enough ;
with none the plant may do, but it is not necessary
to try it. The plants so trimmed should be about
four inches in length. Having filled the excavation
with stones, all to four inches left for gravel, on
either side of the walk, dig the surface, set the line
to a nicety, using many pins at every turn, to make
the windings easy, bring the level exactly to the
line, and beat all smooth and firm, so that the earth
may stand cutting. With a trowel, cut by the line

206 THE MANSE GARDEN.

to the depth of three inches, pulling the earth to-
wards the walk ; and lay the green tops of the plants
to the line, setting their heads above it, not more
than one inch, and all touching one another. The
roots will vary a little in depth, but let a few plants
be held exact at the top with one hand, whilst the
earth is applied to the unequal roots with the other.
The reverse rule of evenness, providing for the
roots and not the tops, is frequently adopted ; hence
the straggling appearance that ensues; some leaning
out, and others in; some set like a tree, having a
stem from which branches proceed, and others hav-
ing branches sunk up to the middle. The effect is
a strong feeling of indignation ; and remarkable it
is, that though correctness of lining be of small re-
pute in matters of taste, yet where a line ought to
be and is designed few things are harder to be en-
dured than unmeaning deviations — as in the case of
ill set teeth, or the attempted dash of a clumsy
handwritting. Box may be planted in September,
October, or November; in February, March, or
April. To wet clay, brought up by new trenching,
coal ashes may be added ; and to avoid rotting by
long moisture without growth, the plants may be set
in May or June.

For other edging seapink is very good, but it
soon gets deformed with blanks, unless taken up and
replanted; whereas box, annually dipt in autumn,
will serve for the half of a lifetime : London-pride
admits of paring, and will last for five years : coarse
polyanthus or primrose does well beneath trees.
Should the root of an old tree come in the way, it
is easy to keep up the green line by planting peri-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 207

winkle, which needs little soil, or ivy at some dis-
tance, and leading the runners past the tree, where
they will take root all the way, and, being dipt,
make a handsome appearance. The propensity of
ivy to run up the tree is easily counteracted ; but
should it be indulged, few things are more beautiful,
and the tree is there rather for ornament than for
the value of its timber. Double- daisy and cowslips
may be used, and may be kept any length of time
by -occasional lifting and parting of the roots. He-
patica — blue and red mingled make a beautiful edg-
ing, and will last an age ; but the most brilliant of
all is dwarf-gentian : it lasts long, but must have
half a foot in breadth to secure plenty of its skyblue
dazzling flowers. The pansy or tricoloured violet
is also fine, but must be replanted every year. For
any place where the walk gets amongst high shrubs
or trees, or where a sloping bank is of difficult keep-
ing, there is nothing so fit for a low hedge as
butcher's-broom ; it suffers no injury by drop or
shade, and grows irnmoveably strong; and not agree-
ing with the shears, it is in such a place more suit-
able in the natural sluggishness of its growth.

In the graveling of walks, any rule for the avoid-
ing of unnecessary expense, and the subsequent
trouble of weeding, must be a desirable object. Let
the top stratum of stones be such as are raked from
the surface of the garden in dry weather, and made
perfectly clean by sifting, which is by far the readiest
way of getting 'quit of them in clearing the ground.
By such method, the top stratum being of small
stones, much less gravel, which perhaps f must be
brought from a considerable distance, will suffice.

208 THE MANSE GARDEN.

To have no unnecessary carriage, the gravel at the
pit or river side must undergo one sifting with a
search one inch between the wires, disposing of all
large pebbles. Of stuff in this state walks are com-
monly made, and the result is evil continually. The
small sand is a seedling bed for all manner of weeds,
and the coarser part compacted with it renders hoeing
almost impracticable ; nor is the work well over till
in showery weather there is need to begin it again.
Thus the coarse and fine work to each other's hands,
the one giving birth to weeds and the other protect-
ing them. Divide and govern — dissolve the com-
pact and the conquest is easy. Use a quarter-inch
search for a second sifting, and apply the coarse to
one part of the walks and the fine to another. The
coarse, it is true, does not bind; but that is the
beauty of it : it will not grow one weed for many
years. No feet are idle on such a walk : every one
who comes into the garden does some good : the
gravel is continually shuffled about, and an immense
deal of work is saved to the hoe. For dryness it is
admirable — a property which makes the roughness
a pleasure, as every one feels in walking on the sea-
beach, though much rougher and not more dry.
And now for the small sort, which is almost pure
sand, and in most cases will be three to one of the
gravel : it binds and grows weeds ; but the Dutch
hoe pares it as easily as moss is scraped from a tree.
For the wheels of a little coach such walks have the
smoothness of marble ; and as to the raking of leaves,
on gravel the work is imperfect — on this as neat as
the sweeping of a floor.

Where a walk, having plenty of gravel, has got

THE MANSE GARDEN. 209

foul in course of time, by awkward gardeners or by
pretty pattens stepping off the vegetable grounds,
there should still be no endurance of the mixture of
stones — to prevent the killing of weeds — with garden
mould — to encourage their growth. In the season
of haymaking, from the solid bottom rake all the
gravel into ridges, to be turned over once or twice,
and lie till the soil with which it is mingled become
dry as dust, and every vile plant be reduced to pow-
der; then apply the small sieve — the expense of
which operation would go little way in bringing fresh
materials from a distance ; — and having saved, by this
sifting, a good deal of top-dressing for grass, replace
the gravel ; and you will have no more to do with it
for some years.

On the farther side of the flower walk, that is
next the garden fence, there will be, according to
the mode of planting already recommended, a gradual
declivity in the bank of foliage from the higher,
hardier, and outer rows, to the lower, inner, and
more delicate. Such arrangement is good for shelter
and beauty, as well as for promoting the health and
vigour of whatever is planted ; and to complete this
outer screen, it will now be proper to mention a few
of ,those flowers which fitly mingle with shrubs,
giving liveliness to the dark evergreen, and combin-
ing with those that blossom to diversify and prolong
the gayeties of summer. The chief is the hollyhock,
not over nice, majestic, long flowering, and of many
colours. The black, not truly named, is rich as it
is rare ; and for this reason some notice of the holly-
hock shall be given in the alphabetical list. The
giant sunflower, too coarse for beds or borders, is ex-

210 THE MANSE GARDEN.

cellent to the amount of a dozen, at long distances,
amongst laurels. It must have air, that it may branch
out, and carry many heads on a treelike stem. More
of this also will be found in the list above named.
The most convenient thing for filling all vacuities,
and giving a honey sweetness to the garden, is wall-
flower. Late in autumn, or after the spring digging,
proceed all over the ground with choice plants, very
dark, called bloody, some double, and the whole as
plentiful as a crop of greens. Not individually fine,
this plant owes its good effect to extent, and to the
quantity of breeze which it perfumes. To have it
good of its kind may be worthy of a separate no-
tice. Several of the larger species of iris agree well
with the neighbourhood of shrubs, and thrive in the
shade. The lily-of-the-valley, shooting early its fine
dark leaf, rolled like a cigar, and shortly after its
modest snowy flower, may be allowed to run thickly
over a square yard or two, beneath a spreading laurel,
which may be slightly pruned for its bower. Queen-
of-the-meadow, double or single — the latter only is
scented — agrees with the shade; and also sweet
woodruff, remarkable, when dried in paper, for the
time it retains the odour of newmown hay. Sole-
dago or golden-rod, with some of the hundred varie-
ties of campanula or bellflower, monkshood — yellow
or blue, columbine, and perennial larkspur — growing
seven feet in height, may serve at distances, according
to their size, for foreground to the shrubbery.

Verging towards the walk, a strip, say five feet
broad, running betwixt the gravel and the shrubs,
and perhaps an equal breadth on the other side, for
fibrous perennials and bulbous roots, with spaces here

THE MANSE GARDEN. 211

and there for the admission of annuals, deserves par-
ticular culture. If the soil has too much clay, coal
ashes will give it porosity and serve for manure:
They must be sifted, a labour that is not lost to the
economy of fuel; and nothing is more useless to the
ground than a cinder, or uglier on a bed of flowers.
Trenching is in all cases to be understood; and if
the soil be dry, as stones cannot be tolerated in the
sowing of annuals, there is no harm in sifting with
wires one inch apart. It must not be supposed that
a sieve of such width transmits stones of any thing
like a corresponding bulk; neither does the acquired
fineness cause any damage, save in clays, which with
raking and rains and heat take on a coat like the
plaster of a wall — a fault which a few cart loads of
sand will correct. A mixture of peatmoss is of
service to the beautiful varieties of rhododendron,
the kalmias, and all manner of heaths.

With regard to a selection of flowers for the bor-
ders so prepared, it were needless to give a thousand
names and descriptions ; the mere name serves not the
cause of botany : and no description on paper conveys
any idea of a plant as it grows. The only rule, then,
is to pick up at intervals, according to your fancy,
an<J to stop when you have no more ground.

As the summer has plenty of riches, and as the
shrubbery makes the most of winter, it may be pro-
per to notice a few flowers which give beauty to the
spring. They are not numerous as to kinds, and
for effect, therefore, there must be many of each.
The crocus — tiresome if only yellow — cannot be too
abundant if its various hues are blended. It is easily
raised from seed ; its bulbs quickly multiply of their

212 THE MANSE GARDEN.

own accord ; and they may be bought at sixpence a
hundred. It is not agreeable in beds or patches,
but fine when set as a fringe to the flower borders,
and perfectly beautiful as studding to a piece of
smooth green sward. For this purpose have a long
stick with a dibble point, and to regulate the depth
insert a cross bit of wood, to set the foot on, three
inches from the extremity. Let one person peram-
bulate the ground, making holes, and another follow
with two baskets, one containing a thousand bulbs,
and the other sifted earth or sand to cover them.
Hepatica or liverwort is the next in value as a flower
of spring. The double blue is rather delicate ; the
other sorts — single blue, red and white single or
double — are hardy. The root is a solid turf, and the
only art of propagating is to divide by cutting straight
down. Plant at intervals along the flower border,
taking care to alternate the colours. The Christmas
rose, flowering so early, as the name imports, has still
something to add to this more genial season. The
snowdrop is fine upon grass, along with the crocus ;
on the borders, if abundant, it must be in small spots
well distant. Different species of Narcissus are
valuable before summer comes with her full hand :
namely, the daffodil, which needs no care ; the jon-
quil, of sweetest perfume, but more delicate, re-
quiring shelter and a free soil, rather rich, but not
with recent manure. Add for spring beauty, prim-
roses, single, double, and of various hues; a large
assortment of the auricula and polyanthus, not the
highly cultivated of either, which will be noticed in
their place, but such as are hardy and show plenty
of colour ; some patches of anemone, raised from

THE MANSE GARDEN. 213

seed : and various exotic heaths, giving early food to
the bee and anticipating the glow of summer.

Omitting the endless list of bulbous and fibrous
perennials, which may be collected by degrees, as
hinted above, the names of a moderate assortment of
annuals cannot fail to be useful. Annuals are not
to be picked up as other flowers may be ; the seed
must be ordered, arid the names may either not be
known or may not occur; besides, mistakes might
arise from not distinguishing between such as agree
with common sowing and those that require the
help of a hotbed. Of the under list, which are
hardy enough for ordinary shelter and elevation, ten
or twenty, according to the means of accommodation,
may be chosen for one year ; for the next a like por-
tion, proceeding further in the list ; and so on till
the catalogue be exhausted — getting in this way both
the pleasure of new things, and an easy acquaintance
with such as are fairer to the eye or better suited to
the climate.

v Adonis- flower — several varieties: pheasant's-eye the most showy.
Agrostemraa-coeli-rosa.
Allyson — sweet-scented.
< Amaranths; greater, or love-lies-bleeding — lesser, or prince's-

feather.
Antirrhinum, or snapdragon: many varieties ; the best are large

flowering, and bicoloured — properly biennial, but if early sown

it will flower the same year.
Atriplex, called also red spinach.
Balm — blue, red, white, hoary.
Balsum, yellow, or Touch-me-not; so called from its capsules

exploding on being touched.
Belvidere — resembling a cypress tree.
Bladder-ketmia : — see Ketmia.
Borage — purple, red, variegated.

214 THE MANSE GARDEN.

Candy-tuft — white and purple.

Catchfiy, Lobels — many varieties and very ornamental ; the red

and white are beautiful when mingled.
Caterpillar plant ; the pods give rise to the name.
Cayanus or Blue-bottle — of sorts.
Clarkia-pulchella.

Clary — purple and red topped, of fine appearance.
Corcopsis-tinctoria — brown and orange.
Gilia-capitata.
Globe-thistle.
Gourds ; some one of about forty varieties may be tried in a

warm sheltered place. See list for hotbed frame.
Hawkweed — red and purple; the yellow is paltry.
Heart's. ease or Pansy; properly a violet — common rricoloured,

large Dutch, yellow, purple. They flower the first year, but

may be continued by parting the roots in autumn.
Hollyhock, — Chinese, variegated, double, single.
Honeywort — greater, small, purple.
Indian Cress — a new dark variety.
Kaulfussia-arneloides.
Ketmia, Bladder, or Flower-of-an-hour. Its blossoms cannot

endure the sun, but are produced in long succession.
Kidney Bean, Runner — large scarlet, large white.
Larkspur — of many fine varieties, which may all be had from the

same parcel of seed.
Lavatera — red, purple, white.

Love-in-a-mist or Fennel-flower — blue, white, yellow, double.
Lupine — common, yellow, blue, white, sweet-scented.
Lychnis — dwarf-annual and purple.
Mallow — curled, scarlet, Venetian.
Malope-grandiflora — crimson and purple.
Marigold — common large double, orange-coloured, lemon-coloured,

red, ranunculus-flowered.
Mignionette — the sweetest of all — ought to be sown largely and

at different times for a em-cession. The earliest will yield ripe

seed.

Muiberry-blite.
Nigella: — see Love-in-a-mist.
Nolana-prostrata.
(Enothera-Lindleyana.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 215

Palma- Christ! ; remarkable for large palmated leaves; tall, dwarf,

red-stalked.
Pea, sweet-scented — of which there are many varieties — may be

sown on very dry ground about the end of February, to give

early flowers and ripe seed ; afterwards at any time till the

middle of May.
Poppy — many sorts — bad enough weeds, that need no sowing ;

the carnation and dwarf-corn are worthy of a place.
Russian stock.

Scabious, sweet — starry- flowered.
Schizanthus-pennatus — of sorts.
Snail Plants ; taking the name from the form of the seed-pods —

perhaps a dozen varieties.
Snapdragon : — see Antirrhinum.
Stockgillyflower, Ten-weeks'-stock — red, purple, white, scarlet,

variegated — each double, wallflower-leaved, of various colours,

single and double : well worthy of a place in the alphabetical

articles, which see.
Strawberry-blite ; the fruit resembling the strawberry, but not

eatable.

Sultan. flower, or Sweet-sultan — yellow, purple, red, white.
Sunflower; giant, dwarf — each double — yellow, pale yellow.

See notice in alphabetical order.
Tobacco Plant — long- broad- narrow-leaved. Once sown in this

country in the fields for a crop, but requires management to

bring it to flower.

Venus'-looking-glass — blue, purple, white.
Virgin-stock — purple and white.
Xeranthemum or Everlasting- flower — white, red, purple, and

blue ; remarkable for keeping its colour and form when dried.

For the sowing of the above, the last week of
April (but earlier according to climate) or the first of
May, when the weather is fair and the ground in the
finest state of dryness, is the proper season, although
some sorts may be sown at different times for a suc-
cession of flowers. Too little earth can scarcely be
given for a covering, considering how many annuals,

216 THE MANSE GARDEN.

self-sown, get none at all. Those seeds which are
almost invisible may be laid on a smooth bed and
merely sprinkled with dust after the manner of pow-
dering hair. A common garden basket, with a few
handfuls of loose earth, answers well for sifting over
the seeds a dust as fine as themselves. There can
be no doubt that many beauties are lost by coarse
hands that make their bed a grave. The lightest
powdering is to the amaranth as much as a plough-
furrow is to the bean. To mark the seedbed and
save it from the hoe, it is usual to adopt the spell of
drawing a circle around it ; others sow in a ring, on
the principle of the argand lamp, admitting air into
the centre, and causing the flowers to burn with a
clearer light.

The following less hardy annuals, whether for
beauty or curious growth, are worthy of the help
which they require in a small hotbed frame; namely,
the marigolds, African and French; amaranths, or
love-lies-bleeding and prince's-feather; — all. of which
are of uncertain growth in ordinary seasons; balsums,
of many varieties; tricolor-chrysanthemum; Indian
corn ; some of the huge gourd family ; the tobacco
plant; stockgillyflower, for an early blow; to which
may be added many others according to fancy or
convenience.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 217

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SUCH FLOWERS AS RE-
QUIRE A PARTICULAR NOTICE, WHETHER WITH
REGARD TO THEIR PROPERTIES OR PECULIAR
MODES OF CULTIVATION.

Anemone — Broad- and narrow-leaved. As soon
as the downy seeds begin to fall off they may be
gathered and sown in drills four or five inches apart,
and slightly covered. Next year the bed will be
pretty for a length of time with many and very bright
colours; but there will not be one double of a thou-
sand flowers. It happens, however, in the course of
cultivation, and in the multitude of chances, increased
by all varieties of soil and climate, that double flowers
do occur ; and as the roots of these send out tubers,
which also give double flowers, they may be increased
to any amount, and are to be had of sufficient fine-
ness and variety at no great expense. The principal
colours are — red, pink, crimson, rosy, white, and blue,
with various shades and mixture of colours. It is a
good property of these flowers to have the plain
colours brilliant, and the mixed colours distinct ; and
in planting a bed it is of great consequence to have
the colours duly blended, to have some breadth for
effect, and to have such juxtaposition of the roots as
may cause the leaves to meet, clothing the ground
with soft green, whilst the flowers, as it were, catch-
ing fire at each other's light, dazzle and burn in varied
brightness. The width of planting is determined by
the meeting of the leaves, which will vary according
to climate and richness of soil — say four, five, or six
K

218 THE MANSE GARDEN.

inches between the drills, and one inch less between
each plant in the row. The best manure is turf from
old pasture mixed with half its bulk of cow's dung,
kept and frequently turned till the mass be well rotted
and pulverised.* The bed must be manured and dug
before winter, and, when finely reduced by frost, as
early in February as the soil has sufficient dryness,
the roots should be planted an inch below the surface,
taking care to place the buds uppermost. Free
watering is requisite in dry weather; and when the
blow is full, a few mats, supported by hoops, may be
used to screen the sun and prolong the period of
beauty. When the leaves have decayed and the
soil is very dry, the roots may be taken up, and either
rubbed free of earth or washed and dried in the shade.
They may be kept in a box or drawer in any apart-

* The author feels reluctant to introduce amongst pretty
flowers the coarse word for manure in the absolute ; and, being
aware that a work on matters of taste should be itself also taste-
ful, was willing throughout to have avoided the above name,
which, as he understands, is not pleasant to readers of the town.
But being obliged to write of such a thing, and finding it impos-
sible to do without the offending term, he takes refuge in the
conviction, that wherever the garden reader becomes also the
garden cultivator, (and that is the author's aim,) the antipathy
will wear off, by that law of our nature which makes things, un-
seemly in themselves, look well when viewed in their seemly
effects. As an instance of this kind, at least similar in some
respects : — No eye ever loved the angular and uncouth hierogly-
phics of a dead tongue, but the sight is endured till they get in-
corporated with the soil of moral cultivation ; and then the de-
formity altogether disappears, and the virtue springs up on the
rich field that glows with the flowers of Grecian poetry, and the
fruits of Hebrew piety : So amidst laden trees and flowery walks,
that which at first offends loses all power of offence when seen
in its beautifying effects, and familiarly known as the source of
all that is fair and fruitful in the scene. And of all the manipu-
lations detailed in this treatise, there is none the author values
more than the art of augmenting and economically using the
pabulum vilce of the garden — the very heart of its living frame.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 219

ment, avoiding the roasting heat of a garret or the
rotting damp of a cellar.

Auricula. — Nature has given such a finish to the
finer specimens of this plant that art may well be
required to furnish them with the shelter of a roof.
Some of the family are hardy and beautiful as spring
flowers on the open borders ; but the more delicate
cannot endure the pelting of the rain which falls in
April, the season of their beauty. A glass frame
is therefore essential to the saving of the fine meal
with which the flowers and sometimes the leaves are
dusted, and which seems designed to moderate the
heat of the sun, but which has in itself no defence
against the washing of the rain ; and hence those
plants which are brought to great fineness by culti-
vation soon perish or grow poor when neglected.
The best specimens at first raised from seed are
quickly propagated by offsets from the roots ; and as
cultivators have great tenderness for such offspring,
though more numerous than they can rear, you have
only to open an asylum and it will soon be filled.

It were vain to attempt particular descriptions of
five hundred varieties. As to the general properties
of a good plant, the stem should be of such length
as to carry its head of flowers erect and raised above
the foliage. About seven or eight pips, or single
blossoms, make a rich and close umbel of flowers.
The circumference of the border of each blossom
should be round, the anthers large, the eye smooth,
white, and circular; the ground colour should be
equal on all sides, defined next to the eye, and only
broken where it blends with the edging. The
favourite ground colours are black, purple, dark

220 THE MANSE GARDEN.

brown, rich blue, bright pink, crimson, or glowing
scarlet. A green edging is fine ; but that combined
with a crimson ground colour, being very rare, is
probably on that account prized the most.

Florists have given recipes for composts with the
trifling exactness of invalids who pore upon dietetics
and weigh their food. Sound earth, vegetable earth,
peat earth, decayed willow-wood, and wood ashes, are
recommended in proportions from a half down to
twelfth and twentyfourth parts. No doubt such a
commixture may be very good, but some other will
do just as well. Let the compost be rich and light,
consisting of one half of old rotted cow's dung, either
from a spent hotbed or gathered from the fields, and
the other half black mould from the garden, adding
more or less of peatmoss and sand according as the
soil is light or heavy — the whole mass to be so
blended as to assume a uniform consistence. With
this fill the flowerpots within an inch of the top,
taking care to cover the hole in the bottom with a
piece of slate to prevent the intrusion of worms.
The pots should be six or seven inches wide and
about the same measure in depth. Smaller ones
may be used for bringing forward young plants,
whether seedlings or offsets. The proper time for
planting or repotting is in August. Strip every
plant of its decayed leaves and of all stumps of roots
beneath the young fibres, and, having firmed the
earth with the hand, give a plentiful watering. The
pots may then be closely set together in the frame,
which should be half filled with sawdust, in which
the pots are to be immersed to the lip. The glass
cover may be put on at the first to encourage striking,

THE MANSE GARDEN. 221

and then kept on or off according to the weather,
using the help of a bass matting in every hard frost.
Before winter, fill up the vacant inch left on the
surface of the pots with old dung gathered from the
fields, which replace with fine mould about the time
of flowering. To destroy green-fly, with which the
plants are apt to be infested, a slight cloud of tobacco
fumes, closed for a few minutes under the glass cover,
is all that is necessary.

Should any reader be surprised at the trouble,
whether of writing or of observing the above direc-
tions, it may certainly be inferred, that he has never
once seen a choice and well managed collection of
auriculas. Other flowers in congregated array may
be more dazzling, but the auricula so exhibited has
no rival in soft^rich, and diversified beauty. It has
more of dignity than gayety; it has not the tinsel
of a theatre, but the jewellery and grandeur of an
assembly of nobles and high dames, in broad ruftj
powder, crimson, purple, and ermine. The sight
justifies the art. Art cannot make the purple of the
auricula ; but without art the auricula has not the
purple ; and the finest forms, left to the common fare
of earth and skies, soon become the spectres of what
they were — the gorgeous velvet dwindling to the
meanness of hawkweed, and the crownbroad disk to
th,e, dimensions of a daisy.

Carnations — Of which the technical names are, 1.
Flakes, having one colour on a white ground, and
which appears on both sides of the petal; 2. Bizarres,
having two colours on a white ground ; 3. Piquettees,
ground white or yellow spotted with other colours,
and the edges of the petals fringelike or serrated;

222 THE MANSE GARDEN.

and 4. Painted-ladies, the colour being only on the
upper surface of the petals, — the sarcastic name, it is
hoped, may soon be banished. The carnation, accord-
ing to critics, should have a strong three-feet stem,
like a cane arrow; the flower three inches in diame-
ter, and opening equally on all sides : the burstlike
appearance, owing to defect of constitution, which it
often assumes, is ruinous of all character; and hence
the vile trick amongst competitors of tying the neck
with a thread up to the very day of exhibition. Any
thing like fringe on the edge of a petal is not to be
looked at. If polling might pass for natural round-
ness, the scissors would as certainly be applied to
the fringe as to the feathers of a game cock before
fighting. The petals should be as thick as to give
the richness of a double flower, but without the
crowding that causes weakness, and should regularly
decrease in breadth as they approach the centre,
forming an elegant crownlike figure, rolled in at the
circumference arid almost level on the top. The
colours should be bright and distinct, the stripes nar-
rowing with the petals towards the base, and leaving
one half to the ground colour without spot or mark.
The best soil for carnations is good loam enriched
with well rotted stable dung and quickened with a
little sand. The quantity of manure can only be
determined by the previous strength of the ground ;
if made too rich the flowers will lose their fine colours,
if left too poor they will want vigour. No recent
manure should ever come near any fine plant. Let
the ground be prepared before winter with dung, and
a rough furrow laid up to the frost. In April give
a fresh digging, and plant in rows three feet by two.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 223

This width is to make room for layers, without which
a fine blow of carnations cannot be maintained above
one year. As the plants shoot up, they must be
tied to neat green rods ; and in order to have a fine
blow, superfluous flowerbuds must be pinched off,
leaving only three or four to each stem.

The young shoots near the ground which do not
run to flower are denominated grass ; and from these
the layers are selected. The operation is somewhat
nice, but when rightly done is always successful, and
good flowers are thus preserved and multiplied from
year to year. Towards the end of July stir up the
ground about the plants, and mix with the soil a little
old well wrought compost. Have at hand a sharp
penknife, a trowel, and a number of small pegs with
an angle at the head : pieces of fern will do, or wood
of no more strength than to bear pushing into the
ground. Scoop out the earth in the form of a basin
around each plant ; select the strongest grassy shoots
for layers, and remove such as are in the way'; crop
the top leaves an inch from the heart, and pinch off
all the rest, taking care not to peel the stem. Begin
an incision on the under side of the shoot a little
below the second joint from the top, and cut upwards
tilKthe joint is slit in the middle. Set the pointed
extremity made by the slit into the bottom of the
excavation, and there fix it with the peg ; place the
head of the shoot erect, fill in the earth, make it firm,
arid finish the work with a good watering. The
young plants will be ready for removal by the end of
autumn, when they may be set in flowerpots if the
soil is too damp and apt to cause rotting in winter ;
but if sufficiently dry the layers may remain till

22i THE MANSE GARDEN.

spring, and it will be of use before winter to earth
them up, sloping and beating the mould about them
so as to throw off the rain.

Although the propagation of this plant by pipings
(as the grass shoots taken off and stuck in ground are
called) is by no means so sure as the above method,
yet of a number some will take root, and as pipings
are more easily procured than plants, the experiment
may be made. If carried to some distance, steep
the slips in water till they swell to their proper size ;
trim them as above directed, and set them firm into
old elastic compost ; water plentifully and set over
them a handglass, first throwing water on the glass
and then earth to darken it, and let it not be stirred
for some days, it being found that a deficiency both
of light and air promotes the striking, pf slips — pro-
bably on this principle, that the sick^iaving no ap-
petite, must avoid the exertion which requires food
as well as that which food requires.

Dahlia, — This is really a vast acquisition to our
gardens ; and having come amongst us from the sun-
nier skies of South America, and suffered much to
accommodate itself to our climate, it seems to have
gained the affection which highland hearts bore to
Prince Charles. For a length of time it blossomed
only in October or November — a most unlucky period
for the flowering of a plant whose very leaves cannot
endure a breath of frost. At first many arts were
tried to bring its fine flourish to an earlier perfec-
tion : it was set in pots, and forced for a time ; or it
was planted in gravel to lessen its luxuriance ; or
the stronger shoots were amputated. But by suc-
cessive sowings from seed raised in this country, it

THE MANSE GARDEN. 225

has learned to anticipate its disasters by flowering in
August; and there are few garden ornaments that
present so much beauty for so long a period. The
root is as bulky as the largest crab with all its claws,
the stalks and blossoms occupy a yard square. This
is enough to suggest the rules of planting; but the
plant is not the worse of being a little confined — say
three feet by two in the rows. Select specimens
should be so arranged in the bed as to give diversity
and contrast of colour. Single plants at intervals
amongst shrubs have a fine effect. A few having
only single flowers are worthy of being preserved,
but the double may be found in almost infinite variety,
and possessed of the utmost beauty of colour and
form. Seed yields new varieties, and the plant is
also propagated "by parting the roots, taking care that
each section have a portion of last year's stem ; for
it is around the foot of the stem that the next bud
appears. Plants may also be reared from slips. In
May the young shoots are set in flowerpots filled with
sand and well rotted manure. The pots must be
placed in a covered frame or under a handglass, and
must be well shaded and watered, admitting air on
the first symptoms of new life. The following is a
list of the most celebrated varieties now cultivated :

Acme — white, edged with crimson.

Adelaide — white, edged with pink,

Agrippina — white, tinted with rose.

Amanda — rosy lilac.

Apollo — scarlet, with cupped petals.

Ariel — white and lilac.

Augusta — shaded purple.

Black Prince — crimson, with black stripes.

Bronze — fine form.

K2

226 THE MANSE GARDEN.

Beauty of Camberwell — rosy lilac.

Countess of Liverpool — fine scarlet.

Criterion — white spotted, with lilac — fine.

Cedo-nulli — yellow, edged with red.

Clio — primrose, tipped with purple.

Desdemona — white, edged with pink.

Donna Maria — rosy crimson.

Erecta — shaded crimson.

Enchantress — cream, edged with cherry.

Emperor-of-yellows.

Glory — fine scarlet.

Granta— dark crimson.

Honourable Mrs. Harris — carmine and white — very

fine.

Invincible — dark crimson, with black stripes.
Iris — dark purple, shaded.
King-of-dahlias — white, with crimson edge.
King-of-whites.

Lady Fitzharris — large — rich crimson.
Lady Grenville — rosy lilac.
Lilac-perfection.
Lord Althorp — dark puce.
Lord Liverpool — superb purple.
Magnificent — pink and white.
Metropolitan-blush — delicate rose.
Metropolitan-perfection — very dark puee.
Miss Pelham — fine rose.
Newick-rival — rose — finely formed.
Othello — dark puce.
Peerless-white.
Perfection — beautiful rose.
Picta-formosissima — orange, with red stripes.
Polyphemus — sulphur and lilac.
Queen-of-dahlias — white, with purple edge.
Rising-sun — long — scarlet.
Springfield-rival — purple — finely formed.
Yellow-perfection — very fine.
Village-maid — white and pink shaded.

The preservation of the roots during winter is

THE MANSE GARDEN. 227

attended with some trouble, which perhaps some
cultivators will not bestow till by a fatal negligence
the whole live stock have perished, and either the
price of replacing, or the sad privation felt next
summer, rouse the mind to the safe but necessary
precautions. The first thing is to secure the ripen-
ing of the roots. A slight frost blights the foliage
and flowers, but it does not follow that the roots
afflicted in the vigour of growth are so instantane-
ously ripened. The potato is allowed to stand after
the leaves are gone ; and so ought the dahlia for a
time, leaving the pith of the stalk, as a sponge, to
absorb and exhale the superfluous moisture — whilst
the sun helps that process by getting at the ground
through defect of the foliage. Wherefore, though
the beauty of the flower is gone, nature ought not
to be hindered in her work of ripening, that there
may be beauty for another year. After the stems
are well decayed, they may be cleared away; but the
roots are not to be taken up. Having removed the
stalks by cutting two or three inches above the
ground, let the earth be gathered from both sides
over the roots, into the form of a potato drill, and
beaten smooth, so as to turn the rain and save from
frost. Towards the end of November the roots may
be taken up plump and ripe from their dry bed, and
shaken clear of mould, like potatoes gathered with
clean skins — a good sign of safe keeping. The roots
are too succulent to keep well by lying on the floor,
as any bruise thus sustained is the commencement of
decay; but those that are large and strong agree
with suspension from the ceiling of a room inacces-
sible to frost. But stored in boxes, with alternate

228 THE MANSE GARDEN.

layers of dry sand, barley chaff, sawdust, or the
shellings of oats from the mill, they will he as fresh
on returning to the soil in spring as when taken up
in winter. The last named substance, being kiln-
dried, has in a high degree the aptitude of being
absorbent and antiseptic, not liable, on drawing mois-
ture from the tubers, to take on and propagate decay.
The boxes with their valuable deposit, if the cook be
not stormy, cannot be better placed than in the kit-
chen. The garret will do, but not the stable loft —
for the hay is suffocating — nor the damp floor of barn
or cellar.

As some of the finest varieties are not prolific of
young tubers, to secure their propagation slender
shoots from the stems may be taken off early in the
season, when three inches long, and planted in pots
as above directed. Well tended in summer, they will
produce small tubers capable of yielding the finest
flowers next year. This tender offspring may be
preserved during winter, either in the pots where
they grow — not to be watered however dry, nor ex-
posed to frost — or they may be cleared of mould, and
stored like the stronger roots, with a little more dele-
cacy in favour of their youth — as in a drawer of the
study, where they may be occasionally seen.

Feathergrass — On account of its curious appearance
and extreme resemblance to plumage, is worthy of a
particular notice. Being of slow growth from its hard
and spiky seeds, it is often lost or destroyed before
coming to maturity. This is the sole reason of in-
troducing here a plant which afterwards needs so little
care. Sow the seed in a flowerpot, and when the
grass has got strong and turfy in the root it may be

THE MANSE GARDEN. 229

safely committed to the border. By the third year
it will yield a profusion of feathers.

Hollyhock — Is properly a biennial plant, but may
be continued a number of years. In deep soil with
shelter it may reach the height of fourteen feet, but
half that measure is enough for beauty. The long
duration of blossom, the length of stalk in flower at
the same time, the richness of the double sorts, and
the great variety of colours, render this plant a chief
ornament of the garden in the months of autumn.
Save the seeds of the best plants and sow in April
or May. Thin the young plants, removing the
more forward to other ground, in order to get strong
short stems, and in the beginning of October plant
them out where they are intended to flower. The
chief beauty of this family is one that is double and
almost black, and this being also the most rare the
method of preserving it is worthy of attention. About
midsummer cut over by the ground some of the
flowering stems, which will cause buds to spring up
beneath for next year's flourish. When this will do
no longer, perhaps in the fourth or fifth year, take
off some buds in autumn, the nearest to the ground
that can be got, and extract part of the bark along
with the bud. Treat these in the manner of carna-
tion pipings; some of them will take root, and your
fine plant will be renovated. The writer has now a
specimen reared in this way from seed, and in its
eighth year, growing six feet high, and clothed with
dark purple.

Hyacinths — Grow best in light sandy earth with
manure placed a foot beneath the bulbs. They are
planted in September, and a covering of leaves or

230 THE MANSE GARDEN.

tanner's bark well decayed must be applied in winter
to protect them from frost. After the flower is de-
cayed, the roots and stems are first partially raised,
and then extended on the surface in order to dry gra-
dually. The bulbs, in such numbers as to have
any effect, are expensive, and, with whatever care,
they degenerate every year from the period of their
importation.

Iris — Of which there may be fifty varieties, are
all beautiful, and some remarkable for the sweetness
of their odour. If placed in a bed it is necessary to
arrange their colours, and to choose bulbs which
have the same period of flowering. The iris does
not love much sun, and the heat of a south wall is
to be avoided. If the soil be inclined to clay, mix
it with peat earth, but the best thing for a fresh
and good blow is decomposed turf from old pasture.
No care is necessary in keeping the roots — they
may remain in the ground, but for the sake of the
soil they should all be taken up, and like tulips they
do not suffer by frost though placed in an open box
in the garret.

Lychnis — Of which there are many varieties.
The scarlet double is one of the finest flowers, and
should not be lost sight of. It will keep in good
order for many years with no other trouble than that
of parting the roots and replanting after the flower-
ing is over, but the surest method is to renew the
plant by slips. In July take a number of cuttings,
six or seven inches long, of such stems as are not
carrying flowers, and insert them, leaving two joints
above, in well pulverised earth, and give at first a
copious watering. A handglass darkened, as noticed

THE MANSE GARDEN. 231

in the treatment of carnations, will promote the
striking of the slips ; but they will do if in any way
sheltered and shaded.

Lobelia, or Cardinal-flower. — That variety called
fulgens is of the brightest scarlet, arid perhaps the
brightest colour of the vegetable world. This fine
plant is perfectly manageable at moderate elevations.
Slips will do as above, but in general plenty of rooted
offsets may be procured. Place them in fine earth
manured with old compost, and in a spot completely
sheltered but open to the sun. Before winter cover
up the roots with light short decayed dung, which
rake off in spring, when the young buds will be found
appearing beneath.

Lily — Of which there are many varieties, but a
few of the best are the large common white, growing
four or five feet high ; (the small white flower, not
unfrequently called lily, is a Narcissus ; ) the orange
lily, which takes its name from its colour; the fiery
lily, which may be known by the bulbs it bears on
the stalks; the martagon or Turk's-cap lily, of which
there are many sorts, and which are named from the
turning in of the petals, presenting the figure of a
turban; the tiger; and the crown-imperial. The
bulbs are scaly and do not agree with the treatment
of hard bulbs. If kept long out of the ground they
must be placed in sand to prevent drying. The
proper season for planting is September ; planted in
spring they are apt not to flower that year. But the
best rule with all the tribe is to observe when the
leaves begin to decay after the season of flowering,
and then to take them up, whether to give more room
or fresh soil. They are too monstrous for beds and

232 THE MANSE GARDEN.

do best either in single plants or in patches at inter-
vals. The crown-imperial, though not the most
showy of lilies, is a grand and elegant flower, and
remarkable for its rapid growth at an early period of
the spring. At that season of all food it is the most
enticing to snails. Being horribly olefiant and juicy,
it is probably to their palate what garlic is to a Span-
iard. But unfortunately for the plant, being fistular,
the snail perforations, resembling those of a flute,
admit the air direct to the heart, and death is the
consequence. Early in spring scoop out the earth
around the stems, and with it the slimy people sleep-
ing beside their banquet. Put a roll of stiff paper
round each stem, not tight, and fasten it with a pin ;
then draw in the earth, leaving the paper two inches
higher. The snails do not find their way over.

Marigold — Only to be noticed far this, that the
exquisite sorts, African and French, are very fre-
quently sown in vain. See conclusion to the list of
annuals.

Narcissus, or Daffodil — Of which there are up-
wards of thirty varieties: the sweet-scented, major,
minor, poeticus of various sorts, polyanthus or many-
flowered ; various sorts of yellow, of which the jon-
quil, one of the rush- leaved kind, is the sweetest.
The fading of the stalks indicates the season for
gathering the bulbs — which being not scaly but
hard may be dried in the shade and kept till Sep-
tember or October. The rush-leaved sorts seem to
like moisture, but that of loam, not clay. In order
to have fine flowers the roots must be taken up every
two years. Without this care of the finer varieties,
the leaves fall down like rank grass, the flowers are
few, and the stems weak and sickly.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 233

Pinks — Are much more easily propagated than
carnations. It is needless to sow seed except to
have plenty of trash. Cuttings or pipings taken from
good plants, when they come into flower, grow freely,
on being treated in the manner of those taken from
carnations. Pinks are divided by florists into classes :
namely damask, cobs, and pheasant's-eye. The first
are white, and flower early ; the cobs are red, and
flower late. The following are the characteristics of a
good pink : to be very double, and to open freely with-
out bursting ; to have the petals round like a rose
leaf, not ragged in the edge ; to have the body of
the flower a clear white, and the lacing, as the colours
displayed on the white ground are called, a rich black,
shaded towards the centre with red ; a scarlet or pur-
ple lacing, being more rare, is also more admired.

Polyanthus. — From long cultivation and the mix-
ture of pollen the varieties of this fine species are
without number. There is really something in the
rules of critics with regard to flowers. For though
the inexperienced would judge differently, yet culti-
vators come generally to esteem the same properties
— -a fact which vindicates the rules of criticism in
other departments. In the polyanthus the tube
of 'the corolla above the calyx should be short and
well filled with anthers ; the circular of a clear yel-
low, and distinct from the ground colour; the ground
colour shaded with a light and dark crimson, resem-
bling velvet, with one stripe in the centre of each
division of the border, distinct from the edging, and
terminating in a fine point at the eye; the petals
large flat and round ; the edging, resembling a bright
gold lace, should be distinct, not joined to the colours

234 THE MANSE GARDEN.

that mark the petals, but the nearer to the hue of
the eye and stripes the better. In raising seeds
choose, according to the above properties, the finest
flowers and keep them apart from others. Sow in
February and transplant in September, in fine beds
rather moist and shady. The main thing in subse-
quent cultivation is to part the roots every year, and
transfer the plants to new and well dug ground.
Snails must be watched in spring; and if the leaves
prematurely wither in summer, it will be found that
red-spider or some other insect is at work. Infected
plants, in order to save the rest, should be instantly
removed — a rule as needful in this case as in plague
or cholera; the diseased plants may however be
cured by steeping for an hour in a weak decoction of
tobacco leaves.

Ranunculus. — This is one of those flowers of
which a great number must grow together to give
effect to their beauty, as well as to have the advan-
tage of a cultivation which would be troublesome in
detached portions. The varieties amount to some
hundreds ; the colours are brilliant, and when well
mingled they dazzle the eye. Each double flower
has innumerable petals ranged in a form exactly
hemispherical ; and when duly cultivated the ranun-
culus bed will show its nodding golden heads as
large as a watch of the ancient form. With less art,
the appearance is as poor as possible, presenting many
blanks, and here and there a few bachelor's-buttons.
Grudge not to trench and sift a sheltered bed to the
depth of three or four feet, putting a good layer
of old manure at the bottom ; for the tubers send
their fine fibres to no less depth when they are so

THE MANSE GARDEN. 235

encouraged ; and it is by getting deep root, and find-
ing nourishment, that they are beyond the reach of
drought and able to expand so large a blossom. It
is indispensable to this plant, its fibres being like
silk threads, to have a soil not only free but finely
pulverised with frost; and to be set as early as the
ground can be got dry — namely, in February or
March, in order to have its roots well down before
the heat of April and May. Plant in small drills,
four inches by three, and giving not more than one
inch of covering to the tubers. Weeding must be
done with the hand. When the foliage withers the
roots may be taken up in dry weather, and kept in
a box to prevent shriveling.

Rocket — Of which there are two fine varieties,
the double white and double purple. They require
cultivation, of which they are well worthy, being re-
markable in their mingled colours both for showy
appearance and sweetness of perfume. If allowed
to remain permanently in the ground without trans-
planting they will certainly die; but by timeous
transplanting and parting the roots they will last
long without a renovation from cuttings. The mode
of rearing from slips may be exactly taken from that
given in the article Lychnis.

Rose — Of which there may be three hundred, or
with future care, any number of varieties. For
beauty, odour, and long succession, there is nothing
in the garden equal to a moderate collection of roses.
Every one ought to have a few varieties of the prin-
cipal species, such as the red rose, exquisite for the
simplicity of its beauty; the hundred-leaved; the
damask; the provance; the moss, very common as

236 THE MANSE GARDEN.

a double flower — the single is nowhere to be seen ;
the white moss, also double, and which is becoming
now general ; the white ; the single yellow, serving,
the best of all flowers, to indicate an early or late
season, as its opening is not gradual, but at once and
decisive; the double yellow, which may be tried on
an east wall at a medium elevation : it is remarkable
for blowing seldom, and for not blowing well above
once in a lifetime ; hence its excellence both as cre-
ating expectation and constituting an era ; the Au-
strian, remarkable for having petals red on one side
and orange on the other: it is as yet only found
single — a double variety would be splendid; the
Scots rose, of many variations ; the sweet brier, hav-
ing double and various coloured flowers; the musk,
so named from its odour; the China, and the Indian
rose, formerly confined to flowerpots and to the
house, now the hardiest and longest flowering; the
Ayrshire, remarkable for its rambling growth. As
there is no finer object than a rose-tree, some of the
more woody species, as the white, the single yellow,
the Austrian, or the wild brier, grafted with one of
richer flowers, should be allowed to get up and ex-
pand its branches. But in general, the finest flowers
are obtained by cutting down the young wood every
year and keeping the blossom low. A fine effect
is produced by laying the branches beneath the
ground, and erecting only a few inches of the top,
thus covering the parterre with a carpet of rose
bloom. What are called rosebaskets are no beau-
ty ; but along the side of a walk, a piece of lath rail
of invisible green, planted thick with China roses,
which blossom all the year, and having along the

THE MANSE GARDEN. 237

top a branch of the Ayrshire rose grafted at inter-
vals, and dropping down all the varieties of rose tint,
has an effect not to be described. Young suckers
should be removed in October, and set apart, to be-
come good plants. Several sorts, as the China, In-
dian, and Ayrshire, grow from slips; but the sure
way of propagation for all the tribe is to make layers,
which, especially of any rare sort, ought not to be
neglected, as some are not prolific in offsets, and all
old roots cease to yield good flowers. Dig the
ground about the roots early in spring or in autumn,
if not troubled with wet, in winter ; and with hooked
pegs, fix the branches of one year's growth three
inches below the surface, paring off a little of the
bark, or giving the branch a sharp twist at the place
where the peg is inserted ; then raise the head of
the layer, and firm the soil about it. Of such as
make roots but slowly, it is proper to continue the
layer in its place for two seasons, having it detached
from the parent stem one year before removal. By
such care no good plant will be lost; and a succes-
sion of good flowerbearing trees may be kept for
any length of time. To have late flowers, trans-
plant a few bushes in April.

Stockgilbjflower, or Ten-weeks' -stock. — Though
set down in the list of annuals, this is a much finer
flower when treated as a biennial. If seed pro-
cured from nurseries has been raised in warmer cli-
mates, the plants uniformly run to flower too early,
and the biennial treatment becomes impracticable.
Home-grown seed should be saved in higher situa-
tions; in lower, the Brompton stock is more favour-
able for keeping over winter. In sowing the seed,

238 THE MANSE GARDEN.

attention should be paid to the scarlet sort, which is
by far the finest; but the care to have the seed stock
in the neighbourhood of a double flower is a mere
fancy, as the double yields no pollen. The virtue
of being double is accidental, or perhaps the effect
of cultivation in a soil more rich than suits the na-
ture of the plant. Sow the seed towards the end of
July, or so late, according to the climate, as to avoid
shooting for that season. Transfer part of the
plants to any spare room in the cauliflower frame,
where they will certainly be saved, and afford a most
beautiful blow next summer. Part of the plants
also may be committed to the open air, some under
a north wall and some in the heat and shelter of a
south ; for in some seasons the one will prove safest,
and in some the other. In this way, manage to
have a hundred good plants, which set in spring about
twice as thick as common greens, and on ground light-
ly manured and prepared by digging before winter.
When flowering begins, observe such as threaten to
be single, or of inferior colours, and draw them out,
making room for the better sorts, which will thus
make a splendid appearance and yield the sweetest
perfume for a very long period. By sowing very
early in a warm place, a fine blow may be had in
autumn. But in the common way of giving this
plant the same treatment as other annuals, it is as
commonly lost ; the flowering comes to nothing the
first season, and before seeing another the plant,
having begun to shoot, is sure to perish in the frost.
Sunflowers. — Sow the seed in a warm dry border,
much earlier than the general sowing of annuals;
and when the plants are two inches high, lift with a

THE MANSE GARDEN. 239

trowel and set them out, at wide intervals, along the
shrubbery or flower border. In rich earth, the giant
sunflower will cover a square yard, and bear twenty
or thirty heads of flower ; and thus early sown, such
as have the best exposure to the sun will perfectly
ripen their seeds.

Sweet William, or Bearded Pink. — Sow a good
breadth, and there will be a great variety of colours ;
some remarkably beautiful, — the double purple and
rose-coloured varieties are valuable. When a good
sort occurs remove it from the rest and save its seed.
Though there be no rule as to seeds, yet the better
sorts give a better chance. A fine double plant need
not be lost for a long period, as it may be propagated
either by slips, layers, or offsets from the roots.

Tulips. — Of which there may be a thousand varie-
ties. The early sorts are little cultivated. One of
these, a distinct species, is sweet-scented and known
by the name of van-thol. It flowers in April. Bulbs
of the late kind are to be had at all prices, from five
shillings per hundred to five guineas per bulb.
Prices have been infinitely higher in the days, not
of finer flowers, but of tulip mania. The properties
of a fine tulip are, a strong stem two feet high, the
flower large, with six petals opening at the base
almost Horizontally, and forming a cup only a little
wider at the brim than at the bottom; the three
outer petals broader at the base than the three inner
ones ; all the petals entire at the edges, broad at the
top and well rounded; the ground colour at the bot-
tom of the cup, clear white or yellow, and free of
stain or tinge; and the various rich stripes, which
constitute the chief ornament, should be regular,

240 THE MANSE GARDEN.

bold, and distinct on the margin, terminating in bro-
ken points elegantly feathered or pencilled. It is
remarkable that in Turkey and Persia, of which
countries the tulip is a native, the flower is princi-
pally of a red colour, whilst each petal has a black
spot at the bottom, and that this is nearly the de-
scription of the worst appearance which, according to
florists, a tulip can present ; from which it may be
judged what cultivation can do; for there can be no
doubt, that without ever having seen any of the
technical rules, the most inexperienced eye would
prefer the finer tulips now reared to those blackhearted
natives of the east. If the soil be moderately rich,
no manure should be added ; if too poor, only old
compost should be applied ; for any sort of rank and
recent dung has the effect of deforming the figure,
confounding the colours, and destroying the fine
feathering of the stripes in which the chief beauty
consists. In planting, which is best done in Octo-
ber, rake off the earth from the bed both ways to
the depth of three inches; set the bulbs apart nine
inches by six, taking care to place on the middle of
the bed the larger, which can bear a deeper covering
of earth ; replace that soil which has been raked off,
and add from a furrow on each side as much as to
give a little elevation to the middle of the bed, for
the sake of dryness and to cover all the bulbs from
four to six inches deep. Tulips require no watering.
As soon as the flowers have decayed, remove the
seed pods; and when the foliage withers take up
the roots.

Wallflower. — Having sown pretty largely, and
obtained some fine specimens of very dark flowers,

THE MANSE GARDEN. 241

\vith broad petals, get all others out of the garden,
and plenty of good seedling plants, self-sown, will be
annually obtained. But to insure a succession of
the best breed, (and the method applies to the double
flowering, which yields no seed, and cannot otherwise
be preserved,) about the beginning of July pinch
off a hundred slips or young shoots of five or six
inches in length, taken only from the finest stocky ;
crop the leaves and strip the rest of the stem bare ;
dibble the slips, so prepared, into a bed newly dug,
and shaded by trees or a north wall. Sprinkle them
with water and shade any part to which the sun has
access. Not one will go back ; and in this way a
bountiful profusion of one of the sweetest flowers,
and the best of its kind, may be had from year to year.
For the critical description of certain flowers, and
some other items not familiar to his experience, the
author has made use of the excellent article, Horti-
culture^ of the Edinburgh Encyclopedia.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 243

APPENDIX.

GARDEN-BOOKS commonly terminate in a de-
scription of garden-tools; and something indeed, as
to the best means of accomplishing the end their
authors have in view, may very naturally be expected.
But as the dealers in tools, as well as others in trade,
are usually quicksighted enough to discover what
sorts have the readiest sale, and as that sale soon
comes to progress in the ratio of merit, the writer of
the previous treatise is quite satisfied with the market
as it is, together with the law which, without check-
ing the multiplicity of inventions, circulates only the
•best. Instead therefore of describing the shape, size,
or otherwise improved construction of spades, rakes,
mattocks, and mousetraps, he proceeds to consider
only one implement of the manse garden, and which
truly needs no little attention to its proper use arid
amendment — namely, the minister's boy.

In former years the minister's man was a func-
tionary of some note in the parish ; but whether of
late servants have risen in rank, or ministers fallen,
certain it is that the minister's man has now very
generally dwindled to a boy. It may be however
that a better economy, without supposing either a
rise or fall in the rank of either, may account for the
change. Descending from feudal times, when ser-

244 THE MANSE GARDEN.

vants did nothing but kill and steal as they were bid,
we find their wicked, and in the long run ungainful
employments, substituted by a system of field labour,
which for a long period had indeed its busy seasons
— those of sowing and reaping, of collecting hay and
fuel — with comparative idleness all the rest of the
year. But now the dead of winter has less of leisure
than the stirring summer had then ; and the farm,
more like a factory, finds work for all hands at all
times. The fields, it is true, differ from the factory
as to the matter of a roof for shelter; but the genius
of the farmer compensates the deficiency by suiting
the work to the weather ; and the gleeful toil goes
on as steady as in a house full of spindles and cards.
Such an arrangement, if it do not cheapen provisions,
must raise the rent of land as well as the labourer's
hire ; and hence, as an idle day is now rare upon the
farm, so an idle man, whether about the farm or the
manse, becomes a nuisance to be no longer tolerated.
But a man with a pair of horses is equal to the
task of cultivating seventy or eighty acres, whereas
the glebe, consisting only of twelve, may have nine
under the plough ; and whilst the expense of such
an equipment cannot be less than seventy or eighty
pounds per annum, the whole proceeds of the glebe
crops will probably not do more than cover half that
sum. And if to diminish the cost of management
only one horse is kept, then is the power inadequate
to the plough, and the next resource is a good neigh-
bour, possessed in like manner of a little farm and a
solitary beast. But the neighbour is not long good
in a ticklish time — when the dust is on the harrow
and the turnip seed has the promise of a shower.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 245

Another expedient is to keep two horses, and rent
fifty acres to be wrought along with the glebe. But
then, alas ! no work is ever right, whether as to time
or place or quantity, without the constant eye of the
master; and the result is one of two — the minister
either sinks his calling, or loses his substance and
becomes bankrupt. Such disasters, whether from
neighbourly quarrels or ruined affairs, have led to
the better resort of letting the glebe or of hiring a
plough ; and hence the man is no longer a necessary
appendage to the manse. But the minister is not
fit for the parish without a pony, and the pony can-
not be kept without a boy, who will be half and con-
sequently wholly idle if he have not other work to
do: — Such is the garden implement now under con-
sideration.

Whatever may be the outcry as to the uselessness
of this official, let it be remembered, in the first in-
stance, that he is indispensable to the pony, as the
pony is to the minister; and further, that he is, if
an idle boy, a substitute for an idle man — a spectacle
less easy to be looked at. And as an encouragement
to choose the least of two evils, the author avers,
that the boy under proper direction is fully equal to
all the work of the garden, with the exception of
three or four days in the year, when better hands,
whether as to strength or skill, may be required to
lay up a winter furrow of deep digging, or to train a
fruit tree round the stalk of a chimney — a height too
great, it may be, for the minister's nerve, and per-
haps for the decencies of his calling. This suffi-
ciency of the boy, however, presupposes on the
part of his master the possession of " My Book,"

246 THE AIANSE GARDEN.

together with such work of his own hand as, giving
health to his frame, shall be found also a pleasure to
his heart. But it is further to be understood, that
the following directions, with regard to the improve-
ment and use of the boy, are made some matter both
of care and of conscience.

In general boys are plagues. Something above
what is usually denominated an urchin, and beneath
a varlet, they are of the most impracticable age — an
age when wit is the weakest and will is the strongest
— when independence, as an end, is desired the
most, and character, as means, regarded the least.
They have escaped from school at a time when, con-
scious of strength, they began to despise the master
of a lowly seminary; and the parental authority to
which they are required to submit is rarely good.
The father being himself a servant, his children, by
an instinct that needs to be amended, fail of respect ;
and he, most of his waking hours abroad, can do but
little with the authority he has; whilst the mother,
not careful of training at an early day, and used to the
issue of uncertain commands, has recourse to persua-
sions or condescends to entreaty. Boys so reared
come home, as their instalment to office is termed ;
and though at first shy and dumb as a sheep, yet no
sooner has a small command by a superior servant
been imposed than it provokes a loud defiance, so
naturally, in their new yoke, do they slide into the
wonted rut of their ill made roads. Trained to no
habits of industry, they like no sort of work. Their
pleasure lies in idle companions ; and their haunt is
not yet the tavern, but the smithy, where they may
spend the long hours in bartering a knife, in arrang-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 247

ing a gallop, or marveling at a gun-lock, with longing
eye to the possession, but with no liking to the labour
that might purchase the manly toy.

So constituted, a boy cannot fall into worse hands
than those of the minister, or enter upon work he is
more reluctant to than his. On the farm the crack
of the whip is music to his ear ; the assemblage of
labourers, the jibe, and the jest, have the liveliness
of a camp ; whilst the yoking and unyoking of horses,
the plunging of one unbroken to the yoke, and the
upsetting of a cart, are a perfect Waterloo to his
soul; and being there under authority, he is also
surrounded with examples, which rouse his ambition,
or soothe the toils of the day. But the scene is
different at the manse : the boy works alone, if he
work at all ; he is depressed by solitude, and the
eye of his master is seldom upon him ; he hates his
task, arid spends his time in thinking which of a
thousand lies will serve the best for an excuse. It
ought to be a serious consideration with ministers,
that boys, bringing to the manse the seeds of corrup-
tion, should find there the best soil on which to sow
them, and the best leisure for tending their growth.
And this they will do if not narrowly watched, and
submitted to a treatment answerable to their nature ;
and freely it may be asserted, that neither catechising,
nor reading the Bible, nor family prayer, will ever
produce the least salutary effect, if idleness be allowed
and lies go unpunished. Let the reflection be added,
that as six months are the probable period of an ill-
doer's service, it may happen that the minister, in
the course of his life, has sent out to the world half
a hundred youths, who at the manse have been en-

248 THE MANSE GARDEN.

(lured merely as useless, but have gone somewhere
to be endured as blackguards ; whilst it may not be
so certain that, of all that number, one convert has
been made in all that time.

The author claims the privilege of one old in ex-
perience ; and begs leave to offer to his younger
brethren some hints as to the methods of making
the boy good, and of turning his service to good
account.

Let the chance be favourable. Never hire a boy
at the market, as farmers may, who can do better
with a bad one. Treat with the parents in presence
of the boy — that you may know whether they would
encourage him to run home — whether they abhor
lying and swearing — and whether they have been at
pains to bestow some moral training on their chil-
dren. The remembrance of such a conference, to
which an appeal may be made, is never lost in the
giving of subsequent admonitions. Have nothing
to do with one that has been at no sort of work be-
fore; for, except the worst of idlers, all have been
doing something, such as herding cows or hoeing
turnips, before they have grown fit for taking care of
a horse. Unless well recommended, rather have one
from a country place than from a town or village,
especially the neighbourhood of an inn-stable. Lose
no good chance for a slight difference of wages ; for
what are a few shillings in the year in comparison of
killing a horse, or any sort of annoyance which is
repeated every day?

Make great use of the law of kindness : a boy
should not feel on his first outset, that on leaving
home he is without a friend. Fail not to instruct

THE MANSE GARDEN. 249

him in the fear of God. Appear thus in the char-
acter of a guardian, not of a taskmaster : he has no
way of avoiding the impression that your admonitions
are solely for his good, and when spoken kindly and
earnestly, they fail not to reach his heart; whereas
his ill taught selfish spirit always suspects a selfish
end in the issue of every precept that concerns only
the quality or the amount of his working. Angry
threats provoke hatred and tempt to lying ; but
gentleness, urging the necessity of truth, will lead
to the owning of a fault. It is a capital rule never
to charge your boy with any crime without making
sure of conviction. If you have begun the charge,
spare no pains to make the conviction complete ; for
if you fail in this, and the accused be really guilty,
you have, designing good, done incalculable harm :
you have strengthened, all the time of examination,
his hardihood of denial ; you have allowed his lies to
pass off triumphant; and have increased at once his
sulkiness, self-esteem, and hatred of your person.
But the moment that proof comes home and convic-
tion is wrought, shame and perhaps tears show the
good that has been gained, and give hope of future
amendment.

Make your boy to understand that you want dili-
gence, not hard work ; and indeed compassion ought
always to be had for a frame that is but little ma-
tured. It is of great use to know what it is reason-
able to expect of such an age. A boy at fourteen is
not equal to more than one fourth of a man's work
at any thing heavy; but in lighter tasks, such as
picking up stones and weeds, he may be equal to
a half. Give him all the benefit of the common

L2

250 THE MANSE GARDEN.

rules : — a full hour of rest twice within the ordinary
period of lahour ; and if you have a message to any
considerable distance, let the requisite time be taken
from the working hours. This adds greatly to
willingness, which, if it be gained, will make all
right ; for the physical powers are quite adequate to
all that you want ; the difficulty is to enlist the moral
powers ; and with regard to these there is as often a
mistake on the part of the master as there is a failure
on the part of the servant. Your boy wants to go
home to see his parents ; and his idea is that you
cannot grudge him the Sabbath for that purpose.
But give him rather any other day. He will be
surprised that you do not value his work so much as
you do his morals ; he will carry, by his visit, a lesson
to his brothers and sisters-^— it may be to his parents
also ; and whilst you prevent as much Sabbath pro-
fanation as might spoil a whole week's instructions,
you are effectually making more useful hands by
providing first for a better heart.

The want of something to do in leisure hours is a
perpetual cause of running to idle companions. The
poor boy has learned to read ; but it is only in the
best schools, and of late years, that children have
discovered any connection between the words of a
book and the ideas which they are meant to convey ;
and the probability is that your boy has never read a
page either for his instruction or amusement. To
what a flood of light might his mind be at once
opened by giving him a little book, and requiring
him to tell what he had read of. He has learned to
write and do accounts by rote, but has no notion of the
use of either. The gift of a few sheets of paper and

THE MANSE GARDEN. 251

a slate, with as much intelligence as might be commu-
nicated in half an hour, might, by exercising his men-
tal faculties, attach him to his abode, save him from
bad company, and prevent the annoyance (of ridicu-
lous frequency in all like cases) of not knowing where
to find your boy when a friend arrives on horseback.

Of petty faults stealing fruit is likely to be one, as
the opportunities are many. In the heat of the sun
make your boy lay down his hoe, and refresh himself
at the fountain of gooseberries. I have never seen
any other effect of this than greater modesty and
better work. Give liberty as to this fruit, the best
of all, and which it is easy to have as plentiful as an
ocean. Tell your little man that you will give him
other fruits when ripe, but that he must not take
with his own hand, as all theft is bad to the value of
a pin ; and your word of kindness, together with the
word of God's law, will do far more than spring-guns
or man-traps.

A further rule of moral discipline, and one most
essential, is to provide for working hours a constancy
of work, and so arranged that the boy may know at
all times what he has to do. This alters the natural
current of his ideas, and cuts off at once a perpetual
fountain of falsehoods. The great object of the
youngster is to get done and away ; but he sees by
this plan, that it is of no use to do a thing ill in
order to have it soon over; and he is afraid to run
off to idlers, for the ready excuse of not knowing
what to do will in no case serve. The most un-
manageable part of his duty is that of going mes-
sages. Two or three that might occupy as many
half hours are sufficient to consume the day ; new

252 THE MANSE GARDEN.

attractions are formed, whilst old ones, as with a re-
touch of the magnet, are refreshed ; and there is no
willing return to work after a conversation. To
mitigate an evil which cannot be prevented, let the
missions of the unfittest person about the house be
few — not on the spur of the moment, and at the bid-
ding of every body — otherwise the solid day, broken
in pieces, is thrown away like the fragments of a jar
not fit to be mended, but for such loved excursions
allot such hours as are followed by a better induce-
ment to return than that which the spade presents.
All house work will be found bad for the boy; though
trifling as to time, such jobs are great as to pretence,
and all out-of-doors work is by them rendered nuga-
tory. Get up early some mornings, and see the
stable duties sufficiently well done ; mark the time
that may be requisite ; make a liberal allowance for
less activity in your absence, and point out the allow-
ance; then fix the hour at which the garden work
must commence, and see that the hour is exactly
observed, though the work of the broom should be
left unfinished. This neglect may be noticed at the
breakfast hour of rest. There is no harshness in
this, but merely what is felt to be just; and such
strictness is essential to moral discipline; for what is
neglect or idleness but a species of theft ? The
reasonableness of this even a stubborn youth cannot
resist, and he will be brought by a little patience to
see that regularity is a saving to himself, and a little
perseverance on your part will add to the value of
his discovery the force of a habit.

But if you would have reason and conscience
to rule, avoid every thing that is not reasonable.

THE MANSE GARDEN. 253

Show no passion ; for that always makes the youth
think that, whilst you profess to aim at mending his
conscience, your zeal is to make the most of his
labours. Avoid bad names, lest you appear in his
eyes to forget what he has read about " Raca" and
" Thou fool," and never threaten dismissal without a
true purpose to effect it should the offence for which
it is threatened be again repeated. If dismissal be
spoken of lightly, it is of none effect ; and if not put
in force after a serious declaration, good cause is
given for casting off the respect that is due to your
word. It may be, too, that the boy, not daring to
run home of his own accord, desires nothing so much
as to be sent away, in which case a threat to that
effect is the best sound he can hear, and a strong in-
ducement to do worse — resting as he does in this,
that he can contrive what to say for himself when he
gets to the ear of his mother. But as compassion is
due to one of so little discretion that in the eye of
the law he is not held fit to conduct his own affairs,
and whose bread yet depends on the character he
attains, it is the most humane as it will prove the
most successful method of dealing with him, to ex-
plain before one or more of his fellow-servants the
loss which, in his early career, he must suffer by a
dismissal from his place ; and to assure him that you
will not inflict so much grief on his parents, without
first sending for them, in order to make known his
faults, and to try the effect of their admonitions on
his subsequent behaviour.

The above observations, the author is persuaded,
will not be judged unworthy either of a place or of
perusal, when the frequency of their use and the

254 THE MANSE GARDEN.

importance of their objects are duly considered ; and
though they are merely superficial and of the readiest
occurrence to all, yet the fact is, that no one cares
for adverting to them, till the circumstances which
call them forth prove that they ought to have been
known before, and till the mischiefs which such ob-
servations might have prevented stand in the room
of those advantages which the earlier application
of them might have secured.

Next to the means of improving the boy, a few
things may be said to the effect of rendering his work
sufficient so far as it goes. It is a fact, that being
well disposed, he will, by a few lessons, rightly given,
be perfectly fit for all plain garden work without
further superintendence ; whilst at nicer jobs under
your own eye, his nimble and willing hands will afford
sufficient help, and add pleasure to your occupation.
But then it is as true that the simplest things, with-
out suitable directions, will be entirely bungled.
Thus, if weeding be ordered, the result will be more
of the nature of grazing than of extirpation ; or if a
piece of digging be required, the spade will be set
at such an angle as suits the work of a shovel, and
the surface will present a series of undulations, which
on a large scale are beautiful in the lawn, but
not in their diminished proportions on the small
field of a strawberry plantation ; and should the rake
be applied to reduce the inequalities it will discover
the dock and the de- nettle, transplanted, not with
ceremony indeed, but so that those roots, like the
outcasts of society, though ill used are yet willing to
live and to dwell in the land — and before they can
be extracted the rake brings to light more of a ver-

THE MANSE GARDEN. 255

dant deposit, of which the attempt to pull all out is
like the spinning of a rope — an operation that is
without end; or if hoeing be the work to which the
youth is applied, the soil, it will be found, is rather
scraped than stirred; and the weeds, replanted with the
foot, only look sick till they are visited with a shower.
Let the lessons be one at a time and amazingly
simple. As to cleaning a piece of ground previous
to digging, teach so much of the botany of three or
four of the worst weeds as that each may be known
in a crowd or at any distance. Let it be a rule
that these are to be taken up as carefully as a crop
of beet and laid aside, that it may be seen how little
injury they have suffered in the act of up-rooting.
The ground being thus cleared, let it be understood
that digging means lifting earth to the depth of
fifteen inches and laying it upside down — the com-
mon substitute for which is a mere disordering of the
same surface that was uppermost before; hence the
wetness and coldness of soil, the late sowing and
little reaping, together with the waste of manure,
which occur in the gardens of the peasantry — a loss
sustained through life for the want of a single lesson.
To secure good digging, see that a furrow or trench
of the specified depth be opened on the one side of
the plot to be dug, and the stuff wheeled to the
other. Let this furrow be two feet wide and cut
straight down, and let the boy understand that when
it is filled in the process of digging he must leave
another as wide and as deep, and maintain such open-
ness of trench all the way through the plot. Point
out the different colours of the soil that comes up,
and show that his work, if rightly done, will all the

256 THE MANSE GARDEN.

way present the same appearance. If such a colour
is exhibited, the depth is good, the annual weeds fall,
of course, to occupy the lowest place, and neither the
rake nor the genial sun will bring them to light any
more. The manure is by this means also duly de-
posited, and not wasted by frost and evaporation.

In all cases where not much may be trusted to
discretion, the only thing is a rule which has no
relative terms, such as " well or ill done," but which,
being exactly understood, may be as exactly fulfilled.
Such may be applied to hoeing and cleaning as well
as to digging the ground. Let the hoe be inserted
the full breadth and pass in regular furrows beneath
the roots of weeds; let one basket be used for gather-
ing stones and another for weeds; let the rake follow,
and prove the exactness of the rule by leaving nothing
but red earth, and the crop if there be one. The
youngster cannot avoid taking pleasure in work that
is so executed — a secret of his nature that he would
never have found out if left to himself; because he
would never aim at the perfection on the sight of
which the pleasure depends, but would work slovenly,
hating the labour as well as the look of what he leaves
behind.

The wire riddle makes a rule for itself, and is
admirable for giving exactness of idea to the worker
as well as of finish to his work. You want a piece
of ground made fit for small seeds, and you give
orders to have it well cleared of stones. But your
words do not convey your idea — the boy takes his
notions from a clover field. Show him the riddle,
and say that the soil to a given depth must pass
through its wires. They have no latitudinarian

THE MANSE GARDEN. 257

notions, and your boy so furnished is as perfect a
workman as the first in a palace garden. The work
is a masterpiece, and never did hand of thrifty wife
print with more pleasure her store of newmade meal
than you will a mould of such aptitude, whether for
receiving the fine fibres of a flower or the fairy beads
of the amaranth. At such a work your boy is a trea-
sure; you have him at any rate, and the work, though
slow, is sweet to the eye when done ; but it might
lose some of its sweetness on settling accounts with
other hands at the rate of two shillings per day.

I shall notice little more than one other sort of
work, to exemplify the methods of turning your boy's
hands to good account. I allude to one which he
can do perfectly — which will never fail in supplying
fair weather employment, and by the perseverance
of which the manse garden will show the best crops
in the parish. Let no prejudice as to inadequacy of
strength prove a hinderance. Nothing but ignorance
of the spade and of muscular exertion can make the
name of' trenching sound harsh as work for a boy.
The work is in fact as easy as any other : severity
lies in quantity, not in kind. A man to make two
shillings must trench twentyfour square yards; and if
your boy do one fourth of that number, neither is he
overwrought nor do you keep him for nothing; and
even at this lowly rate it is surprising — so little do
we notice the progress of time — how great the amount
will appear after a long period ! Supposing you
have a trench opened, and the work proceeds, the
progress, though marked by small additions, is still
an object in dreary winter. But a snowfall has shut
all up, and yet the sky is delightfully serene. For

258 THE MANSE GARDEN.

want of management in such a season, your boy,
having nothing to do, would certainly be off, spend-
ing his pence on gunpowder, and joining a group of
rascals about the hedges, idly shooting at birds —
swearing either at a hit or miss — and contracting an
intolerable itch for a life of poaching, and hence of
drams, to be had by the easy won price of a pheasant,
or, failing that, by other acts of theft. Keep your
boy from such associates, as you have to answer for
his soul. Let the snow be no hinderance to his work.
Desire him to cut for you a road to the trench, as
you may wish to walk that way; and it will serve to
keep his own feet dry and make his work look com-
fortable. The removal of the feathery load from
road and trench is not the labour of an hour; and
when you look at the red earth rising above the snow,
and visited by the robin — at the clear sky, and high-
ways unfit for riding or walking — at the dry and broken
subsoil thirsting for the riddle — it is scarcely possible,
in the bracing air, to resist the temptation of pick or
shovel, one of which is sure to be at leisure ; and
surely worse might be done than to spend in such a
way one or more such hours.

There is a peculiarity of the boy's age which
ought not to be overlooked. He approaches man-
hood, and is ambitious of the various working imple-
ments that are proper to a man — the hedgebill, the
scythe, the saw, or the joiner's plane; and as he thus
has the willingness, certain it is, if you have the tools
and can show their use, he will on a few trials do
tolerably well with them all; with the sythe, not for
a hay crop, but a handful of grass; or in hard weather,
if restricted to the upward cut, he may prune a hedge;

THE MANSE GARDEN. 259

or, besides preparing firewood, he will dress with a
plane the pieces of an upright paling, which take
long time, but need no fineness of polish.

Should your boy grow an adept, a little rise of
wages, well bestowed, may keep him for another
year; but the probability is that shortly after you
have made him useful, he is off to farm service or
some trade. But the better he is, you are the surer
of another as good. His fame is in your favour ;
and your patience with a novice, as well as your art
of instruction, remain. Character, whether of master
or of servant, is like volatile salt; and term-days are
but the stir that makes the odour diffusive. There
is no narrower view of life than to suppose that any
thing good or bad, however trifling, is unnoticed.
Every thing that every man does or says is known,
is talked of, is commented upon, far and wide ; and
characters made up of grains of sand and some larger
pieces stand out in the landscape of the district, as
distinctly seen and rated, to a degree, as all manner
of buildings, from a hovel to a tower. Mothers have
more boys to dispose of, and have seen how others
fared with you — their station as well as their morals
improved, and their service sought; they come with
a younger brother of your former boy, or with one
somehow connected, and to whom every thing about
your place is as well known as to your own family.
Such a one is predisposed to do well, and comes to
his service with a mind suited to the circumstances
of his calling; ambitious to thrive, and fearing to
come short of those who have done well before.
Thus on the true principle, that if comfort, not ne-
cessity, be considered, masters are no more indepen-

260 THE MANSE GARDEN.

dent than servants, you insure the receiving by the
conferring of benefits ; and it will certainly be found
that none of your pains and patience with a former
boy are lost by his departure; for the good that he
has gained holds out a reward ; your instructions,
through him, are conveyed to others ; and your house
becomes a place which the worthless will shun and
the well doing will covet. And thus, whilst your art
of training improves, you have in fact less to do with
it; your temper, tried by fewer mischiefs, will be
soothed by the sight of good order and willing ser-
vice ; and conscience, instead of being galled by the
thought of sending half yearly from the manse a pest
to society, will be gratified by the hope of making a
succession of youths more fit for the world, and more
likely to see the kingdom of heaven.

THE END.

Printed by W. Collins & Co.
Glasgow.

INDEX.

PART FIRST.

FOREST AND FRUIT TREES.

Page

The Holly, ......... 9

Composition of Strip for shelter, .• .• . . 11

Recovery of one that has been mismanaged, ... 16

Hedges made hare-tight, 22

Provocations of a bad fence, ...... 23

Garden Wall — Heritors, 25

Figure of the Garden — Cure of its formality, . . 27

Stiffness of Plantations how remedied. ... 28
Transplanting of Forest Trees — Sir H. Stewart — Relief to

the bareness of Scotland, 29

Temporary Paling and expedient in case of deep Snow, 34-

Gardening at great heights with bad soil and climate, . 37

Natural beauty of Church and Manse — hence encouragement, 38

The Village Gardener — His workmanship, ... 40

Use of this book — The Minister his own Gardener, . 44

The Bite, 46

Multitude of Motives, 'v . f &t . • •• . . 4-9

The mechanical turn, .57

Training of Trees upon a wall, 58

Apples and Pears, . . . » . 58

Cherries, 61

Peaches, Apricots, Plums, .... 62

Usual state of Trees on first taking possession of a Manse

Garden, . .63

Recovery of Pear Trees, 64

Apple Trees, . . •. .•'' . . 66

• Plum Trees, .... - • . •-— ™- 66

Planting of Wall Trees, .. .. -. -. -. . 68

Soil, preparation of, ...*.-.. . . 70

Flags beneath Fruit Trees, vanity of, . •'. ' . . 71

Paradise-stocks, use of, . . .•- "« . : . . 71

Wallfruit Border, . . .-.-.-. --1 . . 72

Selection of Trees for Wall, . '». .1*' • » . /.^ 73

Particular rule for Cherries, . • . '• . •'.-'.' . 77

List of Trees for Wall, 81

Espaliers, use of, defended, 81

Rails for Espaliers, . . . .-•••• i"3'1 84>

Espaliers neglected — How recovered, .... 85

Pruning of Forest Trees — Theory how determined — note, 87

ii « INDEX.

Espalier Trees, choice of, 88

list of, .w*W ,y*r -fjr-f •••''*' • • 91

Willows for tying Espaliers, . *- \ L, . . .. • . . 92

Fruit Bank superior to Wall, . . . * . . 93

Ribston Pippin, cultivation of, .... . . . 95

Standard Trees, .... >»,. >».;!- .--> 96

Soil and mode of Planting, ... 99

Pruning of, '•" «Y . . .. < ..•:»" '•'•'*• 99

Varieties of— Cherries, Orleans Plum, Wild

Plum, .... i-tHjKfetl&lo'*". • 1Q2

Fruit Alley — beauty and profit at no cost, . . . 103

Grafting, * ,. . 105

Budding, . . . . •. ;? ^ ,,h^ 1 . . 108

Gooseberry, . . . . . VMVJ.J* •.''-••« . 115

Pruning of, „ .116

Caterpillar, enemy of, , s-»»-n & T V » - 117

Mode of Planting, . . ., ,• -v,:.. -* . 122

Currants, . . . . . r * . 123

Rasps, . . . . ..„,, !..'" •'•>»; ^"MM . 124

Strawberries, . . . . . . . . 125

PART SECOND.

VEGETABLES.

Soil— Trenching— Value of land doubled, . vii^.{ -.: . 126

Preparation and economy of Manure, . . . 131

System of Cropping, !..'• . 134

Seasons of Sowing, method for remembering, !%-" :;;; ;i 136

Vegetables in alphabetical order, . . . • .-: ">. J<->' . 137

PART THIRD.

FLOWERS.

Method of Flower department, . . '/Vt it-ifl "!«> . 200

Flowering Shrubs, . . . . T ^: . . 201

1 Transplanting of, . . '" rn -j /', — i 203

Walks 204

Edgings for, ...'.. . . •victr;. 20 >

Graveling of, . . ^ , v'1. vy;'? iiyi->'> . 207

Flowers that mingle with Shrubs, . . ..,.i-n .^twitf gQ9

Flower Borders, . ... . . •,••»;'"/ i . 211

Spring Flowers, . . *^4 . , =« » - «/i'. >••>:< 211

Perennial Flowers, . . . . ,•'•'•.< s . 2f3

Annual Flowers, list of, .... . . . 213

Flowers requiring particular treatment, alphabetically ar-
ranged, . ' . . . . . , '>-; . 217

APENDIX, . . . . i *-,*». r-.v*. . 24.S

WORKS OF THOMAS DICK, L L.D.

1. The CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER; or, the Connexion
of Science and Philosophy with Religion. Illustrated with
Engravings. Sixth Edition. 12mo. 8*. hound in Cloth.

** This is a publication which we can most earnestly recom-
mend every Christian parent to pat into the hands of his children,
as a most judicious initiatory Work into the mysteries of Science,
viewed in connexion with Religion." — " We are pleased with the
conviction, that Dr. Dick, in the volume before us, has conferred
a benefit on mankind. To the rising generation it will prove
essentially advantageous, by compressing a fund of information
within a narrow compass ; and multitudes who have reached the
years of maturity, by perusing this Work will have an opportunity
of augmenting their store of knowledge."

This Work forms a most excellent and appropriate present
for young persons, and perhaps there are few books more
frequently presented in this manner than " The Christian Philo-
sopher," and " The Philosophy of Religion."

2. The PHILOSOPHY of RELIGION; or, an Illustration
of the Moral Laws of the Universe. Third Edition. 12mo. 8*.
bound in Cloth.

" This Work is divided into four chapteis : the first treats on
the moral relations of intelligent beings to their Creator: the
second discusses a principle of moral action — love to all sub-
ordinate intelligences: the third is devoted to an examination
of the moral law, and the rational grounds on which its precepts
are founded : and the fourth contains a survey of the moral
state of the world. This book is intended to show how happy
a world this would be, did all its inhabitants imbibe the prin-
ciples of Christianity, and live habitually under their influence."

3. The PHILOSOPHY of a FUTURE STATE. Second
Edition. 12mo. 6s. bound in Cloth.

" We have seldom risen up from the perusal of any human
composition with loftier conceptions of the Divinity, than we
have been insensibly led to cherish in the reading of this highly
philosophical and Christian publication. The last part of the
volume contains many close appeals to the heart, upon that state
of moral and spiritual accomplishment which all must seek who
anticipate the glory and felicity of heaven."

4. The IMPROVEMENT of SOCIETY by the DIFFUSION
of KNOWLEDGE. Illustrated with Engravings. Second
Edition. 12rno. 7s. 6d. bound in Cloth.

5. On the MENTAL ILLUMINATION and MORAL
IMPROVEMENT of MANKIND. Illustrated with numerous
Engravings. 12mo. 8«. bound in Ciath. Just Published.

DR. CHALMERS' WORKS.

Complete and Uniform Edition, now Publishing in
Quarterly Volumes, I2mo, Price 6s. cloth.

VOLUMES I & II,

On NATURAL THEOLOGY. These two
volumes contain the Bridge water Treatise, be-
sides which, about one half of them consists of
new matter.

VOLUMES III & IV,

On the MIRACULOUS and INTERNAL EVI~
DENCES of the CHRISTIAN REVELA-
TION, and the AUTHORITY of its RE-
CORDS. These two volumes contain the whole
of DR. CHALMERS' former Work on the Evi-
dences of Christianity — besides which, as will be
seen from the Contents, about three fourths of
them consist of entirely new matter.

The Publisher thinks it proper to notice these cir-
cumstances particularly, as many conceive that this
new and uniform edition of DR. CHALMERS' WORKS
is merely a reprint of his former Works.

VOLUME V,

On MORAL PHILOSOPHY, will appear on
1st January, 1837.