pipes are to be conducted from it to the situations for the jets. No jets, however constructed, will rise as high as the fountain-head; because the water is impeded by the resistance of the air, the friction against the opening of the pipe or adjutage, and its own gravity. It is not easy to lay down data on this head; if the bore of the adjutage be too small, the rising stream will want sufficient weight and power to divide the air, and so being dashed against it will fall down in vapour or mist. If too large, it will not rise at all. The length of pipe between the reservoir and the jet will also impede its rising in a slight degree by the friction of the water on the pipe. This is estimated by P. J. Francois (Art des Fontaines, 137.) at one foot for every hundred yards, from the reservoir. The proportion which this author gives to the adjutages relatively to the conducting-pipes, is one-fourth; and thus for a jet of four lines, or a third of an inch, he requires an adjutage of between four and five lines, and a conducting pipe of one inch and a half diameter; for a jet of six or seven lines, a conducting-pipe of two inches, and so on. From these data, the height of the fountain and the diameter of the conducting-pipe being given, the height to which a jet can be forced can be estimated with tolerable accuracy, and the contrary. But where the pipes are already laid, and the power of the head, owing to intervening obstructions, not very accurately known, the method by trial and correction by means of a leaden nozzle, will lead to the exact power under all the circumstances.

There are several sorts of adjutages contrived so as to throw up the water in the form of sheaves, fans, showers, to support balls, &c.; others to throw it out horizontally, or in curved lines, according to the taste of the designer; but the most usual form is a simple opening to throw the spout or jet upright, The grandest jet of any is a perpendicular column issuing from a rocky base, on which the water falling, produces a double effect both of sound and visual display. A jet rising from a naked tube in the middle of a basin or canal, and the waters falling on is smooth surface, is unnatural, without being artificially grand.

231

232

233

778. Drooping Fountains (figs. 231. 232. and 233.), overflowing vases, shells (as the Chama Gigas), cisterns, and sarcophagi, dripping rocks, and rock-works, are easily formed, requiring only the reservoir to be as high as the orifice whence the drip or descent proceeds. This description of fountains with a surrounding basin, are peculiarly adapted for the growth of aquatic plants. Both classes of water-works may be combined with good effect.

In all water-works in gardens, pipes or drains must be contrived to carry off such of the water as is not used in culture. The diameter of these should be somewhat larger than the conducting-pipes, for obvious reasons.

779. Sun-Dials are venerable and pleasing garden decorations; and should be placed in conspicuous, frequented parts, as in the intersection of principal walks, where the "note which they give of time" may be readily recognised by the passenger.

780. Vanes are useful in the same way, but are an unsuitable garden ornament, though frequently introduced on the summits of garden buildings. The ideas to which they give rise are connected with ships, flags, fairs, military standards, and weathercocks, all opposite to the stillness and repose of gardens. Over a library or office they are useful, connected with an internal index; and they are characteristic and proper over churches, family chapels, clock-towers, and domestic offices.

SUBSECT. 3. Characteristic Decorations.

The constructions hitherto mentioned have all had some particular use or application, in gardening or in general œconomy. Those which follow are purely decorative, without any pretensions to convenience; they should ever be very sparingly employed, and only by persons of judgment and experience. A tyro in gardening will be more apt to render himself ridiculous by the use of decorations, than by any other point of practice, and most easily by the use of characteristic decorations.

781. Rocks are generally considered as parts of the foundation of the earth, and their general character is that of grandeur, sometimes mixed with the singular fantastique or romantique. Their expression forms a fine contrast to that of perishable vegetation, and therefore they have been eagerly sought after in gardens, both on this account, and as forming a suitable habitation for certain descriptions of plants. Plant rock-works are protuberant surfaces, or declivities irregularly covered with rocky fragments, landstones, conglomerated gravel, vitrified bricks, vitrified scoriæ, flints, shells, spar, or other earthy and hard mineral bodies. Such works are, in general, to be looked on more as scenes of culture than of design or picturesque beauty.

Rock-works, for effect or character, require more consideration than most gardeners are aware of. The first thing is to study the character of the country, and of the strata of earthy materials, whether earth, gravel, sand, or rock, or a mere nucleus of either of these, such as they actually exist, so as to decide whether rocks may, with propriety, be introduced at all; or, if to be introduced, of what kind and to what extent. design being thus finally fixed on, the execution is more a matter of labour than of skill. (See Landscape Gardening).

The

782. The Ruins of objects adapted by their natures or constructions to brave time, have always excited veneration; and this sentiment, forming a contrast with those emotions raised by mere verdant scenes, has ever been esteemed very desirable in gardens. Hence, the attempt to produce them by forming artificial ruins, which being absolute deceptions, cannot admit of justification. If any thing is admissible in this way, it is the heightening the expression of ruins which already exist, by the addition of some parts, which may be supposed to have existed there when the edifice was more entire. Thus, the remains of a castle-wall, not otherwise recognizable from that of a common house or inclosure, may be pierced with a window or a loop-hole, in the style appropiate to its date, or it may be heightened or extended in some degree. In other cases, turrets, or pinnacles, or battlements, or chimney-tops, may be added, according to circumstance, and as a judicious and experienced taste and antiquarian architect may direct. Unless the style of the age of the ruins be adopted, the additions become worse than useless to all such as are conversant in the history of architecture, of which an example may be given in the modern Gothic turrets, in the grounds of White Knights, intended to represent the abbey of that name, founded soon after the Norman conquest.

783. Antiquities (fig. 234.) are nearly allied to ruins, but differ from them in being of some value as objects, independently of locality. They may be valuable from their great age, as druidical altars; from historical traditions connected with them, as stones, indicating the site of a battle, the cross-stone of an ancient town, &c. ; or from the excellence of the workmanship or the material, as in fragments of Grecian and Roman sculpture and architecture. This class of decorations is very common in Italy, and especially near Rome and Naples. Viewed as parts of landscape almost every thing depends on their union with the surrounding scenery.

784. Rarities, and curiosities, like antiquities, possess a sort of absolute value; but the sentiments to which they give rise are more allied to wonder than veneration.

They

are occasionally introduced in gardening, such as the jaw-bones of the whale, basaltic columus, lava blocks, pillars of earthy rock-salt. The tuffa, corals, and madrepores brought from Otaheite by Captain Cook, as ballast, now form part of the rock-work in the Chelsea garden. Chinese rocks, idols, and other Chinese garden ornaments, are sometimes admitted, not as imitations of rocks or sculpture, but as curiosities.

785. Monumental objects, as obelisks, columns, pyramids, may occasionally be introduced with grand effect, both in a picturesque and historical view, of which Blenheim, Stow, Castle-Howard, &c. afford fine examples; but their introduction is easily carried to the extreme, and then it defeats itself, as at Stow. In this department may be truly said, after Buonaparte, " Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas !"

786. Sculptures. — Of statues, therms, busts, pedestals, altars, urns, and similar sculptures, nearly the same remarks may be made. Used sparingly, they excite interest, often produce character, and are always individually beautiful, as in the pleasure-grounds of Blenheim, where a few are judiciously introduced; but profusely scattered about, they distract attention.

235

787. Vegetable Sculptures (fig. 235.) are very appropriate in parterres and other scenes in the ancient style. That they may be executed with correctness and without loss of time, the skeleton should be formed of wire, within which all the shoots should be confined, and when once the form is filled up with vegetation, the gardener has only to clip the protruding shoots. Groups of figures of different colors may be very curiously executed by using different colored greens. In the garden of the convent of the Madre di Dio, near Savonna, is a group representing the flight of Joseph into Egypt, in yellow box, variegated with holly, myrtle, cypress, laurel, and rosemary. The attending priest told us these plants completed their forms in three years.

788. Inscriptions, as historical records, without comment, may in some cases be admissible; as the date when any work was begun and finished, the height of elevated points above the level of the sea, or relatively to other surrounding elevated and conspicuous objects, &c. &c. ; but sentimental and religious inscriptions cannot be approved of by men in general. They are something superadded to what is or ought to be already complete, and place nature in the situation of the painter, whose portraits required the aid of graphical description. "This is a black bear.' That is "A happy rural seat of various view."

789. Eye traps, painted perspectives, on walls or boards, as terminations, mockhermits, soldiers, banditti, lions, (as at Hawkstone,) or any other figures of men or animals, intended to pass for realities, though still used in Holland and France, may be pronounced as too puerile for the present age. If they are still admired by the city-mob in a suburban tea-garden, so much the better; the mob must be pleased as well as their superiors, and the rich vulgar may join with them; but the object of all the arts, whether useful or agreeable, is to elevate our tastes and enjoyments; and therefore, as soon as men's minds are prepared for any refinement on former things, the particular art to which these things belong should prepare the way for their removal, by presenting appropriate substitutes. A few reading tents and portable coffee-houses scattered over the public parks round London and Edinburgh, as at Paris and Vienna, in umbrageous and picturesque situations, would be fitting substitutes for those crowded yards called tea-gardens.

CHAP. IV.

Of the Improvement of the Mechanical Agents of Gardening.

790. Of the implements and buildings enumerated in the foregoing chapters, a number may no doubt be done without, even in the first-rate gardens; on the other hand we have knowingly omitted some which are in use in particular situations and circumstances, as not meriting to become general, and others of forms or constructions too obsolete for modern practice, or too new and imperfect in construction to merit recommendation. A gardener of science and experience is not to be confined in his choice to what is or has been in this or in any department of his art; but drawing from the resources of his own mind, he may, and ought not only to improve what is already in use, but design and get executed, new tools, instruments, and constructions, better calculated to effect the ends in view generally, or more suited to the exigences of his particular case.

Dd s

Notwithstanding the alterations and ameliorations which have of late been so frequently made, there are few of the mechanical agents of gardening now in use, that do not admit of some, and many of them unquestionably, of much improvement. The ultimate effect of all these ameliorations is to lessen human labor, and increase the quantity, or improve the quality, of garden productions, so that every attempt to extend them is highly meritorious.

his master.

Such being the importance of implements and buildings in gardening, it is evident, that to whatever extent they are used in any department of this art, it must be desirable to select the best designs, and to have these executed in the best manner and of the best materials. This can scarcely be too strongly impressed on the mind of the gardener or his employer. With tools or instruments made of improper timber or iron, and of indifferent workmanship, the operator can never satisfy either himself or The quantity of his labour is less, and the quality inferior; add to this, that the instrument soon begins to decay, and requires to be renewed, so that independently altogether of the loss in the quantity and quality of labour, the loss occasioned by the renewal of the tool, instrument, or machine, ought to be a sufficient inducement to procure at first only the very best. The true way to ensure this, where the party are not judges, is to employ tradesmen of good repute and long standing. In general, seedsmen should be the persons from whom all the implements of gardening ought to be procurable; but as they often omit this branch of their business, from the want of regular demand, recourse must be had to ironmongers, or to those new establishments, called Horticultural and Agricultural Repositories.

By far the most important class of garden constructions are hot-houses; and with respect to them, no degree of horticultural skill and practical attention will compensate for the want of light or air, or a bad exposure; and where the arrangements for supplying artificial heat are imperfect, the risk is great, and painful for a zealous gardener to contemplate. One night may destroy the labours of the past year, and forbid hope for the year to come; the blame may be laid where it is not merited, and a faithful servant may lose his situation and his character, without having committed either errors of ignorance or carelessness.

In all buildings, the most complete, elegant, or grand design, when badly executed, is disagreeable to the view, defective in the object of its erection, and ruinous to the proprietor. Bad foundations and roofs, improper materials, materials of different degrees of durability, piled incongruously together, and bad workmanship, form the elements of bad execution. In no country are materials and labour obtained in greater perfection than in England; and in all regular works coming under the architect or the engineer, we generally find little to condemn, and often much to admire in the execution of the work. Garden-buildings, however, and especially that important class, hot-houses, are, relatively to civil architecture, an anomalous class of structures; and hence they are more the subject of chance or caprice in design, and of local convenience in execution, than those of any department of rural architecture. The subject of horticultural architecture, indeed, till very lately, has not been deemed of sufficient importance, to induce an architect to make himself master of the first step towards improvement in every art, the knowledge of what has already been done in it by others. Hence it follows, that garden-buildings, and especially hot-houses, are left either wholly to gardeners, who understand little of the science of architecture, or wholly to architects, who understand as little of the science of gardening. The consequence in either case, generally is, incongruity in appearance, want of success in the useful results, and want of permanency in duration. It would be more easy to adduce examples than to avoid the charge of impartiality in the selection.

The recent improvements in the manufacture of iron, and the war-price of timber, have greatly extended the use of the former material in most erections, and contributed, from the novelty of the thing, to a good deal of incongruity in the disposition of the materials of buildings. Thus we have cast iron sashes in deal frames, cast iron rafters placed on timber wall-plates, iron bars sheathed with copper, and many such discordant arrangements, certain in the end of defeating the purpose for which they were adopted. There are two modes which proprietors may adopt who are desirous of embodying in garden erections the modern improvements. The first is, to employ a first-rate head gardener, and to authorize and require of him, to consult with a regular architect or engineer, previously to fixing on any plan for a structure or machine; and the second is, to employ a regular garden-architect. A connoisseur will, no doubt, think for himself, and form his own plans; and a spirited amateur will be the first to adopt new improvements; but the policy of a well-regulated man, who has no pretensions to particular skill himself, will certainly lead him to adopt one of the two first modes.

BOOK IV.

OF THE OPERATIONS OF GARDENING

791. After the previous studies of the vegetable kingdom, the materials of growth and culture, and the implements and structures by which the gardener operates on soils and plants; the next step is to describe these operations. They are all mechanical in the first instance, though the principal intention of many of them is to effect chemical changes, and of others, changes on the vital principle. They are also all manual, or effected by man, who, though possessing little power over nature in his naked, unarmed state, yet taking in his hands some one of the implements or machines described, becomes thereby armed with a new power, and operates on the soil, or on the vegetable itself, by effecting changes in his own centre of gravity, and by muscular movements of his legs and arms, calculated by pushing, drawing, or lifting, to bring the implement into the action proper for performing the operation in view. All these movements are governed by the laws of mechanics, and the operations performed, are all referable to one or more of the mechanical powers, and chiefly, as we have before observed, to the lever and the wedge.

Operations, with a view to chemical and vital changes, call into action the thinking faculty more than the physical strength of man. Excited by the desire of attaining some particular end or object, he recurs to his memory for the knowledge there stored up of the nature of vegetables, and of the elements of common matter by which they are affected. Aided by his imagination, he selects and combines ideas, suited to his purpose; submits them to a series of mental equations, or what is called reasoning, till, arriving theoretically at the desired results, he finishes by giving practical directions for the performance of processes calculated to attain them.

In the infancy of gardening, as the implements were few, so would be also the oper ations of culture. The ground would be loosened on the surface with a pointed stick, or scratched with a bone, or a horn in the spring season; the plants or seeds rudely inserted, and the produce in autumn broken over or pulled up, as wanted by the family or band to whom they belonged. But in the present state of human improvement, the operations of gardening have branched out into a number and variety which at first sight appears astonishing. The operations of pulverization and sowing, for example, are not confined to spring; but are practised in every month of the year. The season of reaping or gathering crops is equally extended; and for such productions as cannot be produced or preserved in the open air, recourse is had to hot-houses, and fruit and root store-rooms. Vegetation is accelerated, retarded, and modified, almost at the will of the operator; and by processes which suppose a considerable degree of physiological and chemical science, as well as practical skill, mechanical dexterity, and personal attention. Thus, shading, airing, and watering, though operations exceeded by none in manual simplicity, cannot be performed without continual reference to the state of the plant, of the soil, and of the climate or weather. Hence it is, that an operative gardener who really knows his profession, requires to be not only a habile workman, but a thinking and reasoning being, and a steady man.

We shall consider the operations of gardening, -1. As consisting of operations or labors in which strength is chiefly required. 2. As operations where skill is more required than strength; and 3. As operations or processes where strength, skill, and science, are combined.

CHAP. I.

Operations of Gardening, in which Strength is chiefly required in the Operator.

To acquire the practice of these operations, a few hours' labor with the implements or machines will be of more use than a volume of words; all that we shall submit, therefore, will be merely some observations relatively to the mechanical action of the implement and operator, the object of the operation, and the best season of performing it. They may be arranged as-1. Mechanical operations common to all arts of manual labor. 2. Garden labors on the soil. 3. Garden labors on plants.

SECT. I. Mechanical Operations common to all Arts of Manual Labor. All the operations which man performs with implements or machines, are, as far as his own person is concerned, reducible to lifting, carrying, drawing, and thrusting. Man himself, considered as an engine, derives his power from alterations in the posi..